Understanding the Politics of Affirmative Action: A Case Study on the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) Movement Within the Meitei-Pangal Community in Manipur

Abstract

Various ethnic and religious communities call the easternmost region of India home: Manipur. This area has been a "troubled" focal point of the country due to its long history of complicated social and political developments. Both the hill and the valley of Manipur are home to historically marginalised populations, reflecting the region's multi-ethnic and multi-cultural makeup. Therefore, Affirmative Action has also been a focal point in Manipur's political discourse. To secure their rightful place in the regional context of Manipur, the Meitei-Pangal, a sizeable Muslim minority in the area, have been seeking affirmative action under the OBC category since the early 2000s. The community's desire for OBC reservation has achieved some of its goals, but they are still pushing for its full implementation. This article draws attention to the social and political factors that influenced the rise of ethno-centric CSOs in the Meitei-Pangal community in the 1990s by analysing secondary literature along with interviewing community leaders. The OBCs reservation movement of the Meitei Pangal in the 2000s was highlighted by reviewing secondary literature on the subject. The student activism of AMMSO, headed by Md. Hanif Shah, has also brought attention to the OBC reservation struggle for the Meitei-Pangal in the 2000s. The article argues that strategic existentialism was the community's way for overcoming the obstacles and challenges they encountered throughout the OBC reservation movement. The article demonstrates how the reduction of civic space and the populist politics in Manipur have hindered the operation of CSOs representing minority communities by critically analysing secondary sources pertaining to governance issues in the middle of the 2010s and politics around the issue of indigeneity in Manipur. The article ends by pointing out that the "NGO-ization of resistance" among CSOs representing Meitei-Pangal in Manipur is a result of the hegemony existing in Manipur's CSOs.