Since 1 September, 2024, at least 11 people have died in Manipur in a fresh round of violence involving various armed groups, as well as the police and army. In the name of addressing the problem, the state government has shut down internet and mobile services in several districts, creating innumerable problems for the people.
Nearly 18 months have passed since the first violent incidents took place in May 2023. Thousands of people are still living in refugee camps. There has been no serious effort to rehabilitate them.
The Chief Minister of Manipur has blamed Kuki-Zo armed groups for initiating the latest round of violence. However, the government’s security adviser has stated that as many as 1200 weapons have so far been looted from the armouries of the Manipur police. Could such a thing have happened without the complicity of the state government?
The BJP, which is in charge of both the Central government and the state government of Manipur deserves condemnation for the present situation facing the people. It has been organizing to deepen existing divisions amongst the people on the basis of religion and ethnicity. In Manipur, it has been pretending to be the champion of the Meitei people and targeting people of the Kuki-Zo tribes as the enemy. Throughout the country, it has been organizing on a communal basis, pretending to be the champion of Hindus and carrying out vicious lying propaganda that Muslims and other religious minorities are the source of the problems facing society.
The problem of lack of opportunity for education and employment, which is forcing youth to migrate to far off places in the country, is a problem affecting the vast majority of people of Manipur, be they Meiteis, Nagas, or Kukis. The source of these problems is the capitalist system and the rule of the Indian bourgeoisie. The motive of production in this system is the enrichment of the capitalist class, through the exploitation of workers, robbery of peasants, and plunder of natural resources. Providing quality education for the youth, providing secure and well-paying jobs, is not the aim of this system.
Capitalists invest their capital only where they can make maximum profits. For the past 75 years, the Indian bourgeoisie has not found it profitable to set up large-scale industry in the states of the North East. It has not even built the basic infrastructure such as highways and rail lines to connect all parts of the North East with one another and with the rest of the country. It has not established universities that can provide quality education for the youth.
In order to divert attention of the exploited and oppressed people from the source of the problem, the ruling class divides the people on the basis of religion, caste, ethnicity, domicile, etc. All political parties of the ruling class deliberately paint one section of the toiling people as the source of the problems faced by other sections. They organise people to agitate for reservation of seats in educational institutions and for jobs on the basis of caste, ethnicity, whether a person was born in the state or not, etc.
The capitalist class is ruling over the broad masses of workers, peasants and working people through the state apparatus under its control. This state apparatus consists of the executive, including the governments, the armed forces and the police, the legislature including parliament and state assemblies, the judiciary as well as the parties of the ruling class such as BJP and Congress Party.
The capitalist class treats the peoples of India and the natural resources of our country as their private jagir to be ruthlessly exploited and plundered. Whenever the people of any region or state have risen in revolt against the system and demanded their rights, the ruling class has unleashed ruthless state repression, The people of Manipur, Assam, Nagaland and other states of the North East, as well as the people of Kashmir have first hand experience of the rule of the Army empowered with the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), which has legitimised rape and murder of thousands of people.
The peoples of the Northeast have a long history of united struggle against the central Indian state. They have repeatedly fought against state terrorism and army rule, against AFSPA and in defence of human rights and democratic rights. Inciting different sections of the people against one another, based on tribal and ethnic identity, has been the method used by the Indian ruling class to justify the continuation of state terrorism and violation of the people’s rights. It has been used in the past by Congress-led governments. It is now being deployed by the BJP governments.
In order to legitimize its rule in the eyes of the people, the ruling class conducts periodic elections to parliament and state assemblies and hands over charge of the government to one of its trusted parties.
The experience of elections at the center and in the states over the past 75 years shows that replacing one party of the ruling class with another party will not change the situation in favour of the people.
What the people of India need is a new system. We need a system is which the aim of the economy is to fulfill the ever-growing needs of the whole of society. To establish such a system, the rule of the bourgeoisie must be replaced by the rule of the working class in alliance with the toiling peasantry. In place of the existing state which is a state of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie over the workers, peasants, and other exploited and oppressed people, we need to establish a new state of workers’ and peasants’ rule.
The developments in Manipur reinforce the necessity for the working class and all the exploited and oppressed people of our country to unite against our common enemy, which is the ruling capitalist class. We need to wage united struggle in defence of the rights of all, with the aim and perspective of replacing the rule of the capitalist class by the rule of workers and peasants.