April 25, 2025: During the 24th United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, currently underway at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, Manipuri lad Jodha Heikrujam, a human rights activist from the state, highlighted the challenges of the Indigenous Meitei community and laid bare the harrowing realities they face.
During his speech at the forum, Jodha offered a critical testimony on Wednesday, spotlighting the unfolding humanitarian and indigenous crisis in Manipur. He began his speech by stating that he had travelled 14,100 km to expose a truth that remains suppressed within India and unheard internationally.
“I came here because India has silenced our voices, divided our people, and failed us constitutionally,” he said. “Our Indigenous Meetei community is facing the threat of being erased through violent conflict, demographic manipulation, and colonisation masked as governance,” he added.
Amidst escalating violence, demographic manipulation, and constitutional neglect, Manipur’s plight resonated as a global humanitarian warning. Addressing delegates at the UN headquarters in New York, Jodha Heikrujam highlighted Manipur’s descent from a cultural heartland to a state ravaged by conflict and displacement. Once a princely state with a rich heritage including the birthplace of modern polo, Manipur now grapples with a humanitarian crisis.
Jodha recounted how Manipur, once a princely state with a constitutional monarchy, was merged into the Indian Union in 1949 under an agreement that guaranteed its territorial integrity, stating that this integrity now stands compromised.
Describing Manipur as both a land of tragedy and resilience, he underscored the loss of life, widespread displacement, and horrifying violence the state has endured over the past two years.
He said that over 200 people have died, more than 4,700 homes have been burned, and over 60,000—mostly Indigenous—have been forced into refugee camps with little access to basic necessities.
He also drew attention to increasing suicides and gender-based atrocities among the displaced. “In which part of the universe allows its citizens to become refugees in their homeland? Yes, in Manipur, India. This is our harsh reality,” he said.
The rights activist attributed the crisis to India’s failure to protect its citizens, citing decades of unchecked migration through Manipur’s 398 km porous border with Myanmar. He alleged that illegal immigrant narco-terrorists, posing as refugees, have since obtained Indian citizenship and altered the demographic fabric of the region.
These groups, he said, are engaged in poppy cultivation, drug trafficking, and violent campaigns aimed at carving out an ethnocentric homeland that spans areas in India, Myanmar, and Bangladesh.
“This is not merely a domestic issue,” Jodha warned, adding, “It has evolved into a regional security threat with global implications, connected to illicit arms smuggling, transnational narcotics trade, and geopolitically motivated destabilisation.”
He accused the Government of India of characterising the crisis as an inter-community dispute when it is, in fact, a constitutional failure. “Manipur is under President’s Rule. That alone proves that the state government has failed, and the Constitution is no longer being upheld,” he continued.
Jodha also called out Prime Minister Narendra Modi, noting his continued silence since the violence began on May 3, 2023. “He has not visited Manipur once, nor uttered a single word of peace or solidarity,” he said, while adding that the state now suffers the highest inflation rate in the country and a collapsed economy driven by the conflict and the drug trade.
Despite the grim picture, Jodha insisted the world must not turn away. “If the world remains silent, it will not only fail the Meetei but set a dangerous precedent for Indigenous struggles globally.”
He urged the United Nations and its member states to mediate with the Government of India and ensure the implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
