“The Meiteis can’t go to the hills, and the Kukis can’t come to the valley. But the drugs can still go everywhere.” This quote from the concluding part of our investigation sums up the state of Manipur after 11 months of conflict.
Till a while back, many in the Kuki-Zo political leadership backed the state’s BJP chief minister N Biren Singh, a Meitei. Several armed groups of the Kuki-Zo community also tacitly supported his government.
The narcotics trade proliferated. The prices of narcotics fell in the local markets. The volume of drug haul by authorities rose disproportionately to the state’s economy. Remember, in the narcotics business, what they catch is a small percentage of what moves through. So chew this number: In February 2020 the authorities said, over two and a half years, the government had seized drugs worth more than 20 billion rupees ($240m) and busted five drugs manufacturing makeshift factories in Manipur.
Now, wonder how big the narcotics trade in Manipur is.
“A trade of this volume can only be run with political patronage. In Manipur, politicians, traders and insurgent groups are part of the trade,” a senior retired police officer familiar with intelligence operations in the region told The Collective.
How did such a large trade in narcotics spread through a border state that has hundreds of thousands of armed forces personnel and hundreds of intelligence officials overseeing the security?
Well, back in 2022 a Manipur policeman and an Assam Rifles soldier were arrested in Guwahati with banned Yaba tablets worth 200 billion rupees ($2.4bn).
So what changed as the conflict flared up? Why did the kuki community get blamed for the drug trade? How did the dark trade get a communal colour?
And while the Kuki political leadership accused N Biren Singh’s government of giving his war on drugs a communal colour, why did many who fell out with the chief minister continue to be BJP MLAs and party members?
How has the chief minister, who was once accused of supporting an alleged drug lord from the Kuki community, become a self-anointed crusader against illicit trade?
The truth is complex and implicates the powerful in both the Meitei and Kuki-Zo communities in a complex web of politics, drug trade and insurgency, finds the second and concluding part of our investigation into the Manipur conflict.
Click here to read the concluding part of our investigation published by Al Jazeera.