The nine lives of Biren Singh | Long Reads News

Seventeen months since that episode and countless violent conflagrations later, 63-year-old N Biren Singh continues as the embattled Chief Minister of Manipur — battling crises of confidence from the Kuki-Zomi community, from allied parties, from a section of his own party and his ministers, and even from among the electorate, which elected Congress representatives for both of Manipur’s parliamentary seats earlier this year.

But why, despite calls for a change in leadership from different quarters, the Union government and the BJP central leadership has stuck by Singh is what many in Manipur agree is “the million-dollar question.”

Despite multiple attempts by The Indian Express, the Chief Minister or his office did not respond to messages.

Footballer, journalist, politician

In the 1980s, Singh tackled a vastly different field. A footballer, he was a wingback in the BSF team that defeated JCT to lift the Durrand Cup in December 1981. He has also represented Manipur in the Santosh Trophy. He took a sharply different turn in 1991 when he started a vernacular daily called Naharolgi Thoudang and worked as its editor. A former colleague of Singh’s said that in the 1990s, Thoudang was the third most circulated vernacular newspaper in the state.

“It was quite a popular newspaper and from what I recall, he was very steadfast on the issue of the territorial integrity of Manipur. Reading the editorials of that time, you could surmise that he was a strong nationalist standing for the state’s territorial integrity,” said the former colleague.

It was in April 2000 that he shot into public attention when he was arrested for sedition along with Thounaojam Iboyaima, a revered figure in Manipuri society who was popularly known as ‘Pabung’ or father. Singh had been charged because the newspaper had reported a speech delivered by Thounaojam at an event which, reports of that time say, had cited a United Nations declaration that “armed rebellion may be a last resort against colonial oppression”.

“It was a hollow case which was soon dropped and they were released in a couple of weeks. But that was a watershed moment for Biren — we can say that his political journey began then,” said his former colleague.

Biren Singh being introduced to President Neelam Sanjiva Reddy in December 1981, before the finals of the Durrand Cup in which Singh’s BSF team defeated JCT. (Source: Kiren Rijiju’s X handle)

“With that case, he became recognised as a fearless journalist who could stand up to a repressive government,” said a journalist based in Imphal.

Starkly, after Singh became Chief Minister, several journalists, researchers and activists have been booked in sedition cases for different reasons, including social media posts critical of Singh, the state government and the BJP.

The next year, in 2001, with the state then under President’s Rule, Manipur’s Meitei-majority Valley erupted over the Government of India’s extension of its 1997 ceasefire with the Naga insurgent group NSCN(IM) which had included a new clause: that this ceasefire would be “without any territorial limits.”

The massive protests by Meitei groups – who saw this as legitimising the demand for the integration of Naga areas, and therefore, a threat to the ‘territorial integrity’ of Manipur – saw the state legislative Assembly being set ablaze and many protestors being killed in firing by security forces.

“The situation gave rise to a lot of nationalistic feelings and it was in the midst of all this that he formally entered politics with a new party called the Democratic Revolutionary People’s Party, which was started by people who were actively involved in the agitation. When state legislative elections were held in 2002, after more than 200 days of President’s Rule, he contested from Heingang constituency and won,” said a former top administrator in the state.

The DRPP supported the new government formed with the Congress’s Okram Ibobi Singh as chief minister and in 2003, its two MLAs ‘merged’ with the Congress. Singh was now in the Congress, a party he would be with for the next 13 years. He rose rapidly in the party.

Soon after joining the Congress, he was made Minister of State and went on to be Chairman of the Manipur Pollution Control Board. When he won again from Heingang, this time on a Congress ticket, he became part of the Cabinet. His proximity to Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh was well-known and several commentators remarked that the government was then called “IRB government”, a reference to the initials of (Okram) Ibobi Singh and his two closest aides and troubleshooters, Kangujam Ranjit Singh and Biren Singh. However, the relationship with Ibobi began souring in his third term and Singh was dropped from the Cabinet despite being reelected in 2017.

A disgruntled Singh exited the Congress in 2016 and joined the BJP, ahead of the 2017 Manipur Assembly elections.

Cong to BJP, and an elevation

In 2017, he won on a BJP ticket. It was a period, a senior Imphal-based journalist said, when Singh was “riding a huge wave of goodwill” and became the first BJP Chief Minister of the state.

The journalist recalled that he was part of a delegation of journalists who paid Singh a visit after he became CM. “He told us that he prayed and met with a ‘divine mother’ who told him that he would ‘become king’ if he switched sides. He said he decided to follow her advice after consulting his supporters.”

