By Ashis Biswas
KOLKATA: Come November, GOI and the ruling NDA Government must get ready to face yet another sticky diplomatic phase, as various Christian organisations in India plan to hold a major convention in New Delhi on the 29th. The unstated objective of India-based Christian community leaders is to draw greater international attention towards what they describe as an alarming increase of religious violence targeting them in recent years.
Officially, the Christian church is appealing for ‘a self-reliant, progressive, united India’ to the Centre, even while criticising GOI for its alleged indifference towards the surge in mob as well as ethnic violence in Northeast India with particular reference to Manipur. India’s ‘federal’ leaders, according to community leaders, have turned a’ blind eye’ to the problem of minorities.
Unlike some other, (especially Islamic!) groups in India, Christian leaders use a more restrained rhetoric in their communications with established Governments at the state and central levels. They also exercise greater care in presenting their case publicly. This contrasts strongly for instance, with the aggressively boorish approach adopted by a Pakistani journalist while questioning India’s Foreign Minister Dr. S Jaishankar, at the UN GA session recently.
Central to the arguments put forward by the Catholic Bishops of Northeast India ( NEIRBC) whose members have been visiting trouble-prone areas in Manipur and meeting community leaders, common people as well as local Ministers and officials in other NE states as well, is the increasing level of religion-related violence . In 2014, 139 persons were killed in mob violence, ambushs or mob/group attacks, in the NE region. . By 2024, the number of such victims, mostly non Hindu Christians, rose to 834.. During the 2014-2024 period, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been in power at the Centre and also won some state assembly elections in the region. For the record, most Christians and Muslims in the NE refer to the BJP as a right wing fundamentalist party. .
Of late, a new problem that further complicates the already tense uneasy inter-ethnic relations has arisen. The Nagas and Kuki-Zo communities, both Christian, have been involved in a series of group attacks, ambushes and kidnappings by well-armed activists .Such outbreaks of organised violence have already led to the death of at least 35/40 people., mainly in Manipur. Mostly, clashes have occurred over the never ending tussle for local area domination involving both groups.
Understandably, Christian community leaders have sounded a special alarm over fellow religionists killing each other, in fratricidal violence. This comes at a time when the Kuki-Zo tribespeople are already embroiled in an armed dispute with the majority Meitei non Christian tribe in Manipur. The tone of their public appeal is unexceptionable: nobody, especially Christians should resort to violence while settling disputes, grievances, etc. There is never a winner in violent encounters. .The only long term outcome is an abiding hostility and distrust among major communities that continues for generations! The Centre and state authorities should also intervene more effectively when such outbreaks occur, not to mention community leaders themselves.
There can be no denying that respective state and central governments would find it hard to defend themselves when it comes to maintaining good governance in the region. The NDA government has to answer and explain how and why over 300 people have been killed in the ethnic violence that broke out in Manipur on May 3, 2023, between Kukis and Meiteis. At least 60,000 people were displaced, according to official stats, 49 remained missing, hundreds of houses/offices and over 300 religious sites, including 250 churches were vandalised.
At present, a tenuous semblance of peace prevails in parts of Manipur and the neighbouring states. The BJP Government led by Meitei leader Mr. Biren Singh failed to perform but his long delayed replacement has hardly improved the situation in general!
However, Christian leaders themselves have not come up with effective/concrete proposals to help improve matters as they stated. The skirmishes between Nagas and Kukis indicates a major failure on their part to control their own followers. . Further, they do not always cooperate with the local administration in .some areas.
For example, GOI appealed to ruling tribal authorities in Mizoram some time back, not to provide shelter to Kukis escaping from Myanmar because of continuing ethnic strife there — only emergency help could be provided in some cases. Mizoram tribal authorities did not agree. They pointed out that Mizos as well as Kukis had their relations in Myanmar and therefore they could not be pushed back.
Around 30,000-plus people displaced from Myanmar are putting up in special centres/camps run by Mizo authorities, their status left undefined. Local Mizos, aided/backed by some NE residents, as well as international Christian organisations are providing them with financial and other assistance. GOI too helps from time to time, but insists that continuing such help cannot be a general principle because of ethnic troubles breaking out in Myanmar or China! Official talks are continuing between India and Myanmar on the issue, but there has been no solution.
GOI has now proposed to put up barbed wire fencing along the India–Myanmar border to prevent further influx of non-Indians into the NE region. But local church authorities as well as their international associates have opposed this strongly. State as well as central administrators have repeatedly referred to the enormous costs and difficulties in exercising effective border management over a large, difficult terrain, dominated by hills and forests, but the argument has not apparently cut much ice with local Church authorities. (IPA Service)
