Who are Manipur’s ‘Narco Terrorists’?
In the ongoing ethnic violence in Manipur, the label “narco-terrorists” has been used in what seems to be a tacit attempt to justify brutal attacks on ordinary Kuki-Zo tribal people, who are solely blamed for the state’s drug problems. This label also seems designed to hinder empathy for the tribal victims, both within the state and potentially beyond. However, at least five facts about the drug trade in this northeastern state create a different narrative—a narrative that neither any of the ethnic communities nor the ruling political party leaders would be comfortable with.
Let’s first examine the nature of the conflict.
Manipur is home to three main ethnic communities: the majority Meitei people, who reside in the Imphal Valley, and the Kuki-Zo and Naga tribes, who inhabit the surrounding hills. Another group, the Pangals, which translates to “Muslims” in the Manipuri language, also lives in the valley. Though known as “Meitei” Pangals, they maintain good relationships with both the largely Christian Kuki-Zo tribals and the majority-Hindu Meitei community, the two ethnic groups that have been at war with each other since May 3, 2023.
At least 67,000 people have been displaced, and 191 Kuki-Zo deaths have been reported over the last 16 months. Although the Meitei community has also suffered greatly, Meitei groups have not disclosed the number of their fatalities and casualties.
The violence in Manipur was preceded by an April 2023 directive from the Manipur High Court, which appeared to suggest granting tribal status to the Meitei community, which, despite being the majority community, inhabits only a minority of the state’s land area. The tribal status would allow the Meiteis to purchase land in the resource-rich hills, traditionally inhabited by the Kuki-Zo tribes, sparking fears among the Kuki-Zo of losing their ancestral lands.
About five years before the high court order, which was perceived as influenced by political considerations, Manipur Chief Minister Biren Singh declared a “War on Drugs.” The campaign was perceived as an attack on the Kuki-Zo people, as the focus has erroneously and mischievously been on poppy cultivation by the tribal community, to apparently portray them as “the villains” and “illegal immigrants”—referring to people from the tribal community who are citizens of neighbouring Myanmar and fleeing a bloody armed conflict between the military junta and local ethnic and pro-democracy militias.
This brings us to the first of the five facts that create a narrative starkly different from the claims and focus of the Manipur state government in its war on drugs.
(1) Economic necessity, rather than greed, drives poppy farming.
Those who have read Amitav Ghosh’s well-researched novel, “Sea of Poppies,” might experience déjà vu when reflecting on the poppy farmers of Manipur. Ghosh uses numerous metaphors and vivid imagery to depict the plight and low status of these farmers within the drug trade. He portrays various characters, including farmers forced into growing opium instead of food crops in East India, as powerless and marginalised within their own societies, serving the interests of the mighty British colonial rule in the country.
A study published in the Economic & Political Weekly (EPW) suggests something similar. It says poor infrastructure, government corruption and poverty have driven many in Manipur’s remote villages to poppy cultivation as a means of survival and employment.
Anyone familiar with Manipur would know that the dusty districts of Churachandpur and Kangpokpi lack industry, and the roads are consistently in poor condition—facts that serve as empirical evidence supporting the findings of the study.
Poppy plants produce opium from their sap, which is then processed to synthesise heroin.
The study points out that opium production offers additional income to villagers, especially during the off-farming season. It explains that individuals can earn 300 rupees to 400 rupees daily during the harvest season—a significant amount in rural areas.
A village chief is quoted in the study as saying that the government’s failure to provide bare minimum employment under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) has made poppy cultivation a necessary alternative for employment, engaging even women and children.
“Some of the other drivers of poppy cultivation are the need for cash to pay for children’s education, housing, and health care,” adds the study. “A number of farmers cited the declining productivity in jhum fields, stating that the income generated was insufficient to feed even an average family throughout the year.”
Further, poppy cultivators typically earn only a fraction of the final retail price of processed narcotics like heroin.