However, Singh was not the obvious choice for the Chief Minister’s position. The Congress was still the single largest party in the Assembly with 28 seats but the BJP, with 21 seats, ended up forming the government with the support of the National People’s Party and the Naga People’s Front.

“Except for (Thongam) Bishwajit, all the others who had been elected on BJP tickets were newbies to the party, all ‘borrowed’ candidates,” said a BJP MLA, who was among those elected in 2017.

Biren Singh with Congress leader Ibobi Singh in 2017, when the former took over as Chief Minister. (File image)

“Technically, Bishwajit was the rightful claimant because he was the only ‘BJP person’ at that time. But even he was seen as lacking the experience that Singh had… Singh had 15 years of experience working in government; nobody else had more than two years in politics,” said the BJP leader.

“Everything had fallen in place (for Singh) then,” said a political observer. “There were many more senior and experienced leaders than him who had contested on BJP tickets in 2017 — like Thounaojam Chaoba and Yumkham Erabot — but they lost. Had they won, he would have been a much tougher pick. But as it was, he was the only new BJP MLA who knew the Congress inside out and how its government had functioned for 15 years.”

And that was what he used to his advantage through his campaign and after he took charge of the new government: that he would “right the wrongs” under the Ibobi regime, from the shadow of ‘encounter killings’ to frequent bandhs and blockades, and frayed ties between Meiteis and the hill tribes. Though now a polarising figure, Singh was then seen as a friendly leader by both the Nagas and the Kuki-Zomis. His flagship outreach programme, ‘Go To Hills’, focused on development and welfare projects in the hill districts.

“Everything he was saying and doing was what the Ibobi government didn’t. He was portrayed as a ‘People’s Chief Minister.’ He was holding Cabinet meetings in hill districts to demonstrate his will to build bridges. And there was a perceptible difference, mostly because in this period, there were fewer insurgent activities. Bandhs and blockades had reduced. Ordinary people could venture out after 7 pm,” said an Imphal-based journalist.

However, people who have worked with him say the tensions and discord that have bubbled over in the last one-and-a-half years were brewing in his first term too.

“The government (in 2017) was a coalition one and he was surrounded by political greenhorns, so there were checks and balances. But he didn’t treat his council of ministers as equals, was autocratic and ran the government like a family business. His son-in-law R K Imo was still a Congress MLA then but was more powerful than the ministers. There were a lot of concerns but I think things did not implode because of the COVID pandemic,” said an MLA who was a minister in the first term.

Another blow to his image were accusations in 2020 by then Assistant Superintendent of Police (Narcotics and Affairs of Border Bureau) Brinda Thounaojam of him putting pressuring on the department to drop a case against a Kuki-Zomi BJP leader from Chandel district,

Lhukhosei Zou, who was accused in a 2018 drug seizure case.

When the BJP came back to power with an absolute majority in 2022, it led a more aggressive government: from crackdowns on poppy plantations in the Kuki-Zomi hills allegedly run by “drug lords” to a hardened stance against the alleged influx of Chin people from Myanmar (who share ethnic ties with Manipur’s Kuki-Zomis).

The government also conducted land surveys and eviction drives in areas where Kukis had settled. Then, in March last year, weeks before the ongoing conflict that started in May 2023, the government pulled out of the Suspension of Operations agreement with Kuki armed umbrella outfits — all of these decisions that had support from large sections of Meitei society.

A former bureaucrat calls these decisions and his actions afterwards as “hasty”. “He does not have a very democratic style of functioning and at that time, all the 10 Kuki-Zomi MLAs were supporting the government. When there were actions and decisions taken about Kuki groups and villages, especially on matters such as evictions, the MLAs from the community should have been taken into confidence but instead these appeared as personal decisions.”

Kuki-Zomi groups and the MLAs from the community — including seven BJP MLAs, two of them ministers — have held Singh responsible for the conflict since its beginning. But now, the rumblings within his own ranks are louder than ever, with one minister, BJP MLA Yumnam Khemchand, saying that he had asked the Chief Minister to step down twice. Many more of his MLAs from the Valley have queued up before the top central BJP leadership asking for the Chief Minister to be changed. His leadership was also singled out for criticism by the National People’s Party when it withdrew its support to the Manipur government.

Of all the allegations against Singh, the most serious was of aiding and abetting armed groups such as the Arambai Tenggol.
Right from the start of the conflict, the Arambai Tenggol had been accused of being at the forefront of the violence with the outfit being named by Kuki-Zomi members in numerous FIRs.

