 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. I'm Paranjoy Guha Takurtha. I'm at the India International Centre and with me is senior journalist Patricia Mukhim. Patricia Mukhim, she's the editor of the Shillong Times and she's been a journalist from 1987. She has travelled all across the northeastern part of India and she understands the complexities of the situation in Manipur. I'm going to talk to her only about Manipur. Talk to her about what are the reasons why we've seen this terrible situation in Manipur from the 3rd of May. Patricia, thank you very much for giving us your time and the viewers of NewsClick. There are various descriptions being given to what has happened in Manipur in the last few months. Some people are calling it ethnic cleansing. Others have described it as a civil war. How would you describe what has happened in Manipur from early May? Well, see the ethnic tensions in all of the northeast, all of the northeastern states which has about 238 ethnic communities, has always been there. Whether you look at Meghalaya, whether you look at in Meghalaya today, you have Khasis and Garos not able to, you know, to resolve the issue of reservations. So similarly in Manipur, it's a question of land. As everyone knows very well, the May days with the 53% population are restricted to the valley which has only one tent of the land surface of that state. The rest 90% of the land is inhabited by the Kuki Zoo, Chin people and the Nagas, the different Nagas tribes. So there has always been this tension about why should people, people who are indigenous to a state, be considered residents of the hills and residents of the valleys. Moreover, people from the hills are able to buy land, property in the valley, but it's not the same for the people from the valley, they cannot buy land in the hills. So I, and I think this came in with the British, you know, the British had this divide and rule policy which they executed to perfection. In 1891, when they, they captured the Kangla Fort, the famous fort of the Manipur Kings. And by 1907, they brought in this law which separated the hills from the valleys. Perhaps the British realized that the valley was fertile, they could get revenue from there. Whereas the hills were completely, you know, jungle undeveloped and inhabited by people they would like to call in the savages, yeah, which is why they created, they created the inaligned permit. So this is a British legacy which we never resolved when there was time. And perhaps, you know, once we attained our independence, there were, there were too many fronts to deal with. And that little place called India's, I call it India's, not East, not East India, didn't really demand so much attention. Even when the Chinese came and attacked us in 1962, we were so ill equipped to deal with that. So you can imagine the situation and they didn't also, the rulers, the new rulers of India didn't also understand the politics of the region. Okay, let me stop you here and go, take a few steps back to what you had described. These numbers that you're giving us are all from the 2011 census, because we haven't had a census after that. According to the 2011 census, the total population of the state of Manipur was around 28.55 lakhs. Now, out of this, about 53% are Maitreys and they are in that valley, Devpal valley around the Lokta clinic. And 90% of the area, the land area of the state is occupied by roughly 43% of the population. There are 10 hill districts and they are largely cookies and nagas. Let me ask you to talk a little bit about not just the ethnic aspect, but the religious aspect. Why? It is commonly known that the Maitreys are by and large Hindus, Vaishnavites, whereas those who are in the hills, the cookies, the nagas, a substantial proportion of them are Christians. So the religious angle has also been highlighted in recent reports. How do you see the meshing or the interplay of the ethnic divide with the religious divide? Because the number of churches burned, but almost about over 200 of them. Many people would not like to look at this conflict in Manipur as a religious conflict or as a Hindutva induced conflict. But considering that you have organizations like Mithaili Pune whose leader Pramod Singh was actually a BVP member in Gujarat. That's a student swing of the Bharti Janta Party, Akhil Bharti Vidhyarthi Parish. He was in Gujarat. He was in Gujarat. He became a member there. Then he came back and then had his own gathers and he very overtly says that he owes his loyalty to Biran Singh, the chief minister, like a hero to them. And they have these arms training and all kinds of things. So we cannot rule out the religious angle completely. So Patricia, the point I want to make, a lot of people, we are far away and it's almost as if Manipur is a different part of the world. A lot of people see that one of the important reasons why there was a sudden and unexpected conflict akin to a civil war, it was triggered off by a judgment of the High Court of Manipur on the 27th of March by Chief Justice M. V. Murli Dharan. And correct me if I've understood it correctly, he said that the government, the state government, should consider including the Mates and the list of tribes in the schedule, list of scheduled tribes. And that would naturally mean that they would get certain advantages, certain kinds of benefits which they were earlier not getting. What happened between the 27th of March when this judgment came? And remember the judge said you consider it for inclusion and I think they were given a deadline of July 27. What happened that resulted in this conflict, violence, erupting on the 3rd