According to a farmer interviewed by Newsreel Asia, an average field can yield between 500 grams and 1 kilogram of poppy sap, which sells for about 80,000 rupees per kilogram. Poppy is typically grown and harvested once a year. The poppy planting season usually begins in October, and the harvest occurs in February or March when the flowers have matured and the seed pods are ripe. Annually, a farming family can earn a gross income of about 80,000 rupees, which translates to monthly gross earnings of only about 6,600 rupees.
The study also notes that “many farmers who are dependent upon opium for earning their livelihood are not even aware of the fact that it is illegal.”
Poppy farmers, who are rooted in their farms, are the easiest targets in the crackdown on the drug trade. If provided with a viable alternative, they are most likely to abstain from growing poppy in their fields. This brings us to the second of the five facts.
(2) Poppy cultivation isn’t behind high rates of drug addiction among local youth.
The study published in EPW, as cited above, noted that throughout the survey, it was observed that “none of the farmers cultivated poppy for domestic consumption.”
It appears to be part of propaganda that the rising drug addiction in Manipur is due to local poppy cultivation.
In a study on drug use in the northeastern states of India, the UNODC noted that in Manipur, injecting heroin, in lieu of smoking, became popular among local youths in the early 1980s, as they had developed an increased tolerance to smoking. As a result, Manipur experienced high rates of “People Living with HIV” (PLHIV) and AIDS cases. This indicates that the menace of drug addiction in the state had begun by the early 1980s at the latest, a period during which poppy was not widely cultivated locally.
It wasn’t until the early 2000s that the Kuki-Zo people in Manipur began growing poppy, according to People’s Archive of Rural India. The proliferation of this cultivation escalated a few years later.
Further, sources in the security establishment told Newsreel Asia that Manipur doesn’t have many processing units in Manipur to meet the demands for local consumption. Therefore, it is most likely that poppy sap is transported out of Manipur by the buyers.
If the drug trade in Manipur cannot be solely attributed to poppy cultivators, then who are the key players involved at higher levels of the drug trafficking network? This brings us to the third of the five facts.
(3) The most significant aspect of the drug trade in Manipur is not poppy cultivation but involves transit, which implicates all communities.
The drug trade in Manipur has historical roots, as the state is located near the infamous “Golden Triangle”—where the borders of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos meet—a region historically known for being one of the world’s most prolific opium-producing areas. Manipur shares a nearly 400-kilometre international border with Myanmar in Southeast Asia.
As other Southeast Asian nations such as Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia took stringent action against drug trafficking, Manipur became an alternative route during the late 1970s and early 1980s.
According to a 2023 report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Myanmar is one of the world’s largest producers of opium, with an estimated production of 1,080 metric tons – which could theoretically provide around 36 billion doses, assuming each dose is about 30 milligrams.
It’s not surprising, therefore, that the drug economy in Manipur – cultivation, production, transit and local consumption – is estimated at about 700 billion rupees per year ($8.37 billion), according to Lieutenant General Konsam Himalay Singh, who retired in 2017, as per The Reporters’ Collective.
Let’s now examine how significant the local consumption and poppy cultivation are within this drug economy.
Let’s say a drug addict in Manipur spends about 200 rupees a day; the annual expenditure of that addict would be 73,000 rupees. If there are 150,000 addicts – as claimed by the Manipur Chief Minister on Sept. 1, as per The Sentinel – then their total annual spending would be about 11 billion rupees.
Now, let’s examine the value of poppy cultivated in Manipur over the past five years.
Although the majority of the poppy fields have been destroyed in recent months, as sources in the security establishment told Newsreel Asia, we can estimate the worth based on previous cultivation levels.
Of the 15,497 acres of land where poppy cultivation was identified over the past five years, 13,122 acres were in Kuki-Zo-dominated areas, 2,340 acres in Naga-dominated areas, and 35 acres in other regions, according to Manipur’s Narcotics and Affairs of Border, as reported by NDTV.
