The history of independent India has been peppered with major and violent conflicts fought on sectarian lines. These have broadly been of two types. The first are armed insurgencies demanding secession or independence, as took place in the Naga and Mizo hills in the 1950 and 1960s, and in Punjab and the Kashmir Valley in the 1980s and 1990s. The second is majoritarian violence within a particular Indian state or Union Territory, as for instance the pogrom against Sikhs in Delhi in 1984 and against Muslims in Gujarat in 2002, both led by Hindu mobs, and the purging of Pandits in Kashmir in 1989-’90, led by Islamist jihadists.
In the past, Manipur had witnessed the first form of conflict, with armed Meitei insurgents demanding a nation of their own, and armed Nagas seeking the formation of a nation with the contiguous districts of Nagaland. The present conflict, however, is internal to the state; it is between two of its ethnic groups, the Meiteis and the Kukis. Neither side is demanding independence from India.
A comparison of the inter-communal conflict in Manipur today with similar conflicts in other Indian states in the past may be instructive. At one level, there are significant…
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