of May? What happened in between? I'd like you to explain this please. This High Court judgment which many think is the trigger point actually is only one of the triggers because there has already been a lot of uneasiness within the Biran Singh led government, the BJP led government in Manipur. There were a lot of dissensions. There were a group of Maitre Mle's, BJP Mle's who resigned their respective post, chairperson of the Manipur Tourism Corporation, state planning board and so on and so forth. They were not happy perhaps for not being included in the government and their grouses also that they were given those positions but they weren't given in any work. So they felt quite worthless. Then again there were those 12 hooky Mle's who went to Delhi camped there and they were BJP and they said that we want a change of head of government. We want a change of chief minister. And there are many reasons for that because before that this gentleman, Mr. Valte who was the chief minister's advisor, when he went and met the chief minister on the 4th of May I think, he was attacked very, very, I mean he was tormented, he was electrocuted and now he's in Delhi, he's a vegetable. He's in hospital. He's in hospital. At the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. So this man at one point of time had said that Biran Singh is our saviour and the reason is because Biran Singh had been tackling the drug mafia. So this was a cookie gentleman saying Biran Singh is our saviour, a messiah. So we don't really know what went wrong but in the month of March again, he was beaten up right there in the heart of Impal. He was pulled out. The driver who was a mate was told to run away. So he ran away for his life. That man was tortured. He almost died. I mean they electrocuted him. I don't know what all they used. And you know, there have been a series of such violent attacks on that young cookie volunteer guard who was, whose head was savoured of his hands and his hands were cut. His body was cut into pieces and then burned and then you can literally see bones being collected and kept at one place. The cruelty is beyond description. You know, the cruelty inflicted on some of these cookies or people. Then the latest was when they killed that lyricist and singer. He was also a village volunteer. He has five children. He died because of a bomb explosion. And also because there was no ready sort of assistance, health assistance there. They had to take him all the way to Mizo Ram. He died on the way. So, you know, the narrative of Manipur is being created by both sides to show both as victims. But I think we in the media need to be much more analytical. Okay. I'm going to come to the media and the role of the media. But let me once again, take a few steps back and look at the roots of the problem. You said that the roots of the problem really began with the British. No, I also need to say this before I forget that in March again of this year, Biran Singh suddenly cancelled the suspension of operation agreement with the cookie militants. I mean, no reasons were given for that. And that created a lot of heartburn. Then in the valley, you have Meite militants. These had not given up arms. They were under no peace treaty. But the Armed Forces Special Powers Act was removed from large, several districts of Manipur, several police stations. The Armed Forces Special Powers Act. But they did not remove that in the hills. Even when the suspension of operations was there, dogs were going on. They still didn't remove that from the hills. Okay. So, since we are talking about this aspect of it, let me continue. May I ask you something that has happened, which has never happened before. Correct me if I'm wrong, at least 3,500 weapons have been looted. They've been looted from the armed forces, from the paramilitary forces, from the police, from the armories. And this means that if so many weapons, including AK-47 rifles, etc., are today in the hands of different kinds of people, this has made the situation absolutely volatile. Absolutely. Yes. In fact, General Himalaya Singh retired. He had said that any state or any country or any community holding so many firearms with them, there's bound to be conflict. You cannot help that. And the fact is that even until August, the arms looting was going on. The report by this group, this group had its journalists there for a long time. And they were following this. So, even up to August, arms were looted, 45 vehicles came and looted the arms from the IRB, Indian Reserve Battalion II armories. And they just went away. There was no resistance. And these arms have not been recovered? No, no. Some very few have been recovered, but compared to the arms that have been looted. More than 3,000? Yeah. No, 3,000 is a very decent number. You think it's more than 3,000? Much more. I mean, I've been reading much more than that. It's a 3,500 or 3,000, but you say it could be more than that. Yeah, it's more than that because 3,000 was at the first instance. That was on May 4th when it happened in the police armories. And about 19 or about 35 police armories have been looted. So this number is much more? Yeah. That's a very, very dangerous situation. And they have not just guns, but bombs and grenades and all kinds of things. Ammunition. