On the 24th of July 2023, Rajdeep Sardesai interviewed the wife of a BJP MLA who belongs to the Kuki tribe of Manipur. The Kuki MLA was allegedly attacked in Imphal by an irate mob in May of this year as the unrest raged on in the state of Manipur. Vungzagin Valte, the BJP Kuki MLA, was attacked in May allegedly by a Meitei mob and suffered critical injuries. According to the India Today report, he is now recovering from his injuries.
The wife of the injured MLA said that she was waiting for him to recover and to take him back to his constituency. Before this attack, Moinu Valte said that he had never taken a day’s leave before this attack and now she is just waiting for him to get well again and get back on his feet.
During the conversation with India Today, Maiinu Valte expressed her disappointment that despite her husband being a BJP MLA, none of the prominent leaders from the party visited him during his recovery. “There are a lot of tribal MLAs in the Manipur Legislative Assembly, but only three came to meet my husband,” she lamented.
Rajdeep Sardesai tweeted, “Hard to hold back the tears when Mrs Valte tells me: ‘my husband worked 27 years with SBI, never took a day’s holiday, never wanted to sleep.. today, he is bed ridden.. what have we done to deserve this?’ Sadly, only a few minister/MLA/MP have visited him in a small rented flat in Delhi as he recovers from a terrible assault in heart of Imphal .. MPs in parliament don’t even know his story. His family says CM called once! And he is a ruling party BJP MLA: thrice elected (once on Cong and twice on BJP ticket) . And the culprits are still not arrested. Whatever happened to empathy and accountability?’.
Hard to hold back the tears when Mrs Valte tells me: ‘my husband worked 27 years with SBI, never took a day’s holiday, never wanted to sleep.. today, he is bed ridden.. what have we done to deserve this?’ Sadly, only a few minister/MLA/MP have visited him in a small rented flat… pic.twitter.com/T9byNvf9Vx
— Rajdeep Sardesai (@sardesairajdeep) July 24, 2023
Barkha Dutt too interviewed the family of the BJP MLA. They told her that the Chief Minister of the State have called them only once and they have hardly heard from BJP after that. They also claim that they have got no financial assistant from the party or the government.
While looking and sounding extremely despondent, rightly so, the family claimed on several liberal channels that they had received no help from the party or the state government.
While the attack against Vungzagin Valte is heinous and requires state action, the claims of the family that they received no financial assistant is possibly untrue.
OpIndia accessed the receipt of the air ambulance that was hired by the government for the MLA after the terrible mob assault. The total charges that were incurred to ensure Valte reaches the Delhi hospital was upwards of Rs 46 lakhs.
The air ambulance that took Valte from Imphal to Delhi for hospitalisation was from Bhopal. It went from Bhopal to Delhi, Delhi to Imphal and then back to Delhi, to be docked at Bhopal again.
Sources have further confirmed to OpIndia that the Chief Minister has provided a Rs 5 lakhs monetary compensation to the BJP MLA and his family to meet their expenses.
Interestingly, the son of the MLA had also told Rajdeep Sardesai that he wants people to pray for Manipur, however, he had also deepened the chasm between the Meitei and Kuki communities by saying that if this had happened to a Meitei MLA, their family would have come on television and done drama, which he does not want to do.
BJP MLA Vungzagin Valte's family has a message for PM @narendramodi and people of India. Listen in. #ManipurViolence #Manipur
— IndiaToday (@IndiaToday) July 24, 2023
Full video of #NewsToday with @sardesairajdeep – https://t.co/QuII1YeaOy pic.twitter.com/z7s1XiQm6j
The media has been long playing a dangerous game to deepen the divide between the Meitei and the Kuki community in Manipur. These stories were amplified by the likes of Rajdeep Sardesai and Barkha Dutt to essentially further the narrative that the government has been partial in their treatment towards the Meitei community, however, that is clearly untrue. In fact, the media has maintained studious silence over the killings of Meiteis and amplified the atrocities against Kukis, when it should have covered the violence from both sides with equal fervour.
