A CM resigns, a journalist is abducted: The ‘war of narratives’ in Manipur

 Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on February 14, 2025

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2025/02/14/a-cm-resigns-a-journalist-is-abducted-the-war-of-narratives-in-manipur

On February 9, Manipur chief minister N Biren Singh handed in his resignation to the governor of the state. A little over a day later, 20 armed men barged into the home of a senior journalist in Imphal, abducted him, and held him captive.

These developments are possibly not connected. But the journalist was Yambem Laba, a familiar name in Manipur. He currently writes for The Statesman, Kolkata, and is known as a human rights activist. He’s also been an open and trenchant critic of Biren Singh. On the evening of February 10, he was a panelist on a local channel discussing Biren Singh’s resignation. He once again criticised Biren Singh and, in the early hours of February 11, he was abducted from his home. 

Laba was released the next day after he made a public apology to the suspected abductors – the United National Liberation Front, one of the oldest armed militant groups operating in Manipur. The trigger for the abduction apparently was Laba stating on TV that the group had “surrendered” when it signed a peace agreement with the Biren Singh government in November 2023. 

Whatever the truth, although the attention of the media is fixed on who will take Biren Singh’s place now that President’s rule has been declared, Laba’s abduction and subsequent release is a reminder of the precarious conditions under which journalists operate in Manipur, and elsewhere in Northeast India.

While the Northeast is often lumped as one “conflict-ridden” area by what people there refer to as “mainland” media, it is inaccurate and inappropriate to generalise because each of the eight states comprising Northeast India have distinct histories, politics, cultures and causes for current and past tensions. 

Manipur, of course, has been paralysed by the ethnic strife that has stretched over 21 months, killing at least 260 people, displacing an estimated 60,000 people, and leaving behind a mountain of distrust and hate between the warring communities that cannot be wished away easily. There is today a virtually unsurpassable divide between areas where the Kuki-Zo people live in the hills, and the Imphal valley inhabited by the majority community of Meitei. 

Most journalists reporting from Manipur used to be based in Imphal. In the past, they could travel and report on the other parts of the state. Today, it would be impossible for a Meitei journalist based in Imphal to travel freely in Kuki dominated areas to find out what is happening and report on it, and vice versa. 

 

As a result, the information coming from these two separate parts of the state are generated by people living in those areas. Given the distrust between the two sides, neither is willing to believe what the other side reports. 

An Imphal-based journalist pointed out that the only news sent to newspaper offices in Imphal from the Kuki areas comes through official channels, namely the Department of Information and Public Relations. Clearly, this government organisation is not going to issue press releases about the conflict. As a result, he said that “we have lost the idea of a neutral voice”, something that journalism is supposed to be.

Traditional media houses in Manipur, as elsewhere in the region, have been hampered not just by the lack of access to parts of the state, but also the financial reality of operating in a state where the only source of revenue is government advertising. Predictably, the narrative that is played out is one that is approved by the party in power, in this case the BJP. Going against it could mean cutbacks in advertising, or other pressures.

With formal media channels so restricted, most of the information circulating in the state is dependent on social media postings – some true, some partly true, and some blatantly untrue. Siphoning through this flood of information is difficult if not virtually impossible when the obvious avenues for cross-verification are unavailable. Who do you call to check? Every side, including the “authorities”, have their own version. 

   

While Manipuri journalists have been severely restricted in their ability to report, how have journalists from the “mainland” media managed? Local journalists often speak resentfully about “parachute” journalism and how they are used by journalists from the rest of the country to provide logistics, translation and contacts. This resentment is understandable, especially when such journalists fly in, embed themselves with security forces to gain access, and then fly out without gaining any real understanding of the complexity of the troubles that have overtaken the state.  

Most of the information circulating in the state is dependent on social media postings – some true, some partly true, and some blatantly untrue. Siphoning through this flood of information is difficult if not virtually impossible when the obvious avenues for cross-verification are unavailable. Who do you call to check? Every side, including the “authorities”, have their own version. 

It is such reporting, usually by television channels, that has added to what one journalist described as a “trust deficit”. As a result, even when independent journalists make their own way, depend on civil society and other contacts to access both sides, and report in as even-handed a way as they can, they also must overcome this initial suspicion from both sides. It is not always easy. Both sides have what this journalist called “gatekeepers”, who decide how much access to provide a journalist reporting on the conflict. Also, even if independent journalists are technically from the larger Northeastern region, they are still looked upon as “outsiders”.

