Tag: Conflict

Strategic Challenges in India’s Northeast: The Manipur Crisis and Pathways to Sustainable Security and Peace PART 2

By Brojen Thangjam Part II   Manipur: From Complex History to Violent Political Fragmentation Manipur’s present crisis has to be understood against a much longer history of political incorporation, social differentiation and frontier governance. Since its incorporation into the Indian Union in 1949, the state has had to negotiate the coexistence of a distinctive historical and […]

The post Strategic Challenges in India’s Northeast: The Manipur Crisis and Pathways to Sustainable Security and Peace PART 2 first appeared on The Frontier Manipur.

By Brojen Thangjam

Part II

 

Manipur: From Complex History to Violent Political Fragmentation

Manipur’s present crisis has to be understood against a much longer history of political incorporation, social differentiation and frontier governance. Since its incorporation into the Indian Union in 1949, the state has had to negotiate the coexistence of a distinctive historical and political identity with the institutions and imperatives of the Indian state. Its geography adds another layer of complexity. Located on India’s international frontier with Myanmar, Manipur has long been exposed to cross-border movement, ethnic and familial linkages, demographic pressures and transnational economic and illicit networks. Within the state itself, different communities have developed distinct political aspirations, social institutions and relationships with land, customary authority and the state. These differences have interacted with inherited administrative arrangements, changing forms of political accommodation and a security architecture shaped by the region’s frontier character and successive phases of armed conflict. The result is a political-security environment in which questions of identity, territory, authority, security and political representation have become closely intertwined.

From Political Incorporation to Insurgency

One enduring source of political contestation in Manipur concerns the circumstances and political meaning of its incorporation into the Indian Union. The Merger Agreement was signed on 21 September 1949, and administration was transferred to the Government of India on 15 October 1949. The Government of India’s White Paper on Indian States had described Manipur as a border state of “great strategic importance”, whose security arrangements required special attention. The Agreement transferred “full and exclusive authority, jurisdiction and powers” over the governance of the State to the Dominion Government. These developments marked a decisive change in Manipur’s constitutional and political status, but they did not bring the political questions surrounding that transition to a simple conclusion. (Government of India, 1948)

The significance of this history is also illuminated by the constitutional trajectory that preceded the merger. Manipur adopted its own Constitution in 1947 and held elections on the basis of universal adult franchise in June 1948, establishing a functioning Legislative Assembly. In studies of constitutionalism in the princely states of the Indian subcontinent, Manipur stands out as an important case that complicates the conventional narrative of integration. (De & Shani, 2025, pp. 150–161). They note that the Manipur State Constitution Act, 1947, has remained a site of political contestation, while the subsequent dissolution of the elected institutions following the transfer of administration has become part of a longer political memory concerning constitutional authority, political representation, and the terms of Manipur’s incorporation.

This history should not, however, be treated as a sufficient explanation of the conflicts that followed. Its significance for the present argument lies in the fact that the circumstances of incorporation provided one strand of the political narrative through which questions of sovereignty, political autonomy and historical legitimacy were subsequently articulated. From the 1960s, armed organisations emerged challenging the authority of the Indian state and, in different forms, seeking independence or the restoration of what was regarded as Manipur’s sovereign political status. The question of incorporation thus became one element in the historical and political justification of insurgency, contributing to a prolonged vertical conflict between insurgent organisations and the state.

The Convergence of Vertical and Horizontal Conflict

The present crisis, however, cannot be understood simply as a continuation of the earlier insurgency. The political and security environment has changed substantially. For much of the post-independence period, the dominant conflict was essentially vertical: the principal confrontation was between insurgent organisations and the Indian state. The present crisis has added a powerful horizontal dimension, in which conflict increasingly takes place between communities themselves, with armed organisations, political actors, state institutions and community-based security structures operating within and around these competing relationships. The distinction between vertical and horizontal conflict is useful here because it draws attention not merely to a change in the identity of the actors, but to a change in the social and political location of armed confrontation (Sadokpam, 2026). Sadokpam draws this understanding from Rizal Sukma’s formulation of vertical and horizontal conflict in ethnically volatile Indonesia. (Sukma, 2005) that helped to illuminate this transformation.

