Guwahati/New Delhi:
A top official of Assam’s Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) has requested the two communities in Manipur that have been fighting since May 2023 to stop violence and start dialogue for reconciliation, citing how Bodoland achieved peace after decades of unrest.
Pramod Boro, BTC chief executive member and president of the Assam-based United People’s Party Liberal, told NDTV the two communities will not achieve anything if they keep fighting.
He said Manipur had been peaceful for 10-15 years before the May 2023 violence broke out, and “will take decades to rebuild” what it lost in the ethnic conflict.
“I don’t know what they [two communities in Manipur] are thinking, but they have to understand fighting and communal conflict will not give them anything, whatever they are aiming for,” Mr Boro told NDTV.
“Before this [ethnic violence] happened, there was peace in Manipur for the last 10-15 years, because of which the Armed Forces (Special) Powers Act was removed from many areas. Manipur was in national attention for its achievements in sports, literature, cultural matters, and many other things,” Mr Boro said. “After this conflict, I have seen that Manipur will need decades to rebuild what it lost. So they [the two communities] have to realise that fighting will not achieve anything.”
He cited the example of how Bodoland lost decades worth of development due to violence before the major peace deal, now known as the Bodo Peace Accord, was signed between the Centre, the Assam government and Bodo groups in January 2020.
Broadly, as part of the Bodo peace deal, members of the armed group National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) were rehabilitated; issues linked to Bodo people living outside of the erstwhile Bodoland Territorial Area Districts (BTAD) were settled; steps were taken to protect the Bodo’s social, cultural, linguistic and ethnic identities; legislative protection for the land rights of tribals were provided, and quick development of tribal areas was assured.
“If you keep fighting, the central government also sometimes becomes helpless. Bodoland already faced decades of violence and there was a huge loss which we can’t imagine now. So, I request our brothers and sisters in Manipur, please start reconciliation among your parties, your teams, your groups,” Mr Boro said.
“This is the only solution. I think the central government is ready to listen and help because in the Bodoland issue also, anytime when we demanded, the central government was always there to help. My request is to stop violence and start reconciliation, dialogue and discussion, find out the problems, the issues, and try to resolve it,” Mr Boro said.
Bodoland Peace Model In Manipur?
In Manipur, no leader has yet raised whether the Bodoland peace model can be replicated in the state due to the cross-border implications of the ethnic tension.
The Bodoland issue was landlocked. But the Manipur violence involves the Kuki tribes whose kindred tribes live in neighbouring Myanmar, where ethnic insurgents are fighting the junta. The Kuki tribes have objected to border fencing and any move to entirely scrap the free movement regime, which allows people from either side of the border to travel without passport and visa up to certain kilometres on both sides.
The Meitei community has alleged decades of the open-border policy with Myanmar have backfired, with illegal immigrants settling down and raising hundreds of new villages to call them ancestral land in due time. The Kuki tribes also follow the hereditary chieftainship system, under which village chiefs own massive tracts of land. Neighbouring Mizoram scrapped the chieftainship system.
Leaders of the Kuki tribes have refuted allegations the tribes have been sheltering illegal immigrants for demographic engineering. They have said powerful people in the valley want to grab their lands, and so made up the illegal immigrants story to scare people into becoming hostile.
Bodoland Development
Bodoland has been developing well in the last five years since the peace deal was signed, Mr Boro said, adding the very objective of the accord was to ensure peace and sustain it.
“Now we can see a transformation and fulfilment of the objectives of the accord we signed. Before that, the region was unstable with bloodshed and violence for almost four decades. After the agitation began [for a third time] for Bodoland statehood and the negotiations started, we tried to understand the issues from both sides. One was our aspiration, while the other was constitutional provisions.
“In between, there was negotiation with the government of India… the NDFB, the students’ union and other groups finally came together and tried to understand, connect with each other. Somehow we managed to understand aspirations, objectives, agenda of the movement… and came to a conclusion that unless we can resolve this issue, the Bodo people cannot see development, their economy, education and other aspects will suffer… We believed at that time that unless we signed the accord, we couldn’t think of our development,” Mr Boro told NDTV.
The past 5 years have brought unprecedented peace in our region. BTR is today a land of optimism and opportunity.#5YearsOfBodoAccord pic.twitter.com/nUacVGDk8i
— Pramod Boro (@PramodBoroBTR) January 29, 2025
In Manipur, the clashes between the valley-dominant Meitei community and over a dozen distinct tribes collectively known as Kuki, who are dominant in some hill areas of Manipur, have killed over 250 people and internally displaced nearly 50,000. There are many villages of the Kuki tribes in the hills surrounding the valley.
The general category Meiteis want to be included under the Scheduled Tribes category, while the Kukis who share ethnic ties with people in neighbouring Myanmar’s Chin State and Mizoram want a separate administration carved out of Manipur, citing discrimination and unequal share of resources and power with the Meiteis.