If we estimate that one acre can produce about 5 kilograms of raw opium per year, and the price per kilogram is 80,000 rupees, then the annual worth of poppy cultivated on 15,497 acres would be around 6.2 billion rupees.
If we combine the local consumption (11 billion rupees) and local production (6.2 billion rupees), the total amounts to 17.2 billion rupees—a fraction (2.5%) of the 700-billion-rupee drug economy. This indicates that a significant portion of the drug trade involves the transit of drugs from Myanmar through Manipur, with drugs in its various stages both leaving and entering the country, as also indicated in a 2020 study by Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime.
To illustrate the scale of the drug trade, narcotics worth more than 16 billion rupees were seized by the Assam Rifles alone between July 2022 and July 2023 in Manipur, The Economic Times reported.
Now that we know that the drug trade is not just about poppy cultivation, let’s look at the involvement of individuals and groups from various communities of Manipur.
The arrest data with local law enforcement shows that since 2017, at least 2,518 arrests had been made in drug-related cases – which included 1,083 Pangals, 873 Kuki-Zo individuals, 381 Meiteis and 181 others, according to The Economic Times.
Further, K. Meghachandra, former superintendent of Narcotics and Border Affairs, who now serves as the police superintendent of Bishnupur district, told The Reporter’s Collective in June 2023 that Kuki-Zo individuals are primarily involved in poppy cultivation, Pangal individuals process the poppy, and Meitei individuals are mainly engaged as transporters of these drugs. However, this phenomenon does not reflect the intrinsic cultures or values of these communities; rather, it is a consequence of their geographic, social and economic circumstances.
It’s common sense that it’s easier for security personnel to crack down on processing units and poppy cultivation, both of which are geographically traceable, than on transportation, which can utilise numerous routes to avoid interception. Thus, while the numbers of arrests cited above do indicate the involvement of individuals from the Pangal, Kuki-Zo and Meitei communities, they may not accurately reflect their actual levels of involvement in the drug trade.
In the drug trade, the most profit typically accrues to those higher up in the trafficking networks—drug cartels and high-level traffickers, and wholesalers and mid-level distributors—who are often far removed from the initial production stages.
Considering the overall marginalisation of the Pangals in Manipur, anyone familiar with the state would suggest that individuals from this community could not be positioned higher up in the trafficking networks.
In a tweet in February 2023, the Special Cell of Delhi Police stated that they had arrested two “key supplier of [Itocha] International Narco Drug Cartel,” identifying them as Ranbir Singh, also known as Tinku, and Loyangamba Itocha, which is a Meitei name. The police recovered 50 kilograms of opium, worth more than 100 million rupees in the international market, being brought from Manipur.
Just as an example, the name of another significant player – from the Kuki-Zo community – is mentioned in the fifth fact.
Therefore, while a crackdown on poppy cultivation is a noble pursuit, making it the prime focus seems to be nothing less than political targeting under the guise of the war on drugs. This brings us to the fourth of the five facts.
(4) Insurgent groups across various factions are also involved in the drug trade.
Manipur has several insurgent groups, which can be categorised into two main types: the valley-based insurgent groups (VBIGs), which are predominantly Meitei groups seeking the independence of Manipur from India, and the Kuki-Zo insurgent groups, which are fighting for a separate state within India. Most of the Kuki-Zo groups have entered into a tripartite peace agreement with the central and state governments, known as the Suspension of Operations (SoO).
According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, VBIGs allegedly involved in the drug trade to fund their activities include Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup (KYKL), People’s Liberation Army of Manipur (PLA), and United National Liberation Front (UNLF).
Similarly, non-SoO and SoO Kuki-Zo groups have also been accused of involvement in the drug trade.
For instance, in October 2023, NDTV reported that Lemtinsei Singson, a commander of the United Tribal Liberation Army (UTLA), which is part of the Kuki National Organisation (KNO), was arrested in Manipur for alleged drug trafficking.
