Former Union home secretary Gopal Krishna Pillai, who is an acknowledged expert on the Northeast – and, in particular – Manipur, has said the BJP government’s strategy is to deliberately side with the Meitei against the Kuki in the now four-month-long, ongoing ethnic clashes in Manipur. Pillai says this is why chief minister N. Biren Singh, a Meitei, has not been replaced, despite his incompetence in restoring law and order and his unacceptability to the Kuki, who are 16% of the state’s population, and 15 out of 32 BJP MLAs – including eight who are Meitei. Pillai added that the BJP strategy means that home minister Amit Shah has placed the interests of his party’s politics ahead of the requirements of India’s constitution.

In an extensive interview with Karan Thapar for The Wire, Pillai said Prime Minister Narendra Modi should have reached out to the different communities in Manipur in the early days of the crisis and certainly after it became clear that Shah’s visit in late May had failed to resolve the crisis. Pillai said Modi should have provided a healing touch, adding this is what the “emotional” people of the state need. Pillai said the prime minister could have done this by visiting the state or by calling key people to Delhi. He said by choosing not to do this, Modi has made “the wrong call”.

In the interview, Pillai spoke at length about the failure of the state administration to restore law and order as well as provide relief and rehabilitation. One of the key points he made is the state administration should have immediately acted to recover stolen weapons. He said they know who’s got them and they should have “raided houses” to get them back. Failure to do so, he added, suggests they’re happy for the weapons to remain in stolen hands. Pillai also said all the officials who failed to prevent the theft of the weapons should have been immediately punished or sacked. That hasn’t happened.

The former home secretary was also sharply critical of the state government’s failure to provide rehabilitation and compensation. The picture he paints is of a state government that knows what needs to be done but is failing or refusing to do it.

Pillai was also sharply critical of the Union government’s response. He said several joint secretaries, from ministries such as home, health and water supply, should be camping in Manipur, to ensure an effective response but have not been sent. He specifically referred to Amit Shah’s promise, made in May, to send medical teams which, three months later, remains unfulfilled.

He said he has not seen such an incompetent and ineffective response to a crisis in his entire career.

He points out there were clear warning signs well before the crisis erupted on May 3 which were ignored both in Imphal and Delhi. Again, this points to the incompetence of the people in charge in both capitals

The interview also contains a detailed discussion of what Pillai calls “background issues”. These are the refugees seeking shelter from tyranny in Myanmar and how they should not be seen as a factor that threatens demographic change; the poppy cultivation and drug trade, in which he says both Kuki and Meitei are involved; and the charge of forest encroachment, which he says is exaggerated.

Pillai says he expects relative calm till November-December but is worried about what could happen thereafter.

In the interview, Pillai also discusses the Meitei “land hunger” and the Kuki demand for a separate administration. These are the two key political issues that are most difficult to tackle and resolve, he said and gives clear answers to how they should be handled.

The former home secretary also puts the recent pro-Kuki statements by the United Naga Council in context.