When the agitation for Indian independence gathered strength, in 1941 there was a secret plan to form a Crown Colony comprising of the northeast region of India that was known as the Coupland Plan or the Reid Papers after Sir Reginald Coupland and Sir Robert Neil Reid, the then Governor of Assam respectively. The Naga and many others including Jawaharlal Nehru objected to it and the idea were dropped. The idea was to have a Christian British colony in this region and was perhaps formulated that Christianity was gathering strength among the tribal of the region though proselytising among the Hindu was minimal then. Then just before independence there was the idea of a Purvanchal state that also was not agreeable to any party.
Even in 1968, as narrated by a former very senior officer of the IB long after his retirement, there was a secret meet in Cox’s Bazaar where representatives of ISI, CIA, PLA (of China). NNC and MNF met and discussed about the breaking up of the north east portion of India but fortunately for India one of the MNF representatives was in touch with Indian espiocrats in IB and the gist of the discussion was leaked. The decision was not only to carve out a nation of the north east region of India and on the insistence of the PLA, it was also agreed to give the Chinese a route to the Bay of Bengal.
The DIB was Mr M M L Hooja, a protégé of the legendary B N Mullick. This information was passed on to the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi who was in office for only about two years. India could not do much except strengthen the security presence in the region. Mrs Gandhi bided her time as she was fully aware that if proactive action was not taken, balkanisation of India can start sooner than later and that is one of the reasons India meddled in the conflict in the erstwhile East Pakistan, to remove the thorn to north east India. She sent in Indian operatives to lead the Mukti Bahini and she didn’t even flinch when the Seventh Fleet of the US sailed into the Bay of Bengal.
No doubt USSR stood firmly on the Indian side and if India did not break up East Pakistan, the ISI would continue to play its dangerous game to break up India starting from the north east. The rest was history. This information was not shared earlier but delay can only cause further damage to the region and the time is ripe for the declassification of the relevant documents as more than fifty years had passed to give historians an opportunity to have a relook into the Indo-Pak War of 1971 and policy makers the way forward.
The statement of the deposed Prime Minister of Bangladesh about the threat from a white foreigner rings true now. Comilla was earlier the base for the Americans in their effort to help the Tibetans during their fight against the Chinese and the demand of the Americans for use of the St Martin Island, a small land mass of only 3 sq km, to operate within the Bay of Bengal to contain the influence of the Chinese in this Bay is most plausible. This is further supported by the recent statement made by the Chief Minister of Mizoram in September during his visit to US that the Kuki-Chin-Zo inhabited areas were forcefully divided without their knowledge into parts of three countries and that the object is to have a common nation for this extended community.
Though it was later clarified that his statement was unification under India, it does not cut any ice as how parts of Bangladesh and Myanmar can become a part of India and will the two countries acquiesce meekly. The clarification is nothing but skin saving. Did the Mizo think about the Kuki earlier when the Mizoram Peace Accord was signed in 1986? Did they not leave out the Kuki including Gangte who were part of the MNF when the Peace Accord was signed?
Even now there is no love lost between the Kuki/Chin and the Mizo. The Lushai started the nomenclature of Mizo, which was deemed grammatically incorrect that T. Gaugin started a movement to call it Zomi in the 1960s. The Mizoisation process started earlier and other communities were uncomfortable like the Hmar, Mara, Lai, etc so much so that there are three Autonomous District Councils in Mizoram but unfortunately Hmar was the worst affected as even with arm resistance they still could not get its own District Councils and no Hmar can call themselves Hmar in Mizoram or for that matter Paite also. It is only in Assam and Manipur that Hmar can call themselves Hmar.
P S Haokip, reportedly a Myanmar national came to India to lead the Kuki National Organisation, the political wing of the Kuki National Army and he published his book titled “Zale’n-Gam the Kuki Nation” in 2008 the year the tripartite SoO was signed though in 2005 the army had signed with the Kuki groups. The idea of Zofate, loosely meaning children of the Zo people were propagated by many churches in the three countries and such movements tend to create tension with the government of the three countries.
When the military took over Myanmar on February 1, 2021, almost all ethnic armed groups demands greater autonomy, except in the Chin state where the armed groups demands a separate nation. Both the groups operating in Chin State, the older Chin National Front the arm wing of which is Chin National Army and the younger Chin National Organisation with its armed wing the Chin National Defence Force are demanding a separate nation called Chinland.
The Zomi Revolutionary Army operating in Chin state also make similar demand but there were clashes between the ZRA and the CNA now and then. Mizoram is trying to play the role of the peace makers and the role of the state government need to be understood. It need to be recalled that India had pumped in huge amount of money for the Kaladan Multi Modal Project and with the trouble in Myanmar it is almost a non starter and India has to make every effort to save this project and that may be the reason that India is not coming down strongly upon the Kuki-Chin in Manipur, so that they can play a positive role in saving this project despite the Union Home Minister and the Minister of External Affairs have categorically stated that involvement of aliens in the current violence in Manipur. Further, some central forces had been using the Kuki armed groups to counter the Naga and Meitei Insurgent groups both in India and Myanmar and would not like to leave them high and dry after more than four or five decades of collaboration.
Some groups in Mizoram had been demanding separate administration of the Zomi in Manipur since long, much before the May 3, 2023 clashes between the Kuki-Chin and the Meitei. There have been claims from certain section of the Kuki that the Centenary Gate at Kangvai was set on fire not by the Meitei but by the Paite and the Paite were claimed to be refugees or foreigners as they arrive in Manipur much later. So much so for the claimed unity among this community is breaking up and there is historical reasons.
The Thadou have been claiming that they are not Kuki and perhaps rightly so but it will be impossible to segregate the Thadou or Khongjai from the Kuki, except through a rigorous NRC process as the late comers have a tendency to identify themselves as Kuki. Even Paites were not included in the ST list when the first list for Manipur was notified and added later on.
The conflict between the Thadou and the Kuki started much earlier when the Pan Kuki movement started with the Kuki having the advantage now, can lead to more conflict. Some of the present MLAs are Thadou per se though they now claim to be Kuki and they will be sandwiched between two warring groups. The reason why Thadous are unhappy is simple; almost all benefits have been garnered by the recent arrivals, mainly from Churachandpur and Kangpokpi.
After looking back including the false narrative of Anglo-Kuki War, a rebellion that was suppressed by armed police only with no British Indian army involved and where the casualty was mostly Naga, past Kuki nation, propagation of the idea of Zalengam or Kukiland, etc one is forced to infer that the violence in Manipur was the outcome of the idea of a Christian state comprising parts of Bangladesh, India and Myanmar and the weak kneed response of India in trying to protect its interest in Myanmar fully dominated by China only prolonged it.
(The views expressed are personal)
