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Manipur government has to wrest authority back from armed thugs by Abheek Barman

Here in Delhi, you can buy a litre of petrol for a little less than Rs 69. A cylinder of cooking gas costsRs 405. But there's one state capital where petrol costs Rs 200 a litre and gas a staggeringRs 2,000 a cylinder. That city is Imphal, the capital of our easternmost state, Manipur. Since August 1, the state has been hostage to a withering siege: a blockage of two main highways that connect Imphal to Assam. 

Both pass through territories where ethnic Naga and Kuki people, who consider themselves different from Manipur's majority Meiteis, live. These communities want parts of their areas to get some sort of autonomy from the state government. 

Their way of pushing their demands is to hold up commercial traffic on highways. So, it's not just petrol and diesel that are in short supply; even stocks of medicines are drying up. Now, think about this: where else in India could you have a bunch - or three - of people holding up traffic on the main arterial highways for more than three months? 

Could it happen in Bihar or Bengal or Uttar Pradesh or Tamil Nadu? It couldn't. But the fact that it's happening in Manipur proves several things. One, even though Manipur has a democratically-elected government, it has totally failed to curb the powers of the goons who impose the blockade and heap misery on the majority of its people. 

Two, the powers and legitimacy of civil government in Manipur have been eroded systematically by many different forces, one of which is the military establishment, which enjoys powers that would be unimaginable in most other states. 

Three, these extraordinary powers are enshrined under a law called the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), first drafted by the British to curb the movement of 1942, later dusted up and slapped on the northeastern states in 1958 to curb the first Naga movement for separation. 

Four, because of these things, Manipur has among the worst human rights records among all states in India. In 2008 alone, around 485 people were killed in the state in what the home ministry calls 'insurgency-related fatalities'. This was the highest among all the northeastern states, including Nagaland, where the figure was less than half of Manipur's death toll. 

Five, the people of Manipur do not like the idea of the military lording it over them and have said so in many ways. The most expressive voice has been that of Irom Sharmila Chanu, who has been on a fast demanding the repeal of the Act. She is force-fed in prison by tubes through her nose and is released from prison one day every year, to be immediately rearrested. 

This November, Sharmila's protest completed 11 years. Six, the combination of weak civil institutions, an all-powerful military and simmering militancy has led to an almost complete breakdown of what we consider normal life in Manipur. At one count, there were 34 militant organisations in the state. This number is not stable or sacrosanct: militant outfits constantly splinter and coalesce. 

What do these outfits want? Their demands are varied, from autonomy along clan or tribal lines to plain extortion. One organisation, called the Senapati District Students' Association, used to stop vehicles at gunpoint, take money and even issue a receipt for payment received. The only constant is the presence of weapons with these folks. Seven, the geographical location of Manipur is crucial to understand its peculiar problems. 

It shares a long border with Burma. The areas close to Manipur on the other side of the border are the Kachin and Shan states, near-autonomous territories in Burma that are only loosely administered by its government. For decades, the principal revenue sources in this wild place have been guns and drugs. A bit of both find their way into Manipur, one thing that helps explain the epidemic of drug-addiction that swept the state in the late 1990s, after cross-border movement was liberalised. 

Now, Manipur cannot just get up from its uncomfortable location on the map and move to someplace more salubrious. It has to solve its problems with a little help from others and get to where most of the other northeastern states are: stability, peace and growth. There's a joke in Manipur: a man comes home with two live fish and asks his wife to cook them for dinner. "There's no kerosene or gas for the stove and no money for firewood. Go, throw the fish back in the water," she says. 

As the man throws the fish back in the water, the fish shout, "Ibobi Singh zindabad." Now, chief minister Okram Ibobi Singh has to start reclaiming authority from the thugs by breaking the roadblock. This is not difficult: there are laws that allow state governments to do these things, and Ibobi Singh needs to leverage his executive authority to do this. New Delhi must strengthen Singh by repealing the AFSPA in Manipur. 

In recent years, the military has been moved from some of the more peaceful areas and insurgency deaths have actually fallen: in 2010, the number was down to 134; higher than Nagaland's, but lower than Assam's. This will break the ice between people and government. Irom Sharmila will come out of jail to a hero's welcome. She should be welcomed back into the mainstream, either in politics or as a leader of civil society movements.

This is extremely important: in Meitei society, women play a very important role as organisers of things as diverse as protest rallies and weekly markets. The thugs will have to be disarmed. That has to be done by the state police, the administration and civilian pressure groups. This will not be easy, but Assam and Nagaland prove that it can be done.