Over 110 former civil servants on Sunday urged the Central government to impose President’s rule in Manipur, saying that situation in the state has snowballed into a dangerous, internecine ethnic conflict.

The former bureaucrats said that the Manipur conflict not only threatens to tear apart the social fabric of the state but also “questions the spirit of harmony and fraternity that is the foundation of India’s unity in diversity”.

Manipur has been witnessing ethnic clashes between the Kuki and the majority Meitei communities since May 3. At least 187 people have been killed and nearly 60,000 have been forced to flee their homes.

Opposition parties have held the BJP governments in Manipur and at the Centre responsible for failing to contain the violence. Their criticism was bolstered after a video showing two Kuki women being paraded naked was widely shared on social media on July 19.

The parties have also been demanding a statement by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the violence in Manipur in Parliament, followed by a longer discussion. However, the Modi-led government has agreed to a short-duration discussion.

On Sunday, the former bureaucrats said that the N Biren Singh-led state government and the police have failed to protect the life and property of citizens.

“This has created the conditions for a complete breakdown of law and order, with a deliberately orchestrated and targeted carnage that has included large-scale arson, lynching, collective rape, vandalism, looting, mob violence and obstruction of central security forces from carrying out their duties, followed by armed attacks and retaliation by both communities,” the former civil servants said.

Meitei community members and supporters during a protest at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on August 6.

They said that the “double-edged” ban on the internet in the state has prevented the horror and scale of the violence from coming out, while also providing grist to rumour-mongering and the spread of fake news.

Further, the bureaucrats also raised alarm over the incidents of arms being looted from police stations and also accused Singh of giving patronage to shadowy violent Meitei groups, who have been allegedly involved in several incidents of violence in the state since May.

“What lends credence to the charge of the chief minister being partisan in his approach to tackling the tragedy is his demonisation and targeting of one community as ‘illegal migrants’, ‘poppy cultivators’, ‘encroachers’, ‘narco-terrorists’ and ‘terrorists’,” the former civil servants said. “These “dog whistles”, which tend to smear an entire community, have served to excite the passions of the majority community [Meitei] to which the chief minister belongs.”

The former bureaucrats, who are part of the Constitutional Conduct Group, said that the Central government also lost a golden opportunity to involve the Opposition in trying to arrive at a political solution to the problem.

“Political expediency has won out: we are witness to the spectacle of a non-functioning parliament at a time of crisis, with the prime minister making no statement in Parliament on the Manipur crisis, which would enable the initiation of a dialogue on the issue,” the civil servants said.

They also called upon the Centre to provide relief and rehabilitation measures as well as compensation to those adversely affected in a nonpartisan manner.

“We earnestly entreat the government of India as well as other stakeholders not to let issues of prestige and political expediency inform actions, when the imperatives of both internal peace and external security warrant mature responses,” they said. “We must all realise that if India loses, no one wins.”

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