This shift was gradual rather than a sudden conversion in 2023. It emerged as political aspirations that had previously been expressed largely through ethnic organisations, constitutional demands and electoral politics became increasingly intertwined with armed organisations and coercive forms of mobilisation. The reconfiguration of insurgent politics in the late 1980s was particularly significant. The formation of the NSCN (IM) in 1988 and the emergence of Kuki armed organisations such as the KNA and KNF in the same year created new organisational vehicles through which claims relating to identity, territory and political authority could be articulated and pursued. The Kuki–Naga conflict of 1992–97 marked a critical stage in this transformation. It demonstrated that armed mobilisation could be directed not only against the state but also towards competing territorial and political claims between communities, producing displacement, deepening mistrust and consolidating armed authority within particular areas. The conflict was therefore no longer simply a contest between the state and insurgents, as territorial and political competition itself became increasingly militarised.

The subsequent peace processes further altered this landscape, although in a paradoxical way. The 1997 ceasefire between the Government of India and the NSCN (IM) substantially reduced direct confrontation between the state and the organisation, while its designated camps, command structure and organisational networks continued to operate within Manipur. The later suspension of operations arrangements with Kuki-Zo armed groups, informally from 2005 and formally from 2008, similarly sought to contain a fragmented armed landscape rather than immediately dismantle it. These arrangements reduced insurgent violence and created channels for political engagement, but they also allowed armed organisations to retain organisational cohesion, territorial influence and political relevance. Over time, armed authority therefore became embedded within parts of the social and political order rather than disappearing from it. The result was a gradual multiplication of centres of authority and a blurring of the boundary between armed mobilisation, community politics and territorial control.

As armed organisations became embedded in particular communities and territories, control over physical and economic space also acquired greater political significance. Territory was no longer simply the ground on which the state sought to deny insurgents freedom of movement; it increasingly became an object of competition in its own right. Control over land, strategic locations, movement corridors, border access, trade and economic networks acquired political and security value. Moreh illustrates this changing environment particularly well. Its location on the Myanmar frontier, its importance for cross-border trade and connectivity, and the presence of competing political and armed interests made it a space where territorial claims, economic interests, community security and challenges to state authority converged. The cumulative effect was a conflict environment in which the older state–insurgent contest increasingly overlapped with struggles over territory, resources, political representation and community security (Nepram, 2004).

This transformation does not mean that the earlier vertical conflict has disappeared. It has not. Rather, the two dimensions now coexist and interact. Armed organisations that once primarily challenged state authority have become embedded, to varying degrees, in community, territorial and political networks, while communities themselves have increasingly come to perceive security through competing claims over territory, identity and political future. By the time the 2023 crisis emerged, armed groups had become enduring political actors with organisational capacity, coercive capability, territorial influence and claims to political representation. The state was therefore no longer dealing only with armed organisations challenging its authority; it was also confronted with communities whose perceptions of security, territory, identity and political future had themselves become mutually contested.

The distinction matters because a state–insurgent conflict and an inter-community conflict pose different political and security problems. In the former, the principal challenge is to restore state authority in relation to an armed organisation. In the latter, the state must simultaneously protect communities from one another, maintain public authority, and create political conditions under which competing communities can continue to inhabit a common political space. This is one of the central reasons why a security architecture developed primarily around counterinsurgency could prove considerably less effective when violence emerged from within the political and social order that decades of conflict management had helped to shape.

The Differentiated Political Geography of Manipur

The transformation described above has unfolded within a political geography that is itself deeply differentiated. Manipur is not simply divided between a valley and the hills. Different communities have developed distinct relationships with land, political authority, customary institutions and the state, shaped by terrain, settlement patterns, historical administrative arrangements and political representation. The valley’s demographic concentration, agricultural and urban economy and political centrality developed alongside hill areas characterised by different land regimes, customary institutions and forms of administration. Geography therefore acquired political meaning: it shaped how communities understood land, representation, authority and security.

The hill–valley distinction is consequently more than a geographical divide. It has acquired political and institutional dimensions, particularly around land, customary authority, representation and autonomy, as well as the relationship between state institutions and community institutions. These differences have also been interpreted and mobilised by political leaders and elites, giving geographical and institutional distinctions a political life of their own. At the same time, the binary should not be overstated. Both the hills and the valley contain multiple communities, interests and political positions. Historical and geographical differences do not inevitably produce conflict; their significance lies in the different political contexts within which grievances, fears and aspirations are understood and mobilised.