OpIndia tried to get in touch with Joseph Valte, the son of the injured MLA, to confirm whether the party has provided air ambulance support and monetary compensation, however, Valte’s phone has been switched off. We will update this report with his response when we are able to get in touch with him.
The Manipur conflict and subsequent violence
In May 2023, violence erupted in Manipur between the Meitei and Kuki tribes of the state. In May, during protests by tribal groups against the demand for ST status by the Meitei community. Protests by the tribal groups turned violent at various places in the state, where large-scale arson took place by the Kukis.
While the tribal groups have been opposing the demand of the Meitei community’s demand for ST status for years, the recent protests and violence were triggered by a Manipur High Court order on 27 March, directing the Manipur state government to submit recommendations to the union government for the inclusion of Meitei in the Scheduled Tribes (ST) list. The court had issued the order after several petitions filed by Meitei activists seeking the said direction.
The high court also criticised the state government for dragging the issue for over 10 years. In May 2013, the union ministry of tribal affairs asked the state govt to submit a formal recommendation along with the latest socio-economic survey and ethnographic report, but the Manipur govt failed to do so.
The demands by Meities started with a memorandum submitted to the governor in November 2012 by the Scheduled Tribes Demand Committee of Manipur Valley (STDCM). The committee then met Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh in December 2012 with the demand and then met prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh in July 2013 with the demand. However, the PM asked them to discuss the matter with the state cabinet.
Meities vs Kukis
As OpIndia wrote earlier, the current conflict between Meiteis and ‘tribals’ is the extension of the hills vs plains conflict that exists in almost all states in the northeast. Meiteis are the majority community in Manipur, comprising around 53% of the population, while tribal communities account for around 40% of the population. There are 34 recognised tribes in Manipur, broadly classified into Naga tribes (24%) and Kuki/Zomi tribes (16%).
While the Naga and Kuki tribes are included in ST list, most of the Meitei community people have OBC status, and some of them are listed as SCs.
Also, the majority of Meiteis are Hindus, with some of them are Muslims and some identify as animists, while the tribals are Christians. The Muslim Meitei community, known as Meitei Pangal, is also demanding ST status, along with the Hindu Meitei community.
However, the Meiteis are limited to only around 10% of the land in the state, as the rest of the state is classified as tribal areas. They live in the small patch of plain area in the state, the Imphal Valley, while the tribals reside in the protected Hill Areas, exclusively reserved for them. Being classified as non-tribals, Meitei people can’t buy land in over 90% of the state.
It is notable that Hill Areas in Manipur, comprising 90% of the total land in the state, are declared by the government under the provisions of Article 371C of the Constitution. The same Article also provides for the constitution of a Hill Areas Committee comprising MLAs from Hills Areas, while relevant laws passed by the assembly constitute village authorities. The committee and the authorities do not allow non-tribals to purchase land in the notified Hills areas.
The Imphal Valley has five districts, while the Hills Area has eleven districts. Apart from the Meteis, the valley is also home to other non-tribals, including people from other Indian states, and immigrants including illegal immigrants from Myanmar. On the other hand, only tribals are allowed to buy land in the hill districts.
The petition by the Meetei (Meitei) Tribe Union that resulted in the High Court order said that Meiteis had Scheduled Tribal status before 1949, but when the state merged with India in October 1949, they lost that status. When different communities in India were classified as Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) under Article 341 and Article 342 of the constitution, the Meitei community was not included in any of them, reportedly because they are caste Hindus. At that time, not having SC-ST status was not a big issue, but things changed later, and the Meiteis started demanding reserved status.
After the implementation of the Mandal Commission report, Meiteis were granted OBC status, and thus they became eligible for reservation in govt jobs and seats in educational institutions. In Manipur, the quota for ST is 31%, OBCs enjoy a reservation of 17%, and the same is 2% for SCs.
Apart from ST status, Meiteis are also demanding NRC in the state, alleging large-scale illegal immigration in the state, which is being opposed by the tribes.
While the violence was started by the protesting Kukis, in the conflict, severe human and property damage has been inflicted against both communities of the state.
