No Medicine, No Peace: Inside Manipur’s Brutal Conflict | NL Hafta

[00:00:00]Now coming to Manipur Samat there was an attack on the CRP of camp. We see little you know bits and pieces of news coming out of some skirmish guns being given back some other violence happening.

[00:00:15]How normal is normal there? Um so there are a lot of things happening in that broader area which are all sort of related to one another and um all of it is getting very complicated >> and um so basically the conflict in Manipur as everyone knows is a primarily a conflict between three communities the Naga cookie and mate and initially it was just the cookies and matees and now the Nagas are also involved. The complication is that you also have uh for example uh an unresolved situation in the Naga uh conflict within with the Indian state and so you've had a ceasefire uh with the NCIM and a framework agreement which was signed in 2015 and um you so you've got that but you don't have anything within the framework yet >> and there is some restlessness which has been going on and uh now there is a >> what was the demand that they took up arms on an autonomous body that determines >> so everybody has different demands and so the you know and there are so many factions and factions of factions that it's just an alphabet soup at the end of it >> I mean there are cookie organizations but there are multiple cookie organizations and several of them are armed militant groups which are in the so-called uh you know suspension of operations So, so that's one of those uh >> vague terms >> vague terms and uh then you've got the Naga militant groups and then you have the mate groups and then there are overground groups and underground groups and political parties and then there are state agencies. So all kinds of things are involved and uh it's just a very complicated situation >> and what triggered the last huge large scale conflict between the meth and cookies was basically a question of defining what would impact certain reservations >> tribe >> and that would determine certain seats and that is what led to that immediate outburst.

[00:02:21]>> Yeah.

[00:02:21]>> But that was not all there is to it.

[00:02:23]There is way more complexity that may have been a specific trigger.

[00:02:26]>> So the I mean the Nagas are as tribal as the cookies but the Nagas did not have any problems with the with the Matees. I mean the fighting was between the Matees and the Hookies.

[00:02:36]>> Why was the Nagas who are also tribal also Christian also inhabiting the hills? Why did they not get involved until now? And why are now why are they involved now against the cookies?

[00:02:47]>> They're not I mean you can't say that it's a it's a hill valley thing because the Nagas live in the hills. It's not a tribal non-tribal thing because the Nagas are tribals also. It's not a Christian Hindu thing because the Nagas are as as Christian as the cookies.

[00:03:02]>> It's none of those things. It's it's a you know you can say it may be about land uh which to some extent it is but probably that's not the only thing.

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[00:05:01]>> Manipur is a state that has been in a state of perpetual civil war for like 3 years now. I mean and there's a really fantastic uh report in the reporters collective uh that came out I think the end of June. It's called peace at gunpoint.

[00:05:19]um I'll I'll give the recommendations later for the authors and stuff but basically there there's a very interesting sort of quote in that where basically now as a result of this conflict cleaving the state into communally controlled impenetrable territories. Now you literally there are for example in the valley areas uh for example mate control areas where cookies can't go there are parts of the hills where matees can't go and there are parts of within the hills itself where cookies and nagas can't go so now I mean this is a serious failure of internal security by the Modi government I mean that first and foremost needs to be made to make this absolutely clear right and secondly on the bit about and And one of the fallouts of their failures is the fact that and one of the sort of not fallouts one of the sort of u you know that they've complete failure to mediate honestly and transparently in this entire conflict. Now one example so uh Samraat had given the example of the framework agreement signed in 2015 by the NCIM and the government of India but there's also uh there's a demand by the Kukiso groups uh this is in 20 November 2025 they had uh pushed a proposal a union a proposal for union territory status along the lines of puricherry puricherry model and in November 2025 and months later the center has neither accept neither rejected nor accepted it I mean they've stayed completely silent in public while reinstalling a coalition government which includes both a mate chief minister a cookie and naga deputy chief chief minister I mean it's just >> this is a complete failure of you know political mediation and failure of internal security and it's quite >> uh the the suffering of people because because basically there's all these blockades >> so they keep blocking the highways and and It's blockades by communities and those blockades are I am told blocking even the movement of for example medicines and infant formula.

[00:07:25]>> Yeah. And so so it is again a situation which we've heard of in places like Gaza know and >> and it's happening so close to home >> and uh so you know people are not getting medicines they're not getting food fuel uh prices are exorbitant even infant formula is not getting through and it's just you know a terrible situation and um um I don't think the political aspiration of different groups is different and the state seems to wish that things would just go back to the way it was one day before the trouble started.

[00:08:03]>> Uh but uh I don't know if that's possible anymore. I mean just to highlight the bizarreness of this whole situation right that so uh very I think recently there was the mutilation and killing of six uh Naga people uh allegedly by Kuki uh our militant groups and the deputy uh the BJP government's Naga deputy chief uh deputy minister Loi do I think he blamed the uh Koki National Front for this uh uh uh for this uh this thing for for the ab for the abduction, mutilation and killing of these six people and the cookie deputy chief minister she is the wife of the uh cookie national fund >> uh president's uh wife >> and I mean this is and none of this mediation is happening none of I mean you and in they're just concerned forming a government uh with all these disparate interests and this sort of I mean it's just bizarre how how how this is happening.

[00:09:07]>> About three reporters said look I cannot report for you because I have to live here.

[00:09:11]>> I cannot go that side. They cannot come this. So so we have to send someone from here. Same thing in Kashmir. A local Kashmir reporter cannot report you know free and fearlessly. We have to send someone from here. So [clears throat] Samrat you have spent much of your not in the case of just this manipul generally that is an area expertise of yours. To what extent is complexity the roadblock from really robust repotage of the northeast?

[00:09:40]>> Well um see uh I would say that uh you know the reportage on the northeast has actually probably increased and improved over time. Um I remember uh an episode 25 26 years ago. Uh I was working for India today magazine at the time in Delhi and uh story from the northeast was mentioned in a meeting and received a response saying there are interesting stories in Papua New Guinea also.

[00:10:09]>> Wow. And uh so I think that from there we have come a long way.

[00:10:14]>> But uh you know there was a time when I used to feel very strongly about it when when it came to be my turn to bring out editions of newspapers which I did in Delhi, Bombay, Bangalore, Chandigar, various cities. Um I realized that I have to sort of do what I'm supposed to do do the job and doing the job meant that I had to think about my readers in that for that edition. M >> and uh so you know I mean obviously I couldn't put a northeast story on page one because it just wouldn't have that cashier over here >> and uh so I think some of it is also those things even you know the the economics of it also the you know the problem of for example do we cover the slum a a rape in the slum or or is it only if it's somebody you know people like us correct >> so those things also come into it and and uh the market decides what's important and what's less important Something happening in Bombay, Bangalore, Delhi becomes important.

[00:11:12]Something happening a bit further away is less important.

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