Against this reality, anyone setting out to document the developments of the last 21 months in Manipur, using media as the “first draft of history”, would have a really difficult time. Although there has been some excellent reporting by a handful of independent journalists, who have persisted and returned to the state despite the difficulties they encounter, these are the exceptions.

Such in-depth reporting has been largely missing from “mainland” print media, again barring a couple of exceptions. Even those newspapers that have correspondents based in Guwahati often do not provide them the space, or the time, to do the kind of layered reporting that is needed to convey the reality of the conflict in Manipur.  

We are all the poorer for this.

Apart from Manipur, even in a state like Assam, where communal tensions simmer and sometimes boil over because of the blatant anti-Muslim rhetoric and politics of the BJP-led state government, some Muslim journalists say that their names, which reveal their religious identity, now hamper access. The people they call sometimes judge their line of questioning as hostile even if they are genuinely trying to get information. 

A brief visit to Meghalaya, a state that is rarely in the news, revealed another challenge that local journalists face. While journalists in Manipur are labelled as Meitei or Kuki-Zo, in Meghalaya the divide is between tribal and non-tribal. Within tribal, it comes down to their ethnicity – Khasi, Garo and Jaintia. It is assumed that as a journalist, you will not report or write against your ethnic group.

In 2018, Patricia Mukhim, editor of Shillong Times, was attacked, with a firebomb thrown at her house in the night because she had criticised a militant Khasi group. Mukhim is a Khasi. Despite this, Mukhim continues to be outspoken. She has campaigned against rat-hole mining, thereby angering powerful local interests in coal mining who demand that the 2014 ban on it by the National Green Tribunal be lifted. She has been trolled and vilified each time she writes anything critical about campaigns against so-called “outsiders” or non-tribals. Once again, her identity is sought to be reduced to her ethnicity, while she argues that she is doing her job as a journalist, calling the powerful to account and rejecting hate politics.  

Whether a state is torn apart as in Manipur, or tensions lurk just under the surface, journalists based in the region have to tread carefully, manoeuvring between state governments that want to push a particular narrative and their detractors, sometimes consisting of armed groups. It is, as a journalist reporting from the region pointed out “a war of narratives” in which journalists are caught.  

We in the so-called “mainland” should be concerned about the state of the media and the difficulties faced by journalists in the Northeast. Because if journalists cannot do what they are trained to do, to seek out information from all sides, verify it, and report as even-handedly as possible, and if on top of it, what we report is measured through the filter of our ethnicity or religious identity, then journalism as we have known it is in deep trouble.  

The people of Manipur should be the news – not just visits by politicians

Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on June 30, 2023

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2023/06/30/the-people-of-manipur-should-be-the-news-not-just-visits-by-politicians

For close to two months, a state of the Indian union has been burning – literally. It is caught in what is being described as a civil war. Yet, ask an average person living in what people in the northeast of India call the “mainland” whether they are aware of what’s been happening in Manipur, and you are likely to get a puzzled look.

Manipur is the biggest story that India’s mainstream media, especially television, failed to cover adequately. As always, there were exceptions. But by and large, the channels most viewed barely touched it. 

Print media was better. But you could count the newspapers that focussed attention on Manipur in their news coverage. While the comment pages did carry articles by experts and academics, largely missing was the granular reporting that’s only possible with feet on the ground. 

Although most national English language daily newspapers do have correspondents or even bureaus in Guwahati, few of these journalists have ventured to Manipur, just a short distance away, during these two months.  Surely reduced budgets for news gathering cannot be the only explanation. As a result, over 60 days, Manipur has drifted in and out of the news, mostly out.

As I had argued in an earlier column, Manipur is not an easy story to cover. It is a state with a complex and layered history. The current conflict cannot be reduced to a simple binary of Meitei versus Kuki. At a time when divisions, real and imagined, have been inflamed to the point where no one is prepared to listen to reason, journalists attempting to report in a responsible way face a tough challenge. 

Journalists covering any kind of conflict are often faced with difficult choices.  For instance, if the only safe way to travel to a conflict zone is with the security forces, do you agree to that?  If you do, then in places like Manipur, or Kashmir, or even Chhattisgarh, you risk alienating the local population whose relationship with these security forces is fraught. In any case, what kind of story can you get barring what your hosts are willing to let you see? 