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to ask you to describe what is happening today in greater detail, including what is happening in the relief camps, the whole issue of those ghastly videos where we show women being stripped naked and gang raped. Before that, let me go back a little bit in time. I want you to explain a little bit. You said that many of the problems, ethnic problems that we see in Manipur today is a legacy of the British, of the colonial rule, the inaligned permit and so on. Manipur became an independent state in 1972. But before that, in 1960, there was a law which was called the Manipur Land Revenue and Land Reforms Act. And a lot of the issues that today have become huge about acquiring land, whether the valley people, the metis can acquire land or buy land in the hills and vice versa, all these have their genesis to this law. Would you like to explain this a little bit, please? So the hill people are very much against this law because they have their own traditional land ownership systems. Amongst the cookies, the chiefs own land and the chiefs decide who they'll give land to amongst the community. But what the government at that time had said in 1960 is that if you do not bring the entire land of Manipur under a revenue system, then you will not even know how much land Manipur has because there's no cadastral survey. And if you do not bring land under the revenue system, then the people in the hills cannot even get a bank loan because they can't mortgage their land. Land as a collateral is the normal thing. Whereas the elite amongst the tribals are able to buy revenue land in any part of Manipur. So they actually had the advantage of being able to offer land as collateral, land building and everything. And in Manipur today, three of the biggest malls actually belong to the cookies. Three of the biggest malls. And then they are where? Where are they located? In Imphal. In Imphal. Yes. And there is a lot of heartburn amongst the meetings when they see these huge structures. And when on the other hand, there's a claim that tribals and so on and so forth. Okay. In the media, we often don't know what is true, what is half true, what is false. One of the claims that has been made is that in the hills of Manipur are very valuable minerals, minerals that are very, very valuable. And there are attempts being made to get these minerals, I mean, or to give the rights or leases to these strats of land for business houses, business groups to extract minerals. And simultaneously, there is also a plan, the government of India has a plan to have palm oil cultivation in these hills. And the agro-climatic zone is said that you can actually grow palm oil. But these are both very, very contentious and controversial issues because palm oil cultivation is monoculture and you don't have the... No, we cannot have any monoculture. The northeast region of India is a culturally biodiverse hotspot, perhaps the last surviving one. In the world? Yeah. For you still have the hill of Gibbons in some areas, you know, they are a diminishing species. And Nagaland was told to give about 10,000 hectares of land for palm oil cultivation recently. We had started a kind of a protest, a discussion that it should not happen because Mizoram had done palm oil cultivation and faced very severe consequences because palm oil takes in a lot of water. And we cannot have that happening. In any case, monoculture is bad for the environment and we are a biodiversity hotspot. So it should not have even been contemplated in the first place. They wanted to bring it to Meghalaya also but the government said we have not yet decided on anything. In Manipur, there are allegations that government is pushing and the central government is pushing for these. Yeah, they have a plan. They have a plan and also if you look at the latest modification to the Forest Conservation Act where they say that within 100 meters of any international border there will be a lot of development which means all the forest will go. Absolutely. You are aware that the assembly of Mizoram have completely rejected the amendment to the FCA, the Forest Conservation Act but that has not happened in Manipur. No, see the thing again is that we are divided as a region. You see, we should have made common cause on this because this is going to affect us very badly. Many states and not just only one state. 99% of our borders are with foreign countries. Just 1% with India. All right. Just that silly goodie plan. Chicken's neck. Okay. Let me come back to this other point. You've talked about palm oil. What are the mineral rights? So again, we are hearing a lot about some rare minerals being found in the hills of Manipur and that you know you want the Adhanis of the world to come there and harvest all that. We have been hearing this but there's no evidence. No, there's no evidence. Adhani or Godrej or any one. Yeah. It could be anyone. It could be a multinational from somewhere also. You'll never know that. Recently they said that iridium. I don't know what iridium is. That also is found in Manipur and that was told to us by a cookie gentleman from there. Now all these are in the realm of speculation. What we need to do is really try and hammer down on one or two things and find out the realities. We have to sort of see that these allegations are actually very factual. All right. And not just people talking in the air. Let me come to a point which I believe is very, very important. It seems that the women of Manipur have been the biggest victors and they have been caught in the crossfire of the civil war, this ethnic war and the rest of India woke up rather belatedly when I think at least two months after the incident had happened, we saw this video of two women, a middle-aged woman, young woman being stripped naked in full public and allegedly gang raped. One of them. One of them. Now this horrifying video which spread all across the social media suddenly as if aroused the conscience of the nation and they