Manipur Congress MP Bimol Akoijam called for taking the Manipur crisis "more seriously"
Ten minutes before midnight on Monday, Manipur groups and channels on social media buzzed with messages with a link to Sansad TV's YouTube channel - "oja wa ngag doure (professor is about to speak)". They had been expecting Manipur Congress MP Angomcha Bimol Akoijam to speak for the first time in parliament - actually, any MP from the state to speak in the house after a long, long time.
Mr Akoijam, who teaches at the Centre for the Study of Social Systems in Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University, found his turn at last after a day of high-decibel exchanges between the ruling National Democratic Alliance leaders and the Opposition.
"Keep your hands on your heart and think about the 60,000 people who are languishing in relief camps, and those mothers, those widows, think of them and then you talk about nationalism. Only then we will understand what this tragedy means," Mr Akoijam said.
"The hurt, the anger has thrown a nobody like me to be a part of this temple of democracy, beating the BJP cabinet minister. Think about the pain," he said, and questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his "silence" on the Manipur ethnic violence.
Two days later, on Wednesday, PM Modi brought up the Manipur issue in the Rajya Sabha.
But before that, on Monday night, Manipur groups and channels on social media exploded with congratulatory messages - "We have sent the right person to parliament. Oja hasn't disappointed us."
"It was a goosebump moment for everyone back in Manipur. Oja's 'a nobody like me' comment hit people hard because he was, indeed, a nobody in politics before this election," an aide of the Inner Manipur constituency told NDTV, requesting anonymity.
Manipur Issues In Parliament
Manipur groups say though Mr Akoijam's "fiery speech" took everyone by surprise, other MPs from Manipur before him had also raised issues in parliament critical to the state in the last five years, and in the preceding years, albeit in a much lower decibel.
Former Inner Manipur BJP MP Rajkumar Ranjan Singh, for example, had fiercely opposed including Manipur under the Citizenship Amendment Act when the bill had come up for discussion. "... If this law is enacted [in Manipur too], there will be a huge influx of migrants into the state. Supporting the sentiment of my people, I strongly demand the exemption of this law from Manipur..." Mr Ranjan had said in parliament in November 2019. Eventually, CAA was exempted from all states in the northeast.
Many young people who had volunteered for Mr Akoijam's campaign said they never believed he would win. A lot of them worked day jobs, and came from other cities at their own expense. But after the professor defeated BJP candidate and state Education Minister T Basanta Kumar Singh by over one lakh votes, a wave of discussions began on Manipur online forums where people talked about selecting more "nobodies" in the assembly election due in 2027.
"The new-generation civil society organisations are not weighed down by legacy issues and compulsion, political or otherwise, and so are able to voice the concerns of the common people in Manipur," a key member of a media-savvy civil society group that worked for Mr Akoijam's campaign told NDTV.
Mr Akoijam peppered his short but loud and intense speech with references to what he claimed was a perception that the northeast, especially Manipur, has been a neglected region. The proof, the Inner Manipur Congress MP said, was right in front of the public: "I must remind the house that each and every square centimetre of Manipur is covered by central forces; it is one of the most militarised areas of this country where you have more armed policemen than the civil police, besides the armed forces of the Union. Despite this, how is it that 60,000 people were rendered homeless and villages in thousands were destroyed?"
PM Modi Responds
PM Modi - speaking on the Manipur crisis for the first time in parliament - launched a scathing attack on the Opposition for "politicising" the sensitive issue, and said the Centre is committed to bringing normalcy in the state. Violence has been declining and schools have reopened in most parts of the state, he told the Rajya Sabha.
In a sharp rejoinder to the Congress, PM Modi said the state had seen President's rule 10 times in the past. "Those who are raking up the issue [now] had abandoned it. One day, Manipur will reject you," the Prime Minister said.
Soon after PM Modi's speech, Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh of the ruling BJP in a post on X said the crisis that Manipur is seeing today is not the first the state has gone through. "A situation like this has happened in Manipur in 1993 and the unrest lasted for five years..." Mr Singh said, alluding to the Naga-Kuki clashes that killed nearly 700 people.
Manipur BJP MLA Rajkumar Imo Singh in a post on X said Mr Akoijam did not address the "core issues of illegal immigrants, SoO, and NRC, among others", referring to the controversial tripatriate suspension of operations (SoO) agreement signed between the Centre, state and 25-odd Kuki insurgent groups, and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) which should contain the names of only Indian citizens, which will help identify and deport illegal immigrants.
The BJP MLA, who's the son-in-law of the Chief Minister, faced criticism from a section of people in Manipur over what they claimed was unhelpful comments at a time when any leader from the crisis-hit state talking in parliament about what's going on back home should be given non-partisan support.
Manipur's other MP is Alfred Kanngam Arthur, who won from the Outer Manipur (Scheduled Tribes) seat.
The ethnic violence that began in May 2023 between the valley-dominant Meitei community and nearly two dozen tribes known as Kukis - a term given by the British in colonial times - who are dominant in some hill areas of Manipur, has killed over 220 people and internally displaced nearly 50,000.
The general category Meiteis want to be included under the Scheduled Tribes category, while the nearly two dozen tribes that share ethnic ties with people in neighbouring Myanmar's Chin State and Mizoram want a separate administrative carved out of Manipur, citing discrimination and unequal share of resources and power with the Meiteis.