However, as the conflict raged, they became more assertive, culminating in the January 24 spectacle this year when all Meitei MLAs, a Union Minister and a Rajya Sabha MP were “summoned” by the group to the Kangla Fort in Imphal, where they were made to take an oath. While the Chief Minister was not at the fort, his name figured in a list of those who signed on the outfit’s demands.

The emboldenment of the Arambai Tenggol, allege observers, has been enabled by state patronage for the outfit. In fact, recently, Singh’s former Deputy Chief Minister and NPP leader Yumnam Joykumar Singh had called him “a key figure” behind its formation.

Even before the current conflict, in a social media post in August 2022, the group had claimed to have met Singh, posting a picture of an alleged meeting between the CM and Rajya Sabha member Leishemba Sanajaoba sitting with Arambai Tenggol chief Korounganba Khuman, whose involvement in cases related to attacks on police and looting of arms is being investigated by the NIA.

Why does the Centre back him?

Sources say that while Singh has internally offered to resign many times, the central BJP leadership – despite the situation spiralling out of control in the state – has backed him each time, a position that has set off immense speculation. BJP leaders across the board admit that no one more than Singh represents the challenge and embarrassment to the image of a strong leadership that the BJP has sought to portray.

“He was one of the fastest rising stars of the BJP in the Northeast and perceived as a bold, decisive CM. But in the last 18 months, that image has obviously been shattered,” said a central BJP leader.

However, the Centre has chosen not to move against him. “The top leadership has maintained an unreasonable silence over what has been happening in Manipur. Many feel that timely intervention and some proactive measures from the Prime Minister could have made a difference to the situation,” said a BJP leader.

There is an argument that the top leadership of the BJP has never been convinced about Singh’s failure. “Ever since he became the Chief Minister, there have been at least five to six claimants to the post. The leadership is convinced that part of this crisis stems from the plans of his rivals to dethrone him. The leadership cannot be seen as incentivising the dissidence,” explained a person who has worked closely with the BJP in the region.

“Biren Singh is replaceable, but at a time when the Prime Minister and the Home Minister want. Not when the Opposition wants or when these other claimants sense their chance,” he added.

BJP leaders argue that Manipur has always had a history of conflicts. “ Ibobi Singh (former Congress CM) headed a more violent state – at least 1,600 people had lost their lives in fake encounters. There were many such events in the Northeast states – may not to the level of what’s happening in Manipur now — but the Congress never opted for a leadership change,” pointed out a BJP leader in Delhi.

Singh, they say, cannot be blamed for the breakdown of law and order when he himself has little control over it. “If the law and order reports to the Chief Minister, he can be blamed. In this case, there is a parallel structure of reporting to the security advisor appointed by the Home Ministry of GOI,” said a source.

In the aftermath of the violence in May, the Centre had sent retired CRPF DG Kuldiep Singh as Security Advisor and in-charge of the unified command in Manipur.

However, back in the state, multiple observers – within and outside the government – explain Singh’s staying power by saying that he is simply “convenient” to the Centre as someone who is seen as not questioning New Delhi’s handling of the conflict.

“On the floor of the Lok Sabha, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that Biren Singh is ‘cooperating’ with the Centre. This is what might be working for the Centre but is also what is failing to inspire confidence here. He is being seen as someone who they can push around because he’s not able to stand his ground,” said a senior journalist.

Singh has tried to counter this image most recently with his government urging the Centre to reconsider its decision earlier this month to reimpose the AFSPA in six police station areas in the Valley region. Less directly, he has several times told the public in Manipur and the media that he does not have control over the new security establishment in the state that was sent from New Delhi.

Sources said part of why Singh has stayed has to do with the central BJP leadership’s belief that he continues to enjoy more support among the Meitei population in the state than any other BJP leader there.

“Senior bureaucrats and security establishment officers who broached the subject of replacing the CM were told by a senior BJP leader, ‘I am going to solve this problem through Biren’. The sense the officers carried away was that the central leadership believed that Biren had considerable influence over Meiteis and he could convince them to give up violence even as the Centre worked on Kuki groups,” a senior central government bureaucrat said.

Another official believes the Centre may have just “missed the bus”. “If a change in leadership or imposition of President’s rule had to be done, it had to be done in the initial phase of violence. Once that did not happen and the decision of political status quo did not bear fruits, the Central leadership was left with hardly any choices that would not make them look bad,” he said. And thus, N Biren Singh stayed.