said, look what's happening. Mm-hmm. That actually brought Manipur into the forefront because otherwise it was very peripheral reportage, you know. So many killed, so many this, so many that, so many people have been sort of, what should I say? Inrelief camps and not getting enough food and medicines. We were repeating the figures almost about 160 killed, about 70,000 displays and all that. But it became a sort of rhetoric until this thing surfaced and then we realized that this is brutality of the worst kind that you didn't expect in a state so distant from everywhere else. You know, how could people be so murderous? How could someone film that in the first place? That it came out and then it was available? Yeah. So, but at least that it came out some more attention was given to Manipur and yet the Prime Minister of this country has just refused to say a word on Manipur. One minute. Yeah. Let me now come to Prime Minister Narendra You recall that after this video went public, he on the not inside parliament but outside parliament, he condemned it. I mean, his statement was just a little over half a minute, about 35 seconds. He at the same time, he said that we should condemn these kinds of acts or violence against women wherever it happens. And he mentioned two states, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. And these happen to be two states which are going to go for elections. Also Mizoram is one of them. There is also Madhya Desh and Telangana. But after that, as you know, there was a huge human cry and the parliament, the monsoon session of parliament was absolutely paralyzed because the opposition said we want the Prime Minister to speak. And finally, the no confidence motion was moved. Though the no confidence motion, everybody knew that the numbers were in favor of the government, both in the Lok Sabha and in the Rajasimha. This became a means of getting the Prime Minister to speak. And then the Prime Minister spoke. He spoke for around two hours and 15 minutes. But only a small part of his speech towards the end of the speech, did he mention Manipur. Patricia, how would you analyze the statements of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Manipur? I mean, he has not visited that place. The Home Minister, Mr. Amit Shah has, though the same Prime Minister before the 2022 state assembly elections had visited Manipur several times. So how would you comment on and analyze Mr. Narendra Modi and his reactions to what is happening in Manipur? In the first place, I'd like to say that it's very difficult to understand Mr. Modi. Because during elections, even in the Meghalaya elections, he came several times, even when to Garuhils, which is a bit distant. And he doesn't mind actually going to different places where there are elections. And the people of Manipur, whatever you may say about them, in their hearts, they're quite simple, especially the Kuki people. They're saying we elected so many BJP MLAs, but what has happened today when we don't figure in their scheme of things? So we feel often. They've said this many times, we feel often. And when he did his 100th Manipur, they threw their radios and their transistors away. They said, we don't want to listen to anything. So that is the kind of heartache that the people of Manipur had. And that includes both the hills and the valleys, the hill and the valley people. You know, a lot of people, like me, wonder why is N. Biren Singh so important for Mr. Narendra Modi? I mean, why? Why? What is the logic for not declaring president's rules? And saying, Mr. Biren Singh, you've not been able to control the violence, the situation that has been going on for several months. So we are imposing president's rules and then it's up to the armed forces, it's up to the military to try and stop the violence and bring a semblance of normality to what has happened. I've not been able to figure out why the prime minister has not done this. Firstly, it is Biren Singh who delivered Manipur to the BJP two times, twice in succession. The second time in 2022. And with a very substantial majority. They are unsure that anyone else can do that because he has a rival in Biswajit Singh. Biswajit Singh had ambitions of becoming chief minister. He's been flying for that post, but they decided that Biren Singh was their man. They probably assessed his strengths and they have that advisor to the chief minister. I think the party here in Delhi is well briefed as to who to trust, who not to trust, who will be able to deliver the state for the BJP, who will be able to get both those MPs elected, BJP MPs elected in 2024 because they'll need all the numbers. Patricia explained for the benefit of the viewers of this program, Article 355, Article 356 of the Constitution of India and how they are relevant for what is happening in Manipur at present. The moment the violence surfaced on the 3rd of May and I think by the 5th of May it was, we were told, at least we were told verbally that 355 was going to be implemented or enforced in Manipur. 