Hotspots of trouble in North East India

Borus Thongam
Contd from previous issue
Insurgency erupted in the erstwhile princely States of Tripura and Manipur in the late 1960s, almost around the same time as the uprising in the Mizo Hills. Due to the influx of Bengalis from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) which resulted in the indigenous tribals of Tripura becoming a minority in its homeland after the State merged into India in 1949.
In the late 1960s, some Reang tribes people got together to form Sengkrak (Clenched Fist) against the large-scale land grabbing by Bengalis in northern Tripura. For a short while, the Sengkrak developed fraternal ties with the MNF and started an insurgency that died with the creation of Bangladesh in 1971. Tribal National Volunteers (TNV) was formed in 1978 as a reason to challenge the continuous growth of the Bengali influx in the region and to regain political power and economic opportunities for indigenous tribes. It unleashed a wave of attacks against Bengali settlers and Central forces until it surrendered and signed an agreement with the federal and State Governments in 1988. All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF) and the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) are also separatist groups against the Bengali settlers, formed in the 1990s.
In Manipur, Arambam Samarendra, a writer, dramatist, and social activist founded the United National Liberation Front (UNLF) to restore its sovereignty from the dominion of India, with his fellows on 24 November 1964. However, some historians claimed that the first-ever wave of insurgency in Manipur was waged in the 1950s by renowned politician Lamyan- ba Hijam Irabot, who was a politician, artist, and leader of the communist party of India. He was in touch with the communist party of Burma and sought help for the training of the militant wing of the party, the Red Guards. His death in 1951 resulted in factions among the groups. UNLF remains Manipur's strongest separatist group and has taken armed action only since 1991. Another separatist group of the Meiteis, the Revolutionary People’s Front (RPF) and its armed wing People's Liberation Army (PLA) have also been fighting since its inception in 1976. Another rebel group Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup (KYKL) plays the moral cop to "cleanse the ills of Manipur society " by periodically shooting corrupt officials, school teachers who help students cheat or drug traffickers who peddle heroin into the state from Myanmar‘s "Golden Triangle".
Two other rebel groups the Peoples Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (PREPAK) and the Kang-leipak Communist Party (KCP) have been engaged in their pursuit for sovereignty for the last many decades. The significant factor that boosts the increasing rate of insurgency in the region is being a neighbour of Myanmar, loose border fencing which facilitates an easy movement of being a neighbour of Myanmar, loose border fencing which facilitates an easy movement of separatist leaders, easy transportation of arms and weapons and easy availability of training grounds in the wide forest of Myanmar.
One relevant example for the above statement is the so called ethnic clashes in Manipur since the 3rd of May, 2023 between the Meitei and the Kuki. The huge number of illegal immigrants from Myanmar to Manipur and the war of common people against its junta force in Myanmar play an important role in the ethnic clash of Manipur. But Manipur has several other rebel groups representing smaller tribes like the Kukis, the Paite and the Zomi groups are now actively collaborating with Indian forces to counter the Meiteis after they signed Suspension of Ooperation (SoO) agreement. Among all the North East States, Manipur alone remains the one where prevailing insurgency activities in the various parts of the State.
The States of Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh, in recent years, have witnessed some activity of insurgency, as much by homegrown groups as those operating in neighbouring states, the truncated states of Assam have been in the throes of violent insurgency unleashed by the ULFA and by groups representing the smaller tribes like the Bodos.