However, there are also recent reports of Kuki-Zo and Meitei armed insurgent groups cracking down on the drug trade.
For example, 25 Kuki-Zo insurgent groups released a statement in July 2024, pledging to take a “united stand” to eliminate the cultivation of opium, drug trafficking and drug abuse, as reported by Deccan Herald.
Similarly, some VBIGs have intercepted narcotics in transit and have extra-judicially punished Meitei individuals accused of involvement in the drug trade, according to reports in local media.
Sources in the security establishment explained that the actions of these groups against the drug trade are motivated by the contentious nature of the war on drugs in the state, which has led to counter-allegations from both the Kuki-Zo and the Meiteis. Both communities hold expectations from the central government regarding the larger conflict over land and identity. However, it remains uncertain whether this initiative will be sustained in the future.
The involvement of insurgent groups in the drug trade is far less surprising than the fifth fact, which creates an uncomfortable narrative for the state government—the main entity responsible for curbing the drug trade.
(5) High-level state politicians have been implicated in the drug trade.
In August 2021, Congress party leader Jairam Ramesh made an accusation against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Manipur of diverting its quota of urea to the state’s hill districts, where poppy is allegedly grown for opium production, according to The New Indian Express.
Urea helps poppy plants to grow faster and healthier, leading to more robust plants.
In a tweet, titled “BJP’s Vikas in Manipur,” Ramesh wrote: “Manipur is getting TWICE the supply of urea it needs and yet farmers complain of shortage! Why? Because urea is diverted to hill areas in Manipur, where poppy is being grown for opium in large areas in last 4 yrs. The State Govt is fully complicit in this.”
The allegation came four years after a team of police officials raided the residence of the then BJP member and alleged drug lord from the Kuki-Zo community, Lhukhosei Zou, in Chandel district.
In 2022, Thounaojam Brinda, who was serving as the Additional Superintendent of Police in the Narcotics and Affairs of Border Bureau, filed a revealing affidavit to the Manipur High Court. In it, she accused the Chief Minister, Mr. Singh, of pressuring her to drop the case against Zou, former head of the Autonomous District Council.
Brinda claimed in the affidavit that Asnikumar Moirangthem, the state BJP vice president, visited her three times on the day Zou was arrested, requesting her to drop the case, according to The News Minute. She added that Asnikumar called her even while the raid operation was underway.
“Asnikumar told me that the arrested Autonomous District Council (ADC) member was Chief Minister’s wife Olice’s right-hand man in Chandel and that Olice was furious about the arrest,” read the affidavit.
Zou, although he was expelled from the BJP, was subsequently acquitted.
Locally called Lady Singham, Brinda resigned in protest, and returned her gallantry award, as reported by Hindustan Times.
“In recognition for this case as part of the Hon’ble Chief Minister’s ‘War against Drugs,’ I was conferred the Chief Minister’s Police Medal for Gallantry on the occasion of Patriots’ Day,13th August,2018,” Brinda, now a politician with the Janata Dal (United), wrote in a letter to the chief minister, who also holds the home portfolio. “... I feel morally inclined that I have not conducted my duty as ‘per the wishes’ of the Criminal Justice Delivery System of the land. Hence, for the reasons cited above, I do not consider myself deserving of the honour bestowed upon me by your good self. I, therefore, return the same to the state Home Department so that it may be given to a more deserving and loyal police officer.”
In August 2023, Brinda told The News Minute, “When Biren Singh interfered in the arrest and conviction of Zou, it sent a clear message that he wanted the situation to continue in the same manner as before. This hardened my resolve to leave the service.” Brinda’s statement perhaps sums up the nature of the war on drugs in Manipur.
Based on these five facts, it appears that no single community in Manipur is in a moral position to point fingers at the others. What’s needed is not a blame game or targeting of one community, but professionalism in state agencies and a reputation for sincerity and public service—qualities that seem to be lacking in Manipur.
