Manipur: Witnessing an Extraordinarily Fragile Civil Life
Asia News Agency

On November 14, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) announced the extension of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) in six police station limits in five districts of Manipur because of ‘volatile' situation and 'active participation of insurgent groups in heinous acts of crime’. On the ground, to the contrary, writes G Amarjit Sharma (teaches at the Special Centre for the Study of North East India, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi) “the extension of AFSPA has gone down as an instrument to deepen an already divided society and geographies. The extension signifies not only the continuity of extraordinary laws but also the institution of an extraordinarily fragile civil life. It is reminiscent of the experience of violence in postcolonial northeast India and the popular movement against it based on the values of right to life and justice. One would expect that the experience of the struggle would have deepened respect for each other’s lives and dignity. What we see instead is the opposite. The brutality that such people’s struggles criticised and challenged in the past has become part of the divisive politics.”
The State is not exercising its writs effectively
Insurgency has not ended, says Sharma. “The state’s impunity, too, has now apparently extended extra-judicially to various nodal power centres in society…….Groups that seemingly have a symbiotic relationship with ambiguous state and non-state powers dominate the public discourse. In the past year-and-half of the violence, civilian groups freely roamed fully armed, almost hijacking public life in the name of ethnic demands or territorial identity. In this context, one wonders where the state is……The sovereign is there. But it is not exercising its writs effectively to end the violence.”
The present politics “does not allow us to see vulnerability as an equal experience. It tends to privilege one’s vulnerability over another. Precariousness of life and vulnerability are politically ghettoised and not equally seen and experienced. When people mobilise against the extension of AFSPA, other sections of society feel the necessity of the Act in all districts of Manipur. One individual death is the death of a community, while another community is regarded as the perpetrator. While a section of the people felt the protection of security forces, others felt insecurity from the same security forces. While one felt the state’s complicity in the violence, the other felt the protection of the state. The state is differently felt, accessed, and interpreted.”
Ever since violence erupted in May 2023, Sharma writes “the unspoken dictum is to speak only to defend your community, otherwise don’t speak. Many felt that long years of self-determination movements have almost become ploys for those who want to preserve political influence or create their own spheres of influence. The unfortunate result is the death of the public conscience and critical public sphere.”