355 means that law and order will be under the control of the central government. It is akin to President's rule. No, the next step is 356, which is President's rule. Yes, President's rule. There was a press conference and the former DGP who was removed, you know, he was sitting here, this gentleman was sitting here and then the former DGP said, now Article 355 has been enforced in Manipur, so law and order will be under the ages of the Home Ministry. Then this gentleman, the security advisor pulled him like that saying, don't say it or something to that effect, you know. So it means that even that instruction was not given very clearly. It means that those central security forces were sent to Manipur, about 40,000 of them who are there now with their hands tied because they don't really know what to do. And this must be a classic case where the state police are at loggerheads with the central security forces and the central security forces even had an FIR filed against them by no less than the state police. Where have we ever had such a situation? The unprecedented. Yes, and the state police is known to be, you know, hands in glove with their community, the majority community. The Assam Rifles have been alleged to be, you know, more in favor of the tribal community, perhaps because of, you know, many in the Assam Rifles, perhaps come from that community. We don't know the facts because we haven't done a head count. But whatever is happening in Manipur is, as you said, unprecedented and therefore it will take a lot to disentangle the mess. Okay, there is a lot of dissension. Not only within the BJP MLAs belonging to the cookies or who are the cookies yours, but also the BJP MLAs who owe their, I mean, who are mateys. And therefore it's not as if Chief Minister Biriyan Singh commands the loyalty of everybody. And as you had earlier pointed out, even before around the time the violence broke out and even before the violence broke out, MLAs would be going periodically to Delhi to try and convince the leadership in Delhi that they should change the Chief Minister. So, people keep wondering, what is it? Is it a matter of prestige that if Mr Modi or Mr Amit Shatel's Mr Biriyan Singh to step down and that it's become a matter of prestige and all the hundreds of people who have died, the thousands of people who are in relief camps, their faiths don't seem to matter. It does not seem to matter at all. And as of now, those matey MLAs who were resentful of Mr Biriyan Singh who wanted him to step down, now they have, you know, now the division is so deep that they can't say anything at this point. There's a danger to their lives. You saw what happened to Mr Rajkumar Singh, the Minister of State for External Affairs. He was attacked. He was vandalized and burnt. And so no one who is a matey will say a word against Biriyan Singh. It doesn't suit them at this point of time. Although when you speak to individual mateys, they say, we never voted for BJP. We never voted for, we don't support Biriyan Singh, but they can't speak up now. In fact, so their dissension is suppressed beneath the surface. They don't speak out openly. I want to return to a point that we were discussing earlier, the violence against women. Now a lot of people point out that it's not just ethnic violence where the men of both communities have used rape as a weapon against the women of the different communities. It has been alleged that a section of the women abetted the violence against women from a different community. And in particular, the name of the Meera Pibis, which literally means the torch bearing women. And this is a matey group. And these were the same people who not only protested against AFSPA, but also in a dramatic protest, women, they stripped naked to protest against the Assam rifles, the atrocities committed on Manorama Devi. So I'm unable to understand the situation. I thought irrespective of the community you belong to, women would express a certain solid, a sort of a gender-based solidarity. No, when you have caricatured the other as the enemy, then the enemy must be destroyed, must be treated as some human species. So anything goes. See, the creation of the enemy is so well crafted by, I think, by the extremist, two extremist groups. They have brainwashed a lot of these so-called Meera Pibis, who in my, in my, I've done a little study on them when I visited Manipur on several occasions. I asked the educated women whether they are part of the Meera Pibis. No, they are not, because they said, we are very busy, we go to office, or we go to teach, and when we come back home, we have work to do. These women have to come out every evening and, you know, carry their little hammers and beat up on the electric poles to get everyone to come out, basically to sort of to guard against drug addicts and alcoholics. No, it's meant to be, what should I say, a moral guardian, some sort of a moral guardian of society. But this time, to me, it looks as if women who have been conditioned in patriarchal societies, they act out patriarchy. And I think this is a very perfect case. You know, you talked about alcoholism and drug addiction. It is common knowledge that Manipur is really part of what is called the Golden Triangle, where poppy cultivation is taking place. And we know that there is a strong linkage between drug trade and the arms trade. And we've had several important persons going on record, including a former police officer. She's openly gone on record saying that the ruling regime and Bidensing's own people close to him are directly involved in this drug trade. Would you like to comment on this? Narco terrorism has been part of the ecosystem in Manipur. It's not a new thing. Poppy is grown on the other side, Myanmar border, this side as well, on the Nagaland side of Myanmar. The other side is the Nagas living there. All of them grow poppy and it's processed either that side or this side. And you have open borders. You have that free movement regime, which is that people from both sides can come within 16 kilometers of each other's territories. So not for trade because they are kinship ties on both sides. But trade also is happening. Yeah, trade happens. And trading in poppy and also under agar wood and among other things. And the trade