Isolation Ward

Blockade of a northeastern Indian state

One state’s secession struggle is another’s unwelcome encroachment

New Delhi, May 21 : A grim prospect looms for Dr Mohen Singh, superintendent of the biggest hospital in Imphal, capital of Manipur, in India’s remote northeast.

Since early April, when protesters blocked the two highways linking Manipur to the rest of India, supplies of medicine have dwindled. On May 10th Dr Singh directed his staff to halt all but emergency operations.

A day later the government airlifted in emergency supplies of rice and medicine. But oxygen canisters cannot be transported by air. In a fortnight, even life-saving surgery will be impossible.

Life in Manipur, wracked by insurgency and under a draconian act giving special powers to the armed forces, is never easy.

The blockade has made it even more perilous. It was started on April 11th by Naga tribes people, in protest at Manipur’s announcement of local elections in Naga-inhabited areas of the state later this month.

Nagas live in several states besides their own, Nagaland. They have fought a six-decade insurgency for an autonomous “Greater Nagaland” including chunks of Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.

A ceasefire with the government has largely held since 1997. But successive rounds of peace talks have yielded little. Non-Naga Manipuri's, however, who have their own violent secessionist movement, are alarmed by Naga ambitions.

The blockade was given new impetus earlier this month when Manipur’s government stopped Thuingaleng Muivah, the leader of the separatist group with which the government signed the ceasefire, from visiting the Manipuri village where he was born. This sparked violent protests in Mao, a town near the Nagaland-Manipur border.

Mr Muivah planned to address large rallies. He made the unsettling assurance that “we will not claim anything which belongs to the Meiteis”, ie, Manipur’s majority group. Manipur’s harsh response to his planned visit has inflamed Naga secessionists. Mr Muivah, a 75-year-old former guerrilla, has meanwhile dug in his heels and is camping with his followers near the border. Manipur badly needs compromise as well as oxygen.

[ via The Economist Print Edition ]

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