JNU professor fielded by Congress in Inner Manipur: ‘Partition being practised in Manipur… State itself polarising society’

An associate professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University’s School of Social Sciences, Angomcha Bimol Akoijam is an unlikely politician. In this election, he is making his political debut as the Congress candidate from the Inner Manipur constituency.

Since the start of the ethnic conflict in the state last May, Akoijam has been a vocal critic of the government’s handling of the conflict. In an interview with The Indian Express, he talks about why he entered politics, and the issues facing the state, from the Meitei-Kuki violence to illegal migration. Excerpts:

I come from that tribe called academics and I have my own set of heroes. Gloria Steinem… Michel Foucault, Noam Chomsky, Jean-Paul Sartre… They were involved in political issues… I would come out and distribute pamphlets in market places during elections. I spoke out during the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (Afspa) movement and one of my nicknames remains ‘Afspa Man’.

I used to criticise (former three-term Congress Chief Minister) Okram Ibobi and tamo (elder brother) Biren Singh used to be close to me. But when (Biren) became the CM, after six months, I wrote in the Imphal Free Press (a popular English newspaper in Manipur) that the honeymoon period was over for the BJP.

We haven’t seen a situation like this in our entire history… If a communal riot happens, what do we do? We ensure that the affected people are protected. We have seen Muslim colonies being guarded with the full force of the State so that nothing happens there… Where the State was either complicit or failed to perform its role was the case of the Kashmiri Pandits, and this time Manipur… Why is it that Meiteis were shifted out of Churachandpur? Why is it that you try to inject this narrative that there is