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Supreme Court’s renewed emphasis on monitoring Manipur is welcome

Hearing a case by petitioners aggrieved with the unremitting hostilities in Manipur, the Supreme Court of India has directed the Manipur government to disclose details of destroyed and encroached properties following the ethnic violence a year and a half ago. The Court had also, a few months ago, extended the working tenure of the Justice Gita Mittal-led Committee supervising the investigations related to the violence and also humanitarian assistance and relief in the State. Ideally, these steps should not have been under the aegis of the Court and, instead, under the remit of the executive governments — in this case, the State and the Union Home Ministry. But the violent imagery of sexual violence, the wanton destruction of property, including places of worship, and the continuing hostility between the State’s two ethnic groups had forced the Court’s hand into foraying into a supervisory role through the Justice Mittal Committee. It has also become an imperative for the higher judiciary, first, because of the remarkable reticence of the Union government in answering questions from civil society and the political Opposition related to the situation in the State, and second, due to the lack of accountability by the misfiring State government that has been ineffective in bridging the ethnic gap. Even political representatives from the same parties have been split on ethnic lines and there seems little convergence in the political demands being made by the opposite camps.

There is also the rise of non-state actors, armed with sophisticated weapons — many of which are looted from the State armouries — exercising their illegal writ on the political process. They have also been engaged in violent acts in places such as Jiribam, which did not see any ethnic conflagrations earlier. Manipur’s tragic descent into ethnic hostilities receives national attention only when the scale of the violence is horrifying and reaches unconscionable levels. Despite the government averring that it is taking steps to restore the rule of law and addressing the political differences, a return to the status quo ante before May 2023 seems far away. The Court’s renewed attention is, therefore, welcome, but shorn of meaningful steps to reverse the spiral of hostilities, this exercise would remain incomplete. The government’s attorneys have also sought to retain a veil of secrecy over the committee’s functioning and findings using the tired rhetoric of “national security”. The Court should not pay heed to this ploy which seems more a case of seeking to divert attention than helping to find meaningful solutions to the conflict. Across the world, conflict resolution has focused on mechanisms such as “truth and reconciliation” exercises which have privileged accountability and normative actions, something that remains absent in Manipur. The Committee’s findings may provide the necessary push in the right direction.