An important consequence has been that the state itself is not experienced in the same way across these political spaces. In some communities, state institutions have been perceived as majoritarian, partial or insufficiently protective; in others, they have been viewed as instruments of unequal political accommodation. In parts of the hills, the uneven reach of state institutions has also allowed customary, community and, at times, armed structures to retain significant influence. The result is not the absence of state authority, but its coexistence with other sources of authority and legitimacy. Political order is therefore experienced through multiple institutional relationships rather than through a single, uniformly accepted framework of public authority.

This helps explain why long-standing political differences have proved difficult to contain within conventional political institutions. Questions of identity, land, representation, autonomy and political authority have generated competing aspirations for decades, but the critical issue is not simply the existence of these differences. It is whether institutions are sufficiently legitimate and capable of providing credible means through which such differences can be negotiated. Where political institutions are unable to command confidence across communities, political claims are more readily interpreted through the language of collective security. A dispute over representation can become a question of political survival; a dispute over land can become a question of territorial security; and uncertainty about political arrangements can become a fear about the community’s future.

Hassan (2008) compares experiences of Manipur and Mizoram. In his, Building Legitimacy: Exploring State–Society Relations in Northeast India, Hassan places state-making, institutional legitimacy and state capability at the centre of his analysis of the contrasting trajectories of the two states. His argument is not that conflict disappears when a state becomes more capable, but that the consolidation of legitimate state institutions creates a stronger political framework for managing group contestation. In Mizoram, the process of state-making helped strengthen the legitimacy and authority of state institutions and their capacity to manage competing interests. In Manipur, by contrast, traditional and community-based centres of authority, including tribal and ethnic associations, retained considerable influence, contributing to a more fragmented field of social and political authority.

Hassan’s comparison therefore helps shift the question from why communities have competing claims to why political institutions are unable to mediate those claims effectively. Grievances, competing identities, historical memories and struggles over land and resources may generate political mobilisation. Whether such mobilisation develops into sustained conflict, however, depends also on the capacity and legitimacy of institutions to regulate competition, provide credible avenues for political participation and maintain a political order that communities regard as sufficiently fair. In Manipur, the difficulty has been not simply the presence of competing political aspirations, but the weakness of institutions in providing a sufficiently trusted arena in which those aspirations can be negotiated.

The significance of the present crisis therefore lies in the interaction between a differentiated political geography and uneven political authority. Where communities do not experience the state as equally legitimate or capable, and where alternative sources of authority retain substantial influence, political differences can more readily become security concerns. The crisis is consequently not reducible to the failure to suppress violence. It points to a deeper difficulty in sustaining a political order in which competing communities can pursue their interests, contest one another politically, and still regard the state as a credible common arena for negotiation.

Security Architecture and Managed Instability

This weakness of political mediation has existed alongside a distinctive security architecture that has governed the region for decades. Manipur’s prolonged insurgency produced an extensive security response, including exceptional legislation, counter-insurgency institutions and doctrines, truce-management frameworks and successive peace processes. As Sanjib Baruah argues, however, this was not simply a collection of security measures but part of a wider security order in which a military understanding of political conflict acquired considerable primacy. The persistence of this security orientation shaped how the state understood and responded to political unrest, often privileging the management and containment of violence over the resolution of its underlying political causes (Baruah, 2020).

These measures had significant effects. Over time, levels of insurgent violence declined in important parts of the state, even though the organisations, constituencies and political questions that had sustained armed mobilisation did not disappear. The reduction in violence was therefore real, but it did not necessarily represent the resolution of the conflict’s underlying political drivers. As Ajai Sahni’s analysis of internal security in the Northeast illustrates, declining levels of violence need to be assessed alongside the continuing organisational, political and social conditions that sustain insurgent mobilisation (Sahni, 2023). At the same time, the prolonged security architecture created a difficult legitimacy problem. Where communities experienced security institutions primarily through exceptional laws, military deployment and counter-insurgency operations, trust in the security forces and in the institutions they represented could be weakened. The state could therefore reduce violence while struggling to build the broader legitimacy and confidence necessary for security to become a shared public good.

The distinction is important because containment of violence did not necessarily translate into consolidation of state authority or legitimacy. Ceasefires and negotiated arrangements could reduce armed confrontation while allowing insurgent organisations to preserve their organisational structures, social constituencies and, in some circumstances, economic influence. Political accommodation could therefore coexist with the persistence of alternative centres of authority. The security architecture also remained embedded in a wider political environment in which the state’s coercive capacity was often more visible than its capacity to mediate competing political claims.

