For the past 6 months, Manipur has been witnessing an ethnic conflict b/w the majority Meitei community & Kuki-Zo tribes.
After May 3, while killings continued, different machinery worked hard to define the narrative around the conflict.
Social media platforms like X and Instagram were flooded with info, disinformation, hate, claims of victimhood and requests for solidarity.
All this EVEN as internet services remained suspended.
How was this possible? Who were the ppl posting and why?
Before I tell you what I found over 2 months, which was published by @AJEnglish and @reporters_co, I have a request.
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The story starts in a partially constructed building in the Kuki-dominated Churachandpur.
At the peak of the conflict & internet shutdown in June, I was taken there after a day on the field. In a dimly lit room, ppl sat with laptops and phones. They were on the internet.
Illegally leased phone line connections were also being used in Meitei-dominated Imphal to access the net.
Social media became so essential in the perception war from the get-go that over a hundred X accounts mushroomed just in the first week of May after the violence began.
The good people at the Narrative Research Lab and I analysed over 2700 X handles, which @sarabjotonx and @sundeepnarwani's team had painstakingly mapped from a list of 9 prominent pro-Kuki and 9 prominent pro-Meitei handles.
Here's what that analysis threw up: More than half of the Kuki-affiliated handles (51 per cent) were created on or after May 3. In the case of Meitei-affiliated handles, 40 per cent were created on or after May 3.
An analysis @joyopal & @SheyrilAgarwal shared with @reporters_co also corroborated this.
They further analysed 2,765,151 tweets relating to Manipur from May 1 to June 5 and found evidence of coordinated activity.
Only 11.6 per cent of the 2,765,151 tweets relating to Manipur from May 1 to June were original posts.
Their research showed that Kuki-affiliated accounts had a higher repost-to-impression ratio (used to detect coordinated activity) than the pro-Meitei tweet set.
So, what does this all mean? Simply put, the Kuki-Zo community came together more quickly to set the narrative of the day (this ofc against a context of conflict & extreme strife).
Pro-Meitei handles got into the game later but were soon posting actively & aggressively.
The hashtags being used by pro-Kuki and pro-Meitei accounts aligned with their political demands and posturing.
The most significant question in all this is what purpose this perception war online served. Did social media affect the ground realities during the conflict Manipur?
Earlier reports uncovered how ppl in the hills and the valley managed to circumvent the internet suspension in Manipur.
[Read @gerryshih & @AnantGuptaAG's deep dive on the internet blackout]
Going beyond, I focused on the role of social media.
The early days of the conflict in Manipur were marked by disinformation campaigns on social media that reinforced hostilities &, in a few cases, led to more atrocities.
Also, in at least 2 instances, SM became a sure accelerant in the conflict between Meiteis and Kukis.
The first was when the horrific video of the Kuki-Zo women being paraded naked went viral leading to global outrage. It led to protests and even finally forced PM Modi to, after over a month of silence, talk about Manipur.
The second time would be September 25.
On September 25, just as I was about to leave Manipur following my 3rd visit, I received a forward with images of 2 Meitei students who had been abducted earlier.
In one of the pictures, the students were slumped on the ground presumably dead. Hours later, Imphal saw violent protests.
So, who were the social media warriors leading the perception war from the Kuki-Zo and Meitei sides and what were their motivations?
Of the 4 popular X handles I spoke to, 3 had been created after the start of the conflict.
“99% of all my tweets are about spreading awareness about what’s happening in Manipur and about the ethnic cleansing that has been going on against the Kuki-Zo community," @SiamPhaipi, a 33-y-o advocate of the Kuki-Zo community told me.
Then there was @meiteiheritage, which since its creation in May hv gained a whopping 35.4k followers. Their intention, they said, was to counter what they believe is a “pre-planned false narrative" being woven around the conflict.
The need for this kind of perception war on social media has further been facilitated by a state and centre govt, that only remained reactionary to online outrage.
As experts pointed out to me, the govt was doing little to curb the vitriol being spread online.
When the State had melted away only civilians & leaders of communities were left to defend themselves, on the ground & online.
So, while the blame-game between the communities continues, we must ask why the govt let online hate spread unhindered even as they suspended the net.
I'm very grateful to Narrative Research Lab led by @sarabjotonx & @sundeepnarwani and researchers @joyopal & @SheyrilAgarwal for working their magic with the data. Lastly, a big thank you to my sources from Manipur for showing me their world in these trying times.
