How Manipur CM has skewed the national security debate

IN an unusual display of cooperation and coordination between the Manipur Chief Minister's Office and its Security Adviser, who is also the head of the Unified Security Command of the state, the former sent an intelligence 'input' to the latter and two high-ranking officials of the state on September 16, 2024. The ‘input’ forewarned a veritable doomsday for the Meitei community. It said 'over 900 Kuki militants' who reportedly infiltrated into Manipur were set to 'launch multiple coordinated attacks on Meitei villages around 28 September.'

To amplify the 'threat' perception, this 'input', signed by N Geoffrey, Secretary to the CM, was framed in the language of 'national security threat' best understood by policy mandarins in New Delhi. It was remarkably pointed and precise in its details. It stated that these militants 'newly trained in use of drone-based bombs, projectiles, missiles and jungle warfare [are] grouped in units of 30 members each….'

Coming within a fortnight of the unverified and sensational claim by CM Biren Singh and the state police that the Kuki militants used sophisticated drone bombs and rocket-propelled guns (RPGs) to attack Meitei settlements in Koutruk village and Bishnupur just across the 'buffer zone', this intelligence input whipped up a communal frenzy and brought full circle the hyperbole debate on 'threats' to India's national security.

The blanket vilification and selective targeting of the Kukis as 'terrorists' and as the singular source of 'threat' to national security could not have come into sharper relief.

A deeper probe into the immediate context, however, suggests that the CM was desperately in need of a sensational news item to deflect increasing public scrutiny on his integrity in light of two of his recent outlandish claims: firstly, his alleged self-incriminating claim in a leaked tape — run by an online news portal in August 2024 — that he advocated the secret use of 'bombs' and violence against the Kukis to protect Meitei identity and dignity; and secondly, his claim that the Kukis used drone bombs and RPGs to attack Meitei settlements was contested by, among others, Lt-Gen PC Nair, former Director-General of Assam Rifles, on the grounds that they were not corroborated by the Indian Army and by 'substantive evidences' on the ground.

Seen against this backdrop, the intelligence input was far from being a genuine concern for 'national security'. It was driven by a self-goal to salvage the CM's dented image on the one hand and a convenient scapegoat to launch a series of 'combing operations' to pre-emptively strike the Kuki 'militants' on the other hand. This point is alluded to by Kuldiep Singh, the Security Adviser, during his press brief on September 20.

What is, however, baffling is the manner in which Kuldiep Singh pliantly submitted to and cooperated with this intelligence bluster. Without bothering to establish its credibility, he affirmed that the 'input' was '100 per cent correct' until proven otherwise. This also suggests that the de facto lever of security control in the state has always been wielded by the CM. Interestingly, the CM’s longstanding grievance is that he has been rendered powerless after being substituted by Kuldiep Singh as the head of the Unified Security Command in May last year.

That neither Kuldiep Singh nor the high-ranking military and police officials who attended the security group meeting, which was convened by Singh two days after he received this input, ever bothered to establish its credibility is a telling commentary on the tenuous civil-military relations in the state. A premeditated misinformation campaign such as this is unlikely to yield sub-optimal 'national security' outcomes.

In game theory, overcoming collective action problem and obtaining optimal outcomes demand that players coordinate under a rule-based institutionalised framework where information inputs are credible, transparent and not distorted.

Security protocol also demands that 'immediate' and 'secret' information of such kind be put under meticulous scrutiny and not be shared with the public before credible and actionable strategies are chalked out and potential threats neutralised.

The Spear Corps plausibly kept this in mind when it demanded details and proper scrutiny of the intelligence 'input' in its tweet immediately after the Security Adviser briefed the media.

However, in an insurgent space where the powers-that-be have for long operated with impunity under the shadow of a compromised institutional ecosystem and where they expect pliant actors to fall in line, any contrarian position is not tolerated. This explains why the Spear Corps' tweet was immediately taken down.

Had the CMO’s concern been genuine, the large-scale 'infiltration' of proscribed Meitei armed organisations into the valley areas from Myanmar and their involvement in perpetrating violence against the tribal Kuki-Zomi-Hmar communities would have merited attention and coordinated response of the political and security establishments by now.

By turning a blind eye to the reported involvement and collusion of the armed groups like the United National Liberation Front (UNLF) and Kanglei Yawol Kanba Lup (KYKL) with Arambai Tenggol and the state police in attacking the Kuki-Zomi-Hmar villages across the 'buffer zones', the CM and his Security Adviser have lost their credibility. They have also compromised their constitutional oath and commitments and made their positions untenable.

This selective amnesia implies that the 'national security' gains obtained by the security forces in the aftermath of 'Operation All Clear' in 2004 — which flushed out proscribed Meitei armed organisations from Sajik Tampak and the valley areas — have been neutralised under the nose of the current political dispensation.

Genuine commitment to national security interest will also be equally mindful of the unrivalled access that the UNLF and other Meitei proscribed armed militants have to sophisticated weapons and armoury within and across the Indo-Myanmar border.

This point is underscored by the UNLF's extensive use of IEDs in Pherzawl district in 2005-06 where many tribals were trapped and killed.

Another instance highlights the same point: the People Liberation Army (PLA), another proscribed Meitei armed group, ambushed with ease the Assam Rifles convoy in November 2021 just a couple of kilometres away from the Indo-Myanmar border. They killed with impunity five Assam Rifles’ personnel, Col Viplav Tripathy, his wife and son. It shows that the source of national security threat lies somewhere else across the Indo-Myanmar border.

The recovery of a large cache of 'arms and ammunition with war-like stores' from 12 KYKL cadres apprehended by the Spear Corps at Itham village in East Imphal district on June 24, 2023 demonstrated beyond doubt the real source of danger to India's national security.

As the 'doomsday' forecast passed off as a mere 'bluster' and Manipur's CM's office got away with this unacceptable misinformation campaign, the verdict was on the Indian state and its democratic culture of impunity.

It is about time the Indian state priorities its national security focus and fixes political accountability. Instead of spending over Rs 31,000 crore on a clichéd idea which seeks to erect border fencing along selected pockets of the over 1,600-km Indo-Myanmar border, it should invest in modernising the intelligence network and upskilling the security forces. Lest Colonel Tripathy and other valiant soldiers who laid down their lives should never forgive us for allowing populist leaders in Manipur and beyond to get away with their misplaced national security priorities.