This is particularly significant in Manipur because security arrangements developed alongside, rather than fully replacing, other forms of political and social authority. Community organisations, customary institutions and armed organisations continued to exercise influence in different parts of the state, while the state’s capacity to regulate political and security relations remained uneven. The result was a security environment in which violence could be reduced without producing a corresponding consolidation of a common political authority. Moreover, where security forces themselves were viewed with distrust by sections of the population because of the history and operation of the security architecture, the state’s ability to claim legitimacy as an impartial provider of public security was further weakened.

This does not diminish the importance of ceasefires or peace processes. They can be necessary instruments of conflict management and can create conditions for political engagement. The difficulty arises when arrangements intended to create space for political settlement become enduring mechanisms through which armed authority is accommodated without being progressively transformed into accountable political authority. In such circumstances, the reduction of violence may coexist with the persistence of fragmented authority and unresolved political competition.

This produced what may be described as managed instability: violence was sufficiently contained to prevent wider escalation, but the political contradictions, alternative centres of authority and deficits of institutional trust that sustained insecurity remained unresolved. The concept is used here analytically to describe a condition in which conflict is managed sufficiently to maintain a degree of order without producing a sufficiently legitimate and integrated political settlement.

The significance of this distinction becomes clearer after 2023. The question is not simply whether earlier security arrangements reduced violence. It is whether they also created the political and institutional conditions necessary to sustain a common system of public authority and security when the conflict changed form.

Fragmented Authority and Community Security

The events since May 2023 exposed this problem with unusual clarity. The emergence of community-based armed formations, territorial separation, parallel security arrangements and competing claims over political authority made visible a condition in which the state was no longer the sole or universally accepted provider of security.

This can be understood through the idea of fragmented authority. Rather than authority residing exclusively within public institutions, political and security functions become dispersed among state institutions, armed organisations, community-based authorities and other actors. An analysis of the Manipur crisis similarly describes a condition of fragmented sovereignty, in which political authority is dispersed across overlapping institutions, with contested sovereignty and coercive power operating alongside formal state institutions (Thangjam & Laishram, 2026). The important question, therefore, is not simply who controls territory, but who provides protection, who exercises authority and who is perceived as capable of determining political outcomes.

The growth of community-based security is understandable in conditions of fear and uncertainty. When communities believe that public institutions cannot adequately protect them, organising for their own protection becomes a rational response to insecurity. But what may begin as a response to insecurity can itself alter the political order. Where communities increasingly depend upon their own organisations for protection, security becomes a communal rather than a public good. Armed organisations can become embedded within community structures; political representatives can become dependent upon coercive actors; and the state can find itself negotiating not only with political actors but also with actors who possess coercive capacity and claim to speak on behalf of communities.

The events of May 2023 must be distinguished from these longer-term structural conditions. The precise causes and sequence of the initial violence remain subject to competing political and legal interpretations. What is less difficult to observe, however, is the speed and scale with which violence spread across geographically separated locations, the rapid emergence of armed community formations and the subsequent establishment of territorial frontlines. The pattern suggests that the violence did not develop solely through spontaneous local mobilisation; it unfolded in an environment in which pre-existing organisational, political and armed capacities could be rapidly activated.

The concept of an institutionalised riot system provides a useful analytical lens for thinking about this process. Brass cautions against treating large-scale communal violence as simply spontaneous eruptions of accumulated anger. His framework draws attention to the political actors, organisational networks, symbols, narratives and local mechanisms through which violence can be prepared, activated and sustained (Brass, 2003). Applied cautiously to Manipur, the value of the framework is not to establish that the May 2023 violence was a centrally planned riot. Rather, it helps us ask how pre-existing political mobilisation, organisational networks and accumulated insecurity can enable violence to move rapidly from local confrontation to wider communal conflict.

The political crisis and the security crisis therefore began to reinforce one another. Weak political mediation encouraged communities to seek their own security; expanding community security reduced confidence in common public institutions; and fragmented authority made political mediation more difficult. Once security itself becomes organised increasingly along community lines, restoring a common political order becomes considerably harder.

The significance of the post-2023 crisis therefore lies not only in the scale of violence but in what it revealed about the underlying structure of authority in Manipur. The crisis brought into the open a condition in which state institutions, armed organisations and community-based structures could exercise different forms of authority over the same political space. What had previously existed in more dispersed and often less visible forms became an overt feature of the conflict.

