Context:

In a recent press statement issued by 10 Kuki-Zo legislators of the Manipur Assembly, a  demand for “separate administration” was made.

Stand of 10 Kuki-Zo Legislators:

• The Government of Manipur tacitly supported the “unabated violence” by the majority Meiteis “against the Chin-Kuki-Mizo-Zomi hill tribals,”.

A Popular Demand:

• The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government in 2000 constituted a National Commission to review the working of the Constitution.
• Earlier Demands by tribal communities for a separate administration in the form of a Union Territory or a Territorial Council or the Sixth Schedule were called “non-serious” by the National Commission  as they did not have popular support. 
• Also given dissension within and across different segments of the Kuki-Zo groups in the past, a sustained mobilization for a separate administration remained elusive. 

Possibilities to resolve the Deadlock: Three possible institutional architectures are plausible:

• The First is to grant a separate administration in the hill areas of Manipur for not only the Kuki-Zos, but also the Nagas. 
  • Challange: The roadblocks to this are the reluctance of some Naga groups to compromise on their expansive territorial project under the rubric of a sovereign ‘Nagalim’ and the staunch opposition by the State and Meitei groups.

• The Second is to grant a separate administration for the Kuki-Zo in districts where they are dominant, and resolve the Naga’s demand in due course. 
  • Challenge: Given that Pherzawl and Churachandpur, the two districts where the majority are Kuki-Zo, sit on a rich natural gas belt (the Assam-Arakan basin), effective exploration and harnessing of these resources may offset any counter argument about the economic non-viability of this demand for a separate administration. 

• The third possibility is to maintain the status quo ante where the territorial integrity of Manipur is secured. 
  • Challenge: Given the increasingly hardened integrationist position taken by the State and frontal Meitei groups, this may entail dissolution of extant sub-State constitutional asymmetrical arrangements under Article 371C, the district councils and tribal land rights. 

International Precedent:

• If the experience of other such societies including Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, and Switzerland are to be used as any guide, the holding together of federal polity or polities requires genuine recognition and accommodation of territorially mobilized groups  as a matter of enduring value. 
• The reluctance to do this and the lack of democracy and federalism in East European states in the 1990s had led to state break-ups which Manipur may not like to emulate.

The Jury is Out:

• The debates to protect the territorial integrity of Manipur are likely to spawn a competing constellation of agendas, ideas and interests without any immediate resolution. 
• Views of KT Shah:
  • He  argued that to “place power and authority in the Centre” to effect a change of State boundaries without requiring the “consent” of the said States would amount to “the serious prejudice not only of the Units, but even of the very idea of democracy.”

• Views of  K. Santhanam:
  • “Consent” of the States would leverage “absolute autocracy of the majority in every province and State” when they vote down a minority’s demand for merger with an adjacent State or for formation of a separate State of their own.

News Source: The Hindu