The main market square of Naga dominated Senapati district
First a primer of Manipur's regions, tribes, highways and blockades.
The current blockade is a dispute over Manipur's Senapati district. The northern part of it is dominated by the Nagas.
The southern part known as the Sadar Hills is dominated by the Kuki tribe.
In August the Kukis' blocked Manipur's 2 arterial routes - National Highway 39 which connects Imphal to Nagaland and NH 53 which connects Imphal to Assam.
This was over a long pending demand that the Sadar Hills be given formal status as a revenue district.
In protest, the Nagas who inhabit the northern part of Senapati district began their blockade further up on Highway 39.
They say that historically Sadar Hills was a Naga area, from which they have been forced out years ago and any decision on its status needs their go ahead.
After almost 3 months, the government partially agreed to the Kuki demand and the Kukis withdrew their blockade on both highways.
This has made the Nagas only more determined in their blockade of NH 39 which is the main supply line into the Imphal valley, the most densely populated region of Manipur.
The long queues outside petrol pumps today is the most acute impact of that siege. Some have been waiting since the night before while others since early morning.
With the opening up of highway 53 the supplies and the prices of almost everything else - rice, sugar, vegetables - even medical supplies has stabilised.
Rice: Rs 15 per kg
Sugar: Rs 40 per kg
Potato: Rs 30 per kg
In fact the roads are choked, hotels are full. At the Classic Hotel in Imphal, the manager says, "At the moment the hotel is full. We've been running full for the past several days."
And Manipur's cultural calendar has kicked off with packed crowds at a dance festival.
If there is a genuine shortage, it is of diesel - down by almost 50%. But most passenger traffic in Imphal valley runs on petrol. Diesel run vehicles, like buses, trucks and taxis cross the state boundaries, where they are able to refill their tanks.
But it is petrol shortage which remains the strongest and most confusing experience of the blockade.
After a cold, long night in the petrol queue, the slips are handed out at daybreak. The line inches forward excruciatingly slowly.
At the pump, fuel is severely rationed - only Rs. 500 of fuel per car and Rs. 200 for scooters and bikes.
Wait for 10 hours and get 10 maybe 20 litres of petrol.
One angry resident says, "The Government of Manipur is responsible as well as the people of the Hill areas."
Another says, "The Government is very bad. I don't have any words."
By afternoon the pump, and others like it, will shut down because they have been given only a fourth of their capacity.
MT Singh, an employee at the pump tells us that the total capacity of the pump is 24 kl while they were only giving out 8kl, which was what the State government was releasing to the pumps.
And it won't open for another 3 days.
Ask the minister in charge of civil supplies and he, like everyone in the government will tell you they have no choice but to ration.
Minister for IFCD, Youth Affairs and Sports, Biren Singh, says, "Atleast 150kl, has to be in the store for emergency purposes. So after reserving that, how many days it can work, we are calculating."
But when it comes to petrol, at the depot of the Indian Oil Corporation which supplies almost 80% of Manipur's fuel needs, there is a different version.
In normal times IOC supplies about 2200 kilolitres of petrol (1 kilolitre = 1000 litres)That figure has remarkably remained steady right through the worst months of the blockade, even spiking upwards briefly in the middle.
IOC Petrol supply figures -
August: 2217 KL
September: 2400 KL
October: 2039 KL
Priobhash Dey, General Manager of NE Integrated State Office, Indian Oil, says that technically there is no shortage of petrol, "Despite many odds we have managed. I must say our people are working over-time. They have no holidays, every Sunday they are working for us, even at night."
The government seemed unable to explain this anomaly.
Biren Singh says, "That's the point. There was no petrol shortage but we also get confused seeing the queues."
The Chief Minister, Ibobi Singh too is unable to give a satisfactory reply when asked about the need for rationing petrol when there is no shortage. Blaming the IOC he says, "They are only calculating the monthly supply, not daily. These are wrong figures."