Of course, all journalists don’t ask themselves these questions. But it is evident that the choices are not straightforward. 

For instance, last week in Manipur, five journalists who accompanied an army contingent to write about its operations had to face an irate local crowd. They were heckled and people demanded that they erase whatever they had recorded. They were left with no option but to leave with the army. 

Although the All Manipur Working Journalists’ Union issued a statement condemning what happened, this is something for which journalists ought to be prepared. Particularly in the kind of situation that prevails in Manipur, where people on both sides of the conflict have reason to resent the security forces. 

The incident is emblematic of the challenges of reporting at times of conflict. But it also points to the need for journalists, who really want people to speak to them without fear, to find ways where they are not seen as part of the very system that people find oppressive. 

Earlier, Guwahati-based Afrida Hussain, deputy editor of India Today, received threatening phone calls after a story she wrote.  A large crowd had gathered outside her hotel in Imphal. She wrote in a column, “Aren’t we supposed to bring out the truth? No one questioned me when I went to Manipur on May 5 and covered Kuki militants. But one thing against the majority community got me into trouble.”

The media plays an essential role in communicating the seriousness of a crisis or conflict when it occurs in what is considered an area that is literally on the periphery. States in the northeast of India have constantly complained that the rest of India, and mainstream media, fail in reporting on their problems.

Yet, the reality of the way mainstream media functions, and how it decides what news is important, or “national”, often precludes news from far-flung areas.  Almost automatically, places that can be easily accessed by media houses, most of whom are headquartered in the national capital, get detailed coverage. The costs for such coverage are not high, and media houses now openly cater to what they deem is their “market”.  

Such an approach has cut down reporting not just on parts of India like the northeast, but even on issues that require investment of time and money – such as the processes that are pushing people into poverty, or the continuing problems of the marginalised and those without a voice and social capital. These factors are also affecting coverage of the current crisis in Manipur. 

The conflict in Manipur is a national issue. If mainstream media had accepted this, even a month into the crisis, it is possible that there would have been more pressure on the centre to intervene. Instead, the Manipur crisis has been largely reduced to a political free-for-all.  Most of what we read in the media are statements made by politicians on opposite sides of the political divide. An occasional report gives you an insight of the suffering experienced by people in the state. But the dominant narrative is the political.

Manipur makes it to the front pages only when an important politician is involved.  Thus, home minister Amit Shah’s much belated visit to Manipur at the end of May made it to the top of the news. And on June 29, when Rahul Gandhi went to Manipur, although the reporting on his trip has mostly focussed on the police preventing him from travelling by road to Churachandpur and BJP spokespersons lambasting him for his “insensitivity” for the timing of the visit.  

Once again, what politicians say becomes the news and not the voices of the people of Manipur.

For that, you must turn to the independent digital platforms. For instance, Karan Thapar has focussed almost exclusively on Manipur in his interviews for the Wire. He has interviewed a wide range of people representing different perspectives, academics who have spoken of the history of Manipur, activists who have decried the lack of serious attention by the centre, and recently a former member of parliament, a Kuki, who had to leave her home and take shelter in a camp for the displaced. Together, these interviews provide an invaluable record of the many layers that together make up the Manipur story.

Scroll has also provided reports from on the ground including this reporter’s diary by Arunabh Saikia that illustrates the challenges journalists seeking to do independent reporting face. 

A recent long-form piece in Frontline magazine that is also worth reading for the insights it provides about Manipur is this one by Angshuman Chowdhury, where he gives the background about Kuki grievances. The writer complains that the media has “avoided an honest discussion on how the government dismissed serious Kuki grievances for years, allowing their discontent to reach boiling point. Instead, the media continues to obsess over guns and drugs, as if all of Manipur’s problems would disappear if one removes these two from the equation.”

Let me end by quoting from a powerful piece written by a respected senior journalist from the northeast, Patricia Mukhim, editor of Shillong Times. In this piece in Scroll, Mukhim spells out the troubled history of the northeast region and its relationship with the centre. What is happening today is grounded in this history. And she ends with these lines: “Delhi could not care about lives lost in the periphery which shares just 1% of its boundary with ‘India’.”

That is a devastating conclusion, one that ought to make all of us, journalists and concerned citizens, stop in our tracks and reflect on what these two months of neglect of a region under siege means for the future of this country.