It is absolutely our internal matter: India ahead of debate in EU parliament on Manipur situation

The Meitei-Kuki conflict in Manipur is an internal matter of India, New Delhi has conveyed to the members of the European Parliament, which may discuss a proposed resolution on the situation in the northeastern state even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to visit France on Thursday and Friday.

Several members of the European Parliament have moved motions seeking discussion on the situation of Manipur in India during the ongoing plenary session of the lower house of the bicameral legislature of the European Union in Strasbourg in eastern France. They demanded the inclusion of a discussion on the situation in India’s northeastern state in the agenda for a debate on “cases of breaches of human rights, democracy and the rule of law”.

“We made a reach-out to the concerned EU parliamentarians,” Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra told journalists in New Delhi on Wednesday. “We made it very clear that this is a matter absolutely internal to India.”

Also Read | Taking best efforts to safeguard people's rights, considering all claims to bring in normalcy, Manipur tells SC

He was briefing media-persons about the prime minister’s visit to Paris on an invitation from French President Emmanuel Macron.

Kwatra said that New Delhi was aware of the move in the European Parliament for a discussion on the situation in Manipur.

With the move within the European Parliament coming just on the eve of the prime minister’s visit to Paris, New Delhi engaged a lobbying farm, Alber & Geiger, to reach out to the MEPs and convey to them that the matter was an internal matter for India.

A fierce ethnic clash between the majority Meiteis and the minority Kuki and Zo tribal communities started on May 3 last. The clashes started after the High Court ordered the Bharatiya Janata Party’s government in the state to take a decision on granting the Scheduled Tribe status to the Meiteis within four weeks. The Kuki and Zo tribal communities took out a protest march as they feared the ST status for the Meiteis might cut into their own shares in the reservation pie. Nearly 130 people have been killed so far, 1000 others injured and countless people were displaced due to the continuing conflict.

The members of the European Parliament belonging to the Left, the Greens, the S&D (the Socialists and Democrats) and the Renew groups moved separate motions seeking discussion on the inter-ethnic clashes in Manipur in India.

Even the centre-right groups of MEPs, like the People’s Party of Europe and the European Conservatives and Reformist groups, sought a debate on the issue.

The motions moved by the groups of the MEPs accused the government of India of escalating its systematic discrimination and stigmatization on religious and national minorities, particularly Muslims.

They alleged that political leaders and public authorities in India explicitly advocated hatred towards these minorities with impunity whereas peaceful protesters defending minority rights were stigmatised.

They accused the government of supporting Manipur’s majority community and of stoking the ethnic divisions in the state. They also alleged that the government was restricting free expression, peaceful assembly, and other basic rights in Jammu and Kashmir and intensified efforts to silence opposition members, civil society activists and independent journalists. The proposed resolution seeks to strongly condemn the intensifying and systematic attacks, discrimination, and persecution against groups targeted due to their religion, caste, ethnicity and public opinion.

Modi’s landmark state visit to Washington DC had also come under a bit of a shadow in the wake of former United States president Barack Obama’s comment on the need to protect the rights of the Muslims in Hindu-majority India.