When pushed, officials say two other oil companies that supply petrol to Manipur - NRL and BPCL have virtually stopped their supplies in the blockade, but they were supplying only about 20% of the state's needs even in normal times.
When pushed even further the government says they are simply being overcautious given the unpredictable nature of blockades - but at the same time, the severe rationing is aggravating two phenomena. One, the psychological sense of a blockade and two, Manipur's booming black market in fuel.
A woman in the petrol queue tells us, "I have been buying in black at around Rs. 200 per litre." Most people in the line admitted to having bought petrol in the black market at triple the market rate.
The government agrees that there is a black market but claims it's a minor phenomenon.
Biren Singh says, "You can't see the black market on the road like earlier times because the government is keeping everything under control."
This is easily belied in any number of ways, the most obvious - massive traffic snarls in Imphal, not possible in times of severe rationing without large scale black marketing.
At the lower end, it begins with women on the streets, selling bottles of petrol for more than double the price, though they are unclear about their suppliers.
One such woman says, "A truck comes with barrels of petrol and 3-4 of us get together to buy so it becomes a little cheaper."
Larger orders - means at first, getting a friend to make a call to a black marketer posing as a buyer.
(Over telephone)Q:"I heard I can get petrol from you."
Black marketer: "Do you want diesel or petrol? Diesel is not there, you can get petrol. I am selling petrol for Rs. 150. If you want lots I can give it to you for Rs 130."
The landmark given by the black marketer to us is ironical - a checkpost in an Imphal neighborhood where he says he is well known.
Q: "Where should we come?"
Black marketer: "You can come near the toll tax and ask for James."
We follow the directions to the checkpost. From there James leads us to his store nearby, that ostensibly sells lubricant.
He shows off the petrol like a winemaker, to prove it is better than the quality at the petrol pumps.
Q: "It looks like fruit juice. Is it of different quality? Do you mix chemicals?"
James: "No they are of different quality. We just mix them and we get this colour. It is okay to use and quality is good."
He says the petrol comes from the neighbouring state of Mizoram, from black marketers who drive across the border, fill up jerry cans and drums and drive back.
Ten minutes later, we walk out with ten litres of overpriced, black market petrol.
Despite claims of official crackdown, getting to a black marketer took no great leap of investigative journalism. In Manipur, the illegal sale of fuel is so widespread and so easy to access that it is almost not a black market.
Does the illegal fuel in fact come from Mizoram? Or are their other, sources of illegal fuel?
One resident in the petrol queue says, "We have heard that the petrol pump owners and the government are involved."
There is no conclusive proof of official involvement but enough to provoke intense public suspicion.
In the time of the blockade, the oil agencies no longer decide distribution. Instead it is taken over by the state government. The OSD who decides 'who gets how much' explained to us that a sizeable chunk is set aside for government departments; the largest being railways and the police.
RK Binoy, the OSD incharge of the fuel rationing says, "For the railway service they said that there is a daily requirement of 24kl something, but we cannot give them that daily so they are given 12 kl."
During an earlier bandh last year, a fire that began in the housing quarters of the battalion complex of the Manipur Rifles, the Manipur police's elite commando force, raged for hours.
The state civil supplies minister accused the force of illegally hoarding fuel in their residential quarters. If any proof was needed of the scale of fuel stored, 30 houses inside the police complex were gutted in the blaze.
GK Pillai, former Home Secretary says, "Artificial scarcity is being built up because you have the stocks."
But the allegations are no longer restricted to street perception. GK Pillai, whose as had a long association with the North East lends weight to his voice, even in retirement, virtually accused the state government of corruption.
He says, "So just outside the petrol pump it is available and at other places which means it's not a problem of quantity. It's just a fact that you create an artificial scarcity. I think that because the blackmarketing is very rampant, otherwise you would not have supplies outside. I don't think they have conducted a single raid to unearth people who are stocking the essential commodities. And the very fact that, that hasn't been done means that there is connivance at the very top."
The Chief Minister predictably denies these charges, "That is completely wrong and baseless. If there are any cases like that we will take action, we will definitely take action."
