The hostage issue in Manipur had a bumpy start on Tuesday when a weak peace accord between two of the state’s leading tribal groups dissolved just before it started. The possibility of 20 hostages walking away, that had given a fleeting glimmer of hope in one of India’s longest-running ethnic conflicts, was dashed within hours. It has left families fractured, communities angry and the state government again tasked with bringing peace to a situation which is rapidly becoming one of crisis.
There is a lack of trust and sequence at the core of the collapse. The Office of the United Naga Council (UNC), the highest council of Naga communities in Manipur, had earlier agreed to free 14 Kuki who are in the Naga controlled areas. The decision was made after low-key behind-the-scenes talks and was viewed as a first step, some said, towards easing tensions that have long plagued the hill districts. The UNC’s membership, however, rebelled against the leadership and the hostage issue flared anew when the UNC members blamed the leadership for taking the action without getting an equivalent response from the Kuki side. They claimed that six Naga hostages were still missing and there had been no reliable assurances to them about their safe return. There was an immediate and strong backlash.
The Manipur hostage crisis has been ongoing since the beginning of violence between the Meitei community in the valley and the Kuki-Zo tribes in the hills, which resulted in the killing of more than 250 people and uprooting of tens of thousands of people since May 2023. To read in detail about the ethnic tension which paved way for the current hostage crisis in Manipur, please refer this detailed timeline of Manipur conflict. Although the Naga community is in general separated from both warring communities, they started to be drawn into the vortex when territorial conflicts and retaliatory abductions started to encroach from both sides.
There was a great deal of anger in the UNC’s emergency council meeting held Tuesday inside. Senior leaders who had negotiated the original deal were publicly humiliated, with rank and file members denouncing them as naive, if not disloyal. One council member was quoted as saying, “We can’t let them go free if six of ours are still prisoners and we don’t know what’s happening to them.” It had now become a game of two halves, the Manipur hostage crisis as a hostage negotiation game, with no one willing to back down first, the trust deficit which has been a major part of the conflict since the beginning.
The United Naga Council was the political and social pillar of the Naga people throughout the various hill districts of Manipur. The decisions it makes have great impact, but so does the responsibility it has, and Tuesday’s events brought the shortcomings of central decision making to the fore in a conflict where every community is harbouring deep grievances. The illegal detention of civilians has been identified by human rights organisations as a war crime under international humanitarian law, and has been raised numerous times. For the six missing Nagas and their families, the hostage affair in Manipur is not abstract politics, it’s a nightmare while they have no idea about the fate of their family members. Learn more about the United Naga Council contribution towards peace in Manipur.
On the Kuki side, the news of the cancellation has garnered mixed emotions, with some expressing outrage and others taking a wait-and-see approach. In anticipation the Kuki civil society groups had prepared for the release and families had gone to the predetermined handover points. News of the cancellation of the deal brought the Manipur hostage crisis to a boil, to a boiling point, so to speak. One senior Kuki member of the community told local media, “They gave us hope and then took it away. How many times do our people have to endure because those elected to office and councils fail to fulfill their promises? The cancellation has also brought to the fore the demand by the Kuki communities for the entire bifurcation of administrative jurisdiction which has so far not been considered by the central government in New Delhi.
Leaders of the Manipur government headed by Chief Minister N. Biren Singh, who has been criticised in the past for his handling of the hostage situation in the state, have been brought back into the picture. Critics say the administration hasn’t been sufficiently active, letting tribal organizations to handle negotiations for hostage releases on their own – something that is clearly in the realm of law enforcement. State assembly opposition leaders accused Tuesday’s failure to be “a catastrophic failure of governance” and said they are asking for the governor’s intervention. Indian Army and Assam Rifles, already deployed in the hill regions have called on all concerned to be calm. For official statements related to the conflict between the Manipur government and the Naga tribespeople, visit Manipur government’s official updates on the conflict.
What is so dangerous about this moment is the precedent it sets. For the short time it lasted, the Manipur hostage crisis had proved that the tribal communities on both sides could sit at the same table. This window might have passed. Community leaders and peacebuilders are concerned that each failed effort at dialogue would cement their stance even more, making the next one even more challenging. It has been done before in Manipur but never on this scale nor with this level of international scrutiny.
Beyond the politics there is also a humanitarian side to this hostage situation that has been lost in the political din in Manipur. There are tens of thousands of displaced people in relief camps throughout the valley and hills, who receive rations from the government, but have no idea when they will be able to return. The only way to allay suspicion, trust and hatred among the Naga, Kuki and Meitei communities and thus bring lasting peace is to have the hostages released and prisoner exchanges restored. Civil society organisations have urged the National Human Rights Commission to suo motu take cognisance of the detentions. To be informed about the humanitarian impacts of the Manipur hostage situation, such as people displaced and access to aid, please read this report by Human Rights Watch on the armed conflict in Manipur.
As the sun dipped behind the hills of Manipur on Tuesday, the hostage crisis in the state was still where it had been for years, raw, and in dire need of real leadership. There are 20 people still held hostage. There are still hundreds of thousands of people displaced. The faith necessary to establish any lasting peace appears further distant tonight than it did this morning. The communities of Manipur most urgently require is not another promise, but a framework that guarantees that no family shall wait at a handover point later to hear that it’s off.