in jade, I was told. Yes, jade as well. But jade comes from that side to this side. Then Myanmar also has rubies and other precious stones. But even before all this happened, if you look at the trade from Moray, it's more informal than formal. It's a small percentage of formal trade. But people are taking a cut. People are making money and they are important people and they are people in power. Of course. You get even watermelons from Burma to come this side. There's nothing in the Manipur shops in the Imphal valley that doesn't come from that root and mainly, essentially, Chinese goods. Let me ask you, there is within India a section of people who would like to attribute the problems that are taking place in Manipur at present to what is happening across the border to Myanmar. And all kinds of allegations we hear that these are the people who come, they are fermented the violence, they are behind. What are your views on this subject? There are just a few hundreds of them. At most about 2000 people in Manipur and a substantial number are in Mizoram. But Mizoram is handling it very well. They're keeping them in proper camps with the explicit understanding that they will be sent back once the situation improves. I think too much is made about the illegal immigrants being the cause of the problem. And I want to say this. Why is the Solicitor General saying that the bodies in the mall which are unclaimed are that of illegal migrants? How does he know that? And he's saying that to the Supreme Court. Does he have any evidence? No, he is just aping out what the state tells him. How can you do that? How do you determine who is a migrant, especially when he's dead? But the reason why these bodies were not claimed is because the people from the hills can't go to the valley and vice versa. And perhaps what I would like to point out here is also the kind of, you know, we have come to a situation where Imphal may no longer be a diverse valley accommodating diverse populations. That's why it is referred to as ethnic lensing because the students studying in Manipur University can't go back there. Now they've written to the UGC saying, please give us our students some accommodation in any of the universities in the rest of the country, but we cannot go back to Manipur University. And they also claim that the results have been so manipulated in a certain college where 70 odd students from the hills were studying psychology, only 10 passed, you know. Then when the ITLF protested, wrote to the Manipur University. This is ITLF stands for the Tribal Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum. After they wrote that letter of protest, then immediately the results were revised and about 40 of them passed. That means there was something. Yes, there was manipulation. I have actually just a few questions left or just two questions really. So given the prevailing polarization that has taken place, what is likely to happen in the foreseeable future? We know that you know the numbers better than I. Thousands of people are in relief camps. Essential medicines, stocks of food and other supplies are coming and going. It's often not available. So it's not just a civil war. It's not just ethnic conflict. It's not just kind of narco terrorism or a drug fuel. You have a huge humanitarian crisis on your hand. It's been more than four months since the violence escalated. It's almost like people from the valley trying to starve the people in the hills because the people in the hills are apparently having rice water, you know, the kanji kind of thing because there's nothing to eat basically. How much relief can anyone do when about 60-70,000 people are displaced? And if you ask me what's the way forward, I really don't know. No one knows. Put yourself in the shoes of the administration. You're a journalist. You're not an administrator. You've been a journalist for the last three and a half decades and longer. What according to you needs to be done? Have things reached a stage where there is no reach that point of no return? Or is there some hope that the situation in Manipur would normalize? Or would this just keep on going? No, because unless these two divided communities agree to come on a common platform, how can you have anything, any peace-building exercise happening? And they are not going to come unless Biran Singh is removed. He has become- So you believe that's a first in that picture? It's the first. It should be the first thing. Yeah, you can start. Because the person responsible for the crisis cannot also be the person who will resolve that crisis. Although it should be in that, you know, in that order. But it's not going to happen here because he's seen us too much invested in the other community. Okay. Thank you so much, Patricia, for giving us your valuable time and explaining the situation in Manipur, the terrible situation, the terrible humanitarian crisis. You've talked about several things and I'm really grateful that you've given us your time and the viewers of Newsglate will surely benefit from listening to how you have explained and analyzed the situation. We conclude our interview with senior journalist, Patricia Mukim. She's the editor of the Shillong Times and she's explained why we have this terrible civil war going on in Manipur at present and what needs to be done. This ethnic conflict, the civil war, this narco-terrorism, all of that, which is overlapping and above all the terrible, the terrible things that have been done to the women of that state. Thank you for being with us on this program. Keep watching Newsglate. Subscribe to the channel. Click on that button. Thank you very much.