On one hand, charges of artificial scarcity, but on the other, the inability to act against the bandh has led to as we shall see, a deeper charge of political opportunism. To investigate this means understanding the complex clash and play of Manipur's ethnic groups, and that means leaving Imphal for a northward journey on the troubled Highway 39.
Less than an hour outside Imphal and we are in the Sadar Hills, the territory of the Kuki tribe.
Burnt trucks along the way, a reminder of when their blockade for district status was being violently enforced.
A demand now partly granted, in this MoU, of October, which says that the Sadar Hills will become a separate district and the town of Kangpokpi, the district capital. So this stretch of the highway is for the moment, clear.
Ngamkhohao Haokip, President of the Sadarhills Districthood Demand Committee says, "Our demand is not land, our demand is administration and development as citizens of Manipur and citizens of India."
But in an hour after that we are in Naga territory and just short of the town of Senapati, we come across the reality of the siege that has cut off Manipur's main supply line.
A blockade enforced by 4 women and 3 boys. As per their self made rules only passengers with personal belongings are allowed.
A bag of petrol smuggled under clothes, is caught as a prize catch. Also offloaded are blankets, jerrycans of lubricants and potatoes.
Their smaller number or gender or reluctance to talk to us, doesn't take away from their determination. Women have always been at the forefront of struggles in the North East and this one is no different.
They point us to the town of Senapati to talk to the leaders behind the movement. The signs for Nagalim or a greater Naga homeland, mocks the authority of the Indian state.
In a small office, we meet the leadership of the United Naga Council (UNC), the umbrella body of Manipur's Naga tribes.
S.Milan, Information and Publicity Secretary of the UNC says, "According to earlier MoUs, in short for any upgradation in respect of Sadarhills, the Naga people would be consulted. So without consulting the Naga people, our stand is nothing doing. These were signed in 1981, 1992, 1996 and 1998."
Paul Leo, former President, UNC says, "Our stand is very clear, we have nothing to do with the state of Manipur because Nagas in Manipur last year on 1st of July by convening a public convention have taken a formal decision to severe ties with the government of Manipur and demand for alternative arrangement outside Manipur."
Chief Secretary of Manipur, DS Poonia says, "It is only UNC that chooses not to come to Imphal for attending meetings with the organisational committee. We had the 6th sitting today, all kinds of people are coming in and giving us whatever they want to say but they refuse to come."
Just outside Senapati town is a petrol pump, where we saw petrol and diesel being sold without any rationing; a striking example of life on the other side of the blockade.
So while those who live in Imphal are cut off from many goods and services to which they are used to. We saw and met people at a petrol pump where people had been queuing for 12 hours to get just 10 litres of petrol while in Senapati those restrictions do not exist. Now that is what gets people upset, not against the government but those responsible for the blockade, becoming a clash of communities. It becomes Meitis versus Nagas, Nagas versus Kukis.
Kumo Sha, the President of All Nagas Students' Association, Manipur says, "As it is here also. We also feel the pain of the common people suffering. I also suffer. Just like he mentioned it is the government's doing."
As a mark of their seriousness, they tell us about a still burning truck that tried to take a side road into the Valley.
If any further evidence of how far the writ of the Indian state has receded is needed, experience Senapati's main marketplace at noon.
Three boys, barely in their teens enforce what the UNC calls a public curfew for one hour. A daily ritual that has been in action at least a month before the blockade.
There is a police checkpost nearby and the Army's Assam Rifles are not far away from this area which comes under Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA).
None of that seemed to matter on the ground. Hepuni, Inspector and OC of Senapati Police says, "We are doing our duty but if you force them there might be clashes and misunderstandings."
If these hardline positions make a political solution remote, shouldn't the government be more assertive?
Pradip Phanjoubam, Editor of Imphal Free Press says, "Atleast without taking sides, it should have opened up the highway, used all its force to open up the highway because it is illegal to disrupt the movement on the highways which is what the Supreme Court has said so that could have been used."
