After nearly 20 months of runaway violence in an Indian state called Manipur, where the writ of the state does not seem to extend beyond the 10-kilometre square of the capital, Imphal, and more than 250 people have been killed, 60,000 rendered homeless, and thousands of houses demolished and erased from the face of the earth, Manipur is back in the news once again. And this time the powers that control the State at the Centre suddenly seem to be worried, for the Union Home Minister, Amit Shah, cancelled his scheduled electioneering trip to Maharashtra and called an emergency meeting in Delhi to discuss the issue. No political leaders were summoned from Manipur for the meeting, just the mandatory Shoguns from the Intelligence Bureau and the military, plus a handful of other pundits.

The backdrop to this awakening of the Kumbhakarna of modern-day India was the killing of 10 Kuki armed marauders in the Jiribam district bordering Assam. They were on a revenge strike after a woman belonging to their community was killed on the 7th of November. They decided to attack the Borobekra Police Station at a nondescript village called Jakuradhor, which also has a CRPF post and an IDP camp for Meiteis. The marauding party, numbering about 50 and heavily armed with rocket-propelled grenades, self-loading rifles, and INSAS rifles, made a three-pronged attack. One targeting the police station, the other the relief camp of the Meitei IDPs, and the third on the CRPF post. They were successful in the first attempt as they killed two Meiteis and tossed their bodies inside a house that they had also burnt. They were held off at the police station, where they exchanged fire with the police and the CRPF. It was the third column that went to attack the CRPF post outside that met its nadir. In their hurry to scalp CRPF scalps, they did not notice the armoured personnel vehicle, which had a manned light machine gun mounted atop. And when the staccato of automatic fire began and hot lead spewed out of the LMG, stitching death along its path, and the full magazine had been emptied, 10 of the Kuki marauders lay dead, their lifeless bodies clutching their weapons or strewn alongside. But the Kukis managed to round up six persons. They included a 60-year-old woman. Y Tumlembam Rani Devi, a 31-year-old housewife; Telem Thoibi Devi, and her eight-year-old daughter Thajamanbi; and also 25-year-old Laishram Heithoibi Devi and her two sons, 2-year-old Chingkheinganba and eight-month-old Langamba. And when the smoke cleared, they were seen being herded on a boat on the Barak River as the rest of the raiding party made a retreat.

Even as the bodies of the raped women and battered bodies of the six began floating down on the Barak River and were fished out by the Assam Police, the clanking on the electric posts on the streets of Imphal began even as the vigilante women groups began trooping out on the streets and began blocking the roads in Imphal and elsewhere in the valley. There were two knee-jerk reactions from Delhi and Imphal. From Delhi, Amit Shah announced the reimposition of the dreaded Armed Forces Powers Act in six police stations whose areas cover the foothills in the valley and the immediate dispatch of two thousand CRPF and BSF troops, and the sounds of the Indian Air Force transport planes were heard till late at night in Imphal ferrying in the troops. An additional five thousand troops were soon added to the deployment.

From Imphal, CM Biren Singh made his famous rhetoric speech on social media, “Lemna Tharoi, meaning I will not let them go scot-free, and announced the clamping down of a 24-hour curfew and the shutting down of Internet service to the public. Both have been frequently used since the 3rd of May 2023 as aspirin for headaches or as a panacea. The womenfolk had gathered in the Imphal Market, who issued a 24-hour ultimatum to CM Biren to book the culprits behind the killings of the six in Jiribam. Then the CSOs took over, and on behalf of the agitating women, they met the chief minister. They returned and announced that the 24 hours had been deferred to seven days.

CM Biren Singh then called a hurried Cabinet meeting and served an ultimatum to Delhi to the effect that within five days the culprits behind the killings should be booked and the Kuki organisations behind the killings be branded as terrorist organisations and the immediate rollback of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act be imposed. These are tall orders indeed, but he had a rider attached stating that failing which, his government would abide by the wishes of the government, and that could mean as the people were braying for his head. But CM Biren made sure that he did not invite Yumnam Khemchand, his minister for municipal and urban housing development, and according to Khemchand, he was deliberately not invited, as he had already told CM Biren twice before to resign, as he is unable to control the situation in the state for the last many months.

Also to add woes to CM Biren’s predicament, Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma, in his capacity as the president of the National People’s Party, wrote to JP Nadda, president of the Bharatiya Janata Party, that he is withdrawing the support of his seven MLAs to the NDA government in Manipur. That leaves his double-engine government with 17 fewer MLAs, counting the 10 Kuki MLAs who have moved en masse away from his government. One is not contemplating a no-confidence motion in the House but a general panic amongst the legislators.

Also causing much discomfort to CM Biren Singh is former CJI Chandrachud’s parting gift. He had overruled the Solicitor General of India’s pleas to refer to the High Court a complaint filed by the Kukis before the Apex Court, inter alia, a tape in which a voice believed to be that of Biren Singh implied his implications in the ongoing war siding with the Meiteis. The voice can be heard saying that “I have given a pass to Amit Shah’s instructions not to use rockets on the Kukis, saying yes to him on the face but doing so contrarily behind his back. The voice also spoke about how the weapons snatchers are being protected by him. The CJI did not agree with the solicitor general and told him that “we are all very aware of the happenings in Manipur” and ordered the tape be presented to the court sealed so that it could be subjected to forensic examinations. Earlier, when the audio on the tape went viral on social media, CM Biren had said that it was not his and was instead a doctored one using artificial intelligence. But the whistleblower, who obviously is a Meitei, had submitted a signed affidavit while handing over the said tape to the Kukis.

Also taking advantage of the atmosphere created by the Jiribam killings, hordes of people fanned out and targeted houses of MLAs, cutting across party lines. Right in the heart of Imphal, mobs attacked and burnt houses and vehicles belonging to R.K. MLA, BJP legislator, and son-in-law of CM Biren Singh, and Keba Singh, BJP MLA, at Tera. And also in Imphal’s Thangmeiband mob came and looted jewellery and articles meant for the internally displaced persons from the house of Khumukcham Joykishan Singh, BJP MLA. And in faraway Sagolmang, on the Kuki-Meitei warfare front, the house of Th. Lokeshowor Singh, former Speaker and prominent Congress MLA, burned thousands of blankets and jackets meant for village volunteers. It was obvious that political advantages were being taken by political rivals.

What would the emerging scenario be like in the coming days following the arrival of troops with the armour of the AFSPA, by which they can fire to the extent of causing death with no questions asked and can make arrests without warrants on suspicion? Considering that the new deployment would be in areas in the foothills where there are a sizeable number of regular as well as freelance gun-wielding insurgents defending the villages in the periphery of the valley. With one side having a natural barrier with the Kukis, these cadres could easily be trapped in the dragnet.

The belief here is that the BJP High Command would act to have Biren Singh replaced once the election results in Maharashtra and Jharkhand are out. But apart from a Kuki MLA publicly calling him a “madman,” it has also been pointed out that a ‘not so honourable relation’ exists between Amit Shah and Biren, hence the former’s reluctance to have him replaced.

But Biren Singh’s undoing as a chief minister of an Indian state is the way in which he administers the state in times of crisis, notably his heavy dependence on non-state actors, from guarding Meitei Villages to cyber-related issues, where he uses these heavily armed militants to have Facebook posts deleted containing materials detrimental to the interest of his administration.

The writer is a senior journalist at The Statesman