Manipur conflict state-manufactured for facilitating corporate loot: FACAM

Counterview Desk
In a statement marking one year of what it calls “genocidal violence” in Manipur, the civil rights network Forum Against Corporatization and Militarization (FACAM) has claimed that the whole “conflict” is premised on the fact that the state is rich in natural resources.
The natural resources found include limestone, chromite, nickel, copper, malachite, azurite, magnetite, and various platinum group elements. There are predominantly found in Hundung, Phungyar, and Mailiang villages in Ukhrul district, as well as in Toupokpi, Chakpikarong, Pallel, Nungphura, Nungpal, Sajik Tampak, and Haikot villages in Tengnoupal and Chandel districts -- 80% of which fall in areas inhabited by tribal communities practicing Christianity, which are particularly the Kuki-Zo and Nagas in Manipur.
On the other hand, the Meiteis are “largely Hinduism-practicing”, which became targeted as the base for the ruling Hindutva regime.

Text:

On 3rd May 2024, it was a year since the genocidal violence in Manipur has started, and it has continued to intensify across the year. As of 1st May 2024, there have been 185 people killed in the violence initiated by the ruling BJP-RSS combine with more than 200 villages burnt and more than 41,000 people displaced from Manipur.
The struggle in Manipur is centred on the lands of the tribal peasantry, with the ruling BJP government in both the centre and state assembly of Manipur pushing for the ability of the valley-based landowning sections to purchase the forest lands in the hills, instigating violence between the Kuki-Zo, Naga peasantry and the Meitei tribal communities.
Various reports surfaced where the Indian army and paramilitary arms and ammunition were “stolen” which were later found to have been arming the conflicts to create militias in service of brahmanical Hindutva fascist Indian state.
The conflict is premised on the fact that Manipur is rich in natural resources, particularly limestone, chromite, nickel, copper, malachite, azurite, magnetite, and various platinum group elements which are predominantly found in Hundung, Phungyar, and Mailiang villages in Ukhrul district, as well as in Toupokpi, Chakpikarong, Pallel, Nungphura, Nungpal, Sajik Tampak, and Haikot villages in Tengnoupal and Chandel districts.
Per geographical analysis, 80% of these resources fall in areas inhabited by tribal communities practicing Christianity, which are particularly the Kuki-Zo and Nagas in Manipur, while the Meiteis who are largely Hinduism-practicing are targeted as the base for the ruling brahmanical Hindutva fascist regime.
The Kuki-Zo and Naga peasants who inhabit these resource rich forest and hill areas must therefore be displaced and their political assertions and demands disarmed for the sake of corporate loot of natural resources for the interests of imperialists, big Indian corporates and the local Manipuri allies.
At the same time, Manipur has never found itself integrated with even the erstwhile British Raj, let alone the Indian state born in 1947 and has seen movements for national liberation which too have been attacked in the guise of this conflict which the state has promoted as enmity based on ethnic lines.
For the interests of corporatization, the conflict is a necessary act as a means of arming local state-backed militias, an excuse for increased presence of central paramilitary, army and police in the region in the name of ‘quelling the violence’ and ‘restoring order’ as a method of militarization which can thus make the process of looting natural resources easier, as witnessed by the large displacement of peasants.
Just like the Salwa Judum and their successors the District Reserve Guard and Bastar Fighter in Bastar where the Adivasi peasantry too is fighting for their lands, combatting displacement, genocide and a systemic war on people by the Indian state for the sake of corporate loot, state-backed private militias are running amock in the region.

Tribal peasants of resource-rich regions have been struggling against militarization and corporatization and for their jal-jungle-jameen

Just on 30th April and 1st May 2024, the Assam Rifles, part of the Central Armed Police Forces like the CRPF, conducted combing operations in the forest areas near the Kuki-Zo dominated villages of Leisanghpai and Sejang in Jiribum under the guise of capturing a purported militant.
Right after the operation, the villages were found to be burnt to the ground. In the name of securing them for the residents, these villages are cleared of the residents for such operations, allowing way for the private militias to then come in and raze them to the ground, compelling the peasants to leave.
The Adivasi peasantry dominating the 5th and 6th schedule areas, be in Bastar or Manipur, are seeing the most intense militarization for the sake of corporate loot of natural resources, where the tribal peasants across the entirety of such resource-rich regions have been struggling against militarization and corporatization for the sake of their jal-jungle-jameen, as well as for their dignity and democratic rights. Meanwhile the Indian state has propped up veils of ethnic and religious conflicts and is clamping down on all forms of resistance of the people.
Forum Against Corporatization and Militarization (FACAM) expresses solidarity with the people of Manipur and their struggle for the protection of their lands in their fight for jal-jungle-jameen and against brahmanical Hindutva fascism. FACAM urges an end to militarization, including the state-backed private militias in the region and end to any and all plans of rapacious mining operations for the sake of imperialists and big Indian corporates which displace the hill-based peasantry.
---
*All India Students' Association (AISA), All India Revolutionary Students Organization (AIRSO), All India Revolutionary Women's Organization (AIRWO), Bhim Army Student Federation (BASF), Bhagat Singh Ambedkar Students Organization (BASO), Bhagat Singh Chatra Ekta Manch (bsCEM), Collective, Common Teachers Forum (CTF), Democratic Students Union (DSU), Fraternity Movement, Nazariya Magazine, Progressive Lawyers Association (PLA), Mazdoor Adhikar Sangathan (MAS), Trade Union Centre of India (TUCI), Vishwavidyalaya Chhatra Federation (VCF)

Comments

A comrade in culture and controversy: Yao Wenyuan’s revolutionary legacy

By Harsh Thakor* This year marks two important anniversaries in Chinese revolutionary history—the 20th death anniversary of Yao Wenyuan, and the 50th anniversary of his seminal essay "On the Social Basis of the Lin Biao Anti-Party Clique". These milestones invite reflection on the man whose pen ignited the first sparks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and whose sharp ideological interventions left an indelible imprint on the political and cultural landscape of socialist China.