Displacement, Trust Deficit and Militarisation

The crisis of political order is also visible in the ways prolonged violence has altered the social and territorial conditions within which that order operates. Displacement, changing patterns of settlement, declining institutional trust and deepening reliance on security structures have become part of the political landscape created by the conflict. These are not simply consequences of violence; they increasingly shape the conditions under which security, political authority and eventual peace will have to be rebuilt.

The scale and duration of displacement illustrate this transformation most clearly. By March 2025, government data submitted to the Supreme Court recorded approximately 57,000 people living in 361 relief camps, from an estimated total displacement of around 60,000 since the outbreak of violence (Human Rights Watch, 2025). These figures do not capture all those living with relatives, in temporary accommodation or outside the state. The significance of displacement therefore lies not only in its humanitarian scale but in the way it has altered the social and territorial geography of the conflict.

Large numbers of people have remained separated from their homes, livelihoods and former neighbourhoods; many homes have been destroyed or occupied; and the physical conditions necessary for return have become inseparable from questions of security and territorial control. Displacement has consequently contributed to a more durable separation of communities and made the restoration of the pre-May 2023 social geography increasingly difficult. Questions of return, property restitution and accountability therefore become part of the larger question of whether public institutions can provide a credible framework for restoring ordinary political life.

The consequences extend to institutional trust. Trust is not simply confidence that an institution can perform a task. It involves an expectation that an authority will act with competence, fairness and a degree of good faith when exercising power. Legitimacy is related but distinct: it concerns whether that authority is regarded as rightful and deserving of acceptance. Research on procedural justice suggests that perceptions of fairness, respectful treatment and voice are central to the willingness of citizens to accept and cooperate with public authority (Tyler, 2003; Fisk & Cherney, 2017). In conflict-affected settings, therefore, the experience of how security is provided can matter as much as the fact of security itself.

This distinction is important in Manipur. Trust in public institutions can be weakened when communities experience the state as absent, partial, discriminatory or unable to protect them. Prolonged exposure to exceptional security measures can add another layer to this problem when security institutions themselves become associated with coercion rather than impartial public protection. Research on military policing in Manipur has documented how prolonged exceptional security measures have affected state–society relations and generated concerns about abuse and accountability (Chopra, 2019). The result can be a trust deficit in which the state retains substantial coercive capacity but struggles to command confidence that its institutions will provide security fairly and consistently. Where confidence is weak, communities are more likely to rely on their own organisations and networks for protection.

These experiences can also become embedded in communal memory. Fear, loss, displacement and perceptions of unequal protection are transmitted through families, community organisations and social networks. Distrust can therefore become self-reinforcing, both within communities and in perceptions of other communities and public institutions. What appears at one level as a problem of inter-community mistrust is consequently also a problem of accumulated institutional experience.

This helps explain the changing significance of militarisation. Manipur has lived for decades with a substantial security presence, exceptional security legislation and institutions shaped by counterinsurgency. In this historical sense, militarisation refers not simply to the presence of armed forces but to the growing influence of security institutions and security logics in political and social life. The post-2023 crisis has added a different dimension: communities have increasingly organised their own forms of protection, including armed community defence, in response to perceptions of vulnerability and the inability of common security arrangements to provide sufficient reassurance.

The two forms should not be equated, but they interact. The historical security architecture established an environment in which security institutions had an unusually prominent role in public life; the post-2023 crisis has extended the logic of security mobilisation into the social organisation of communities themselves. When communities organise for their own protection, this may initially be a rational response to insecurity. But where armed protection becomes embedded in community organisation, security can increasingly become a communal rather than a common public good. Armed organisations may acquire greater social and political influence, while the state faces greater difficulty in restoring a common security framework. Recent analysis of the conflict similarly identifies the emergence of parallel security systems among the principal communities as a consequence of the erosion of common protection. (Kipgen & Ganie, 2025)

A self-reinforcing dynamic can then emerge. Insecurity encourages communities to strengthen their own protection; stronger community-based protection reinforces perceptions of continuing insecurity; and prolonged reliance on separate systems of protection makes the restoration of common public security more difficult. Militarisation therefore becomes not only a consequence of insecurity but also a mechanism through which insecurity can be reproduced.

