NEW DELHI (AFP) — Dissident political leaders from the Indian state of Manipur on Tuesday said they were unilaterally declaring independence from India and forming a government-in-exile in Britain.
The former princely state became part of India in 1949, two years after the country won independence from Britain, but has since seen decades-long violent separatist campaigns.
Narengbam Samarjit, external affairs minister in the self-declared Manipur State Council, said the exiled government would push for recognition at the United Nations.
“We will run the de jure exiled government here […] from today onwards,” he told reporters in London, after a declaration of independence first announced in Manipur in 2012 was read aloud.