1857 War of Independence... when Hindu-Muslim separatism, hatred wasn't an issue

"The Sepoy Revolt at Meerut", Illustrated London News, 1857 By Shamsul Islam* Large sections of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs unitedly challenged the greatest imperialist power, Britain, during India’s First War of Independence which began on May 10, 1857; the day being Sunday. This extraordinary unity, naturally, unnerved the firangees and made them realize that if their rule was to continue in India, it could happen only when Hindus and Muslims, the largest two religious communities were divided on communal lines.

N-power plant at Mithi Virdi: CRZ nod is arbitrary, without jurisdiction

By Krishnakant* A case-appeal has been filed against the order of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) and others granting CRZ clearance for establishment of intake and outfall facility for proposed 6000 MWe Nuclear Power Plant at Mithi Virdi, District Bhavnagar, Gujarat by Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) vide order in F 11-23 /2014-IA- III dated March 3, 2015. The case-appeal in the National Green Tribunal at Western Bench at Pune is filed by Shaktisinh Gohil, Sarpanch of Jasapara; Hajabhai Dihora of Mithi Virdi; Jagrutiben Gohil of Jasapara; Krishnakant and Rohit Prajapati activist of the Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has issued a notice to the MoEF&CC, Gujarat Pollution Control Board, Gujarat Coastal Zone Management Authority, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board and Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) and case is kept for hearing on August 20, 2015. Appeal No. 23 of 2015 (WZ) is filed, a...

Two more "aadhaar-linked" Jharkhand deaths: 17 die of starvation since Sept 2017

Kaleshwar's sons Santosh and Mantosh Counterview Desk A fact-finding team of the Right to Feed Campaign, pointing towards the death of two more persons due to starvation in Jharkhand, has said that this has happened because of the absence of aadhaar, leading to “persistent lack of food at home and unavailability of any means of earning.” It has disputed the state government claims that these deaths are due to reasons other than starvation, adding, the authorities have “done nothing” to reduce the alarming state of food insecurity in the state.

Spirit of leadership vs bondage: Of empowered chairman of 100-acre social forestry coop

By Gagan Sethi* This is about Khoda Sava, a young Dalit belonging to the Vankar sub-caste, who worked as a bonded labourer in a village near Vadgam in Banskantha district of North Gujarat. The year was 1982. Khoda had taken a loan of Rs 7,000 from the village sarpanch, a powerful landlord doing money-lending as his side business. Khoda, who had taken the loan for marriage, was landless. Normally, villagers would mortgage their land if they took loan from the sarpanch. But Khoda had no land. He had no option but to enter into a bondage agreement with the sarpanch in order to repay the loan. Working in bondage on the sarpanch’s field meant that he would be paid Rs 1,200 per annum, from which his loan amount with interest would be deducted. He was also obliged not to leave the sarpanch’s field and work as daily wager somewhere else. At the same time, Khoda was offered meal once a day, and his wife job as agricultural worker on a “priority basis”. That year, I was working as secretary...

Epic war against caste system is constitutional responsibility of elected government

Edited by well-known Gujarat Dalit rights leader Martin Macwan, the book, “Bhed-Bharat: An Account of Injustice and Atrocities on Dalits and Adivasis (2014-18)” (available in English and Gujarati*) is a selection of news articles on Dalits and Adivasis (2014-2018) published by Dalit Shakti Prakashan, Ahmedabad. Preface to the book, in which Macwan seeks to answer key questions on why the book is needed today: *** The thought of compiling a book on atrocities on Dalits and thus present an overall Indian picture had occurred to me a long time ago. Absence of such a comprehensive picture is a major reason for a weak social and political consciousness among Dalits as well as non-Dalits. But gradually the idea took a different form. I found that lay readers don’t understand numbers and don’t like to read well-researched articles. The best way to reach out to them was storytelling. As I started writing in Gujarati and sharing the idea of the book with my friends, it occurred to me that while...

Proposed Modi yatra from Jharkhand an 'insult' of Adivasi hero Birsa Munda: JMM

Counterview Desk The civil rights network, Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha (JMM), which claims to have 30 grassroots groups under its wings, has decided to launch Save Democracy campaign to oppose Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Vikasit Bharat Sankalp Yatra to be launched on November 15 from the village of legendary 19th century tribal independence leader Birsa Munda from Ulihatu (Khunti district).

Fate of Yamuna floodplain still hangs in "balance" despite National Green Tribunal rap on Sri Sri event

By Ashok Shrimali* While the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Thursday reportedly pulled up the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) for granting permission to hold spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's World Culture Festival on the banks of Yamuna, the chief petitioners against the high-profile event Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan has declared, the “fate of the floodplain still hangs in balance.”

From triple centurion to master coach: Bob Simpson’s enduring legacy

By Harsh Thakor* Former Australia cricket captain and coach Bob Simpson has died in Sydney aged 89. He leaves behind an indelible legacy, having shaped Australian cricket for more than four decades as a player, captain and coach. Beyond the field, he also served the game as a law-maker, referee and commentator, carving a permanent niche among the all-time greats of Australian cricket.

Counterview

Search This Blog