The immediate eruption of violence in May 2023 must nevertheless be distinguished from these longer-term structural conditions. The precise causes and sequence of the initial violence remain subject to competing political and legal interpretations. What is less difficult to observe is the speed and scale with which violence spread, the emergence of armed community formations and the subsequent establishment of territorial frontlines. The crisis therefore brought together several processes that had developed over time: displacement and territorial separation, weakened confidence in common institutions, and the increasing capacity of communities to organise security for themselves.

These developments also provide a useful way of understanding the official framing of the crisis. Government statements have repeatedly emphasised declining violence, the restoration of normalcy, the resumption of administrative and economic activity, and dialogue with stakeholders as principal indicators and instruments of progress. The Prime Minister has described the conflict as deeply rooted in Manipur’s history and referred to earlier episodes of social conflict, while the Union Home Minister has explicitly characterised the violence as ethnic and emphasised the restoration of peace and normalcy. The latter framing is particularly clear in the Home Minister’s parliamentary statements, where he distinguished the violence from terrorism and other forms of armed conflict and described it as ethnic violence between communities.

This framing is understandable as an immediate approach to stabilisation, but it also has a less visible implication. When a crisis is primarily presented as an historically recurrent or essentially ethnic conflict between communities, the political and institutional dimensions of the crisis can recede from view. The state risks being positioned principally as a manager of violence rather than as an actor responsible for rebuilding a common political order. The emphasis on declining violence and normalisation therefore places immediate weight on preventing renewed escalation and restoring administrative functioning, while the emphasis on dialogue points towards engagement with multiple stakeholders. Yet neither necessarily answers the deeper question of whether the institutions through which security and political authority are exercised have regained sufficient legitimacy and trust.

Framing the immediate objective as “normalisation” therefore leaves a deeper question less visible: what exactly is being normalised? A return to reduced levels of violence and functioning administration is necessary, but it does not by itself restore trust, enable displaced populations to return safely, reverse community militarisation or reconstruct common public authority. If the underlying political and institutional relationships remain substantially unchanged, normalisation may restore order without necessarily producing a sustainable political settlement.

The crisis can consequently be understood as a crisis of political order expressed and reinforced through a crisis of security. Political order depends upon institutions capable of mediating competing claims, while security depends upon the capacity of the state to provide credible, common and legitimate protection. The two are therefore inseparable: where political confidence weakens, communities turn increasingly towards separate forms of protection; where public security becomes fragmented, the space for political mediation contracts. The challenge is therefore not simply to suppress violence, but to reconstruct the political and security relationships through which a common public order can be sustained.

(Brojen Thangjam recently retired from service with the United Nations. He can be reached at brojen2303@gmail.com)

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Strategic Challenges in India’s Northeast: The Manipur Crisis and Pathways to Sustainable Security and Peace PART 1

By Brojen Thangjam The continuing crisis in Manipur illustrates how the strategic challenges confronting India’s Northeast are changing in character. The region is simultaneously an international frontier, a conflict-affected political space and an increasingly important gateway for India’s connectivity and engagement with Southeast Asia. The violence that began in May 2023 exposed not only the […]

The post Strategic Challenges in India’s Northeast: The Manipur Crisis and Pathways to Sustainable Security and Peace PART 1 first appeared on The Frontier Manipur.

By Brojen Thangjam

The continuing crisis in Manipur illustrates how the strategic challenges confronting India’s Northeast are changing in character. The region is simultaneously an international frontier, a conflict-affected political space and an increasingly important gateway for India’s connectivity and engagement with Southeast Asia. The violence that began in May 2023 exposed not only the persistence of armed insecurity but also a deeper crisis of political authority, institutional trust and inter-community relations.

The Changing Strategic Challenge

More than three years after the outbreak of violence in May 2023, Manipur remains deeply fractured. Although the intensity of direct violence has fluctuated, the conditions created by the conflict remain unresolved. Large-scale displacement, armed community defence, the circulation of weapons, territorial separation, a vulnerable international frontier and a severe loss of trust in state institutions and between communities have altered the security and political environment.

The significance of Manipur extends beyond the immediate crisis. The state lies at the intersection of India’s internal political order and its strategic engagement with Southeast Asia. It is simultaneously a conflict-affected society, an international frontier, and a critical link in India’s wider connectivity ambitions. The challenge, therefore, is not only how to restore security within Manipur, but how to govern a strategically important frontier while addressing the political and social conditions that have made security itself increasingly contested.