After all, convoys are coming in through NH 53, a journey 3 times longer with full protection. The Chief Minister yet again seemed helpless. Excerpts from the interview:
Ibobi Singh: We have already opened the National Highway 53, now it is called National Highway 37.
Sreenivasan Jain: I am talking of NH 39.
Ibobi Singh: There is no problem on NH 53 on the Imphal-Jiribaum road.
Sreenivasan Jain: But what is the problem on NH 39?
Ibobi Singh: On 53 there is no problem at all.
Sreenivasan Jain: Then what is the problem with NH 39, why is it so difficult?
Ibobi Singh: There is some weak bridge. Before repairing that weak bridge it was completely normal.
Sreenivasan Jain: I am asking about the NH 39 though. The one which is coming from Nagaland, why not put the security forces and open that up?
Ibobi Singh: We will review it. Tomorrow we will have our state government meeting, we will review this situation."
Central forces that protect the NH 53 convoys say they are ready to play the same role on NH 39 but need the political go ahead.
DIGP(Manipur Range), CRPF, MS Raghava says, "We have been doing it, escorting these trucks for quite sometime now. There has never been any incident in our presence."
If those behind the blockade have taken such intractable positions, why is the State still unable to act? Is it because as some allege, there is political opportunism or is it as the State claims, this is now a dispute beyond its borders?
Assembly elections in Manipur are just a few months away and government sources openly admit that it would be naïve to assume that it is not weighing the political dimensions of the blockade, of the ethnically dominant community here in the Imphal valley experiencing a sense of siege by the tribal communities of the Hills.
Morning prayers at the Govindaji Krishna temple in Imphal which is the most sacred shrine for the Meitei Hindu's of the Imphal Valley.
The Meitei's are almost entirely concentrated in the Imphal Valley. While the hill districts are made up of the Nagas, Kukis and other tribes, the valley despite being small in size (only 8% of the state's land area) is heavily populated. Meitei's influence 40 out of 60 assembly seats.
The street sentiment in Imphal is so far guarded, but even in a bandh weary state the mood could turn communal.
One angry young man on the street says, "We are tired. This will surely become anger and when that reaches its peak, when patience will become uncontrollable then there might be serious repercussions for the tribes. Because the tribes are doing the blockade and the main reason for this queue is the blockade."
Some allege that the chief minister, who is a Meitei, is prolonging the siege to fuel the insecurity of the Meitei's.
Pillai says, "I think the state government, to put it very bluntly, is not interested in ensuring that the blockade is lifted and the situation becomes normal. It is difficult to say what the benefit of it is for them but I would hazard a guess that the elections in Manipur coming in February next year, the feeling that the Meitis' are victimized, being harassed by other communities perhaps would pay a political dividend to the government."
The Chief Minister counters this, "No no, it is totally wrong. We are in Manipur and everyone lives here happily. There are no communal differences and misunderstandings. What is our benefit in this election? We do not like such things."
In fact the state government has a grouse with the Centre, which is holding talks with the NSCN - the leading Naga militant group for their demand for a separate homeland.
That envisages carving a territory out of at least 3 north eastern states including Manipur.
While the Centre has rejected that demand, some wonder whether that's one reason why New Delhi has not intervened in the current blockade.
Biren Singh says, "The central forces should be used. CRPF, Army BSF. Let us forget about the Army as it is for defence but atleast the para millitary forces."
And while the politics of blockades may yield political gains for each of the players, is it creating lasting polarisations between Manipur's ethnic groups
For visiting journalists looking for that concluding moment of public unity, there could be no better place than at a tribute concert for the rock legend Neil Young which was held in a hotel in blockade weary Imphal.
A young woman says, "We love each other. I think it is only a figment of imagination and some political manifestations are there. That's it. We Manipuris are one actually."
An event like this doesn't take the political leadership off the hook nor does it solve the many intractable problems of Manipur.
But yes, however, clichéd or banal, it is that moment of redemption worth ending on.
(Inputs and photos - Niha Masih)