The central argument of this essay is that the strategic challenges in the region are continually evolving as conditions change. The established security framework, in which insurgency and counterinsurgency have been important elements, remains relevant where armed threats persist, but it is no longer sufficient on its own to explain an environment in which ethnic conflict, community-based security, frontier instability, transnational networks and competing political claims increasingly intersect. The conflict has now acquired a powerful horizontal dimension, with communities themselves becoming principal actors in both violence and security. As confidence in common institutions has weakened, communities have increasingly turned towards their own systems of protection, producing a fragmentation of security even while the State retains substantial coercive capacity.

This transformation requires a corresponding change in how sustainable security and peace are understood. The objective cannot simply be the suppression of violence or a return to the conditions that existed before May 2023. It requires restoring legitimate and effective public authority, rebuilding institutional trust, and creating political space for competing aspirations to be pursued without recourse to violence. At the same time, it requires recognising that sustainable peace cannot be secured through state action alone. Political actors and communities must also reconsider the pursuit of maximalist demands through coercion, armed mobilisation and exclusion, while peace processes must find ways of addressing deeply rooted differences without reproducing the conditions for renewed conflict. These are complex political questions that cannot be resolved within the scope of this essay. Its concern is more limited: to examine how these unresolved political and social contradictions have found violent expression, and what this means for the pursuit of sustainable security and peace. In this sense, sustainable security is best understood as a condition in which physical protection, legitimate institutions, political accommodation and relationships between communities reinforce rather than undermine one another.

The essay develops this argument in four parts. Part I locates Manipur within the changing strategic geography of India’s Northeast, examining the region’s transformation from a security-sensitive frontier into a strategic space shaped by security, connectivity, migration, trade and India’s engagement with Southeast Asia. Part II turns to the Manipur crisis itself and examines the transformation from a predominantly vertical conflict between the State and insurgent organisations towards a deeply horizontal conflict between communities and the resulting crisis of political mediation and public authority. Part III asks what sustainable security and peace should mean in these circumstances, drawing on the concepts of conflict transformation, positive peace, sustaining peace and comparative evidence on the prevention and resolution of internal conflict.

Part IV then moves from diagnosis towards pathways for change. It examines five interconnected transitions: from security management towards political settlement; from counterinsurgency towards frontier governance; from community-based protection towards public security; from armed and ceasefire arrangements towards political transformation; and from separation and coexistence towards a shared political community. The final discussion considers a further condition underlying these transitions, namely the need to combine accommodation between communities with greater accountability and participation within them.

The essay concludes by returning to the larger question of what kind of political and security order might allow Manipur’s different communities to share a future without requiring the erasure of their distinct identities. The purpose is not to offer a single formula for resolving the crisis, but to examine the changes in institutions, relationships and forms of authority that would be necessary to move from managed instability towards sustainable peace and shared security.

Part I

Locating the Northeast: From Frontier to Strategic Space

India’s Northeast occupies a paradoxical position. It is at once a frontier to be secured and a gateway to be opened; a region of internal security concern and an important avenue for India’s engagement with Southeast Asia. The same geography that has historically made the Northeast appear distant, vulnerable, and difficult to govern has also made it increasingly important to India’s strategic future. To understand this paradox, it is necessary first to locate the Northeast not simply on the map, but within India’s political and strategic imagination.

The Northeast is often spoken of as though it were a self-evident geographical and political entity. Yet, as Sanjib Baruah demonstrates in In the Name of the Nation: India and Its Northeast, the contemporary idea of “Northeast India” is itself historically constructed (Baruah, 2020). The region, as it is known today, emerged through a series of postcolonial efforts to reorganise and govern a fragmented frontier as part of the national space, shaped by administrative restructuring, political accommodation and security concerns.

The colonial administration had already distinguished the northeastern frontier through special administrative arrangements. After independence, these arrangements evolved alongside the reorganisation of the region and the expansion of state and security institutions. The 1962 war with China reinforced the strategic and security significance of the frontier, while the creation of Nagaland in 1963 marked an early effort to combine political accommodation with the management of insurgency. Manipur and Tripura followed a different trajectory as former princely states that merged with the Indian Union in 1949, retained their distinct administrative identities through the early post-independence period, and became full-fledged states in 1972. Subsequent reorganisations transformed much of the former colonial frontier of Assam into a group of states and Union Territories within the Indian Union.

An enduring tension emerged from this history. The Northeast was being politically integrated through statehood, autonomy and constitutional arrangements, while simultaneously being governed through a security framework that treated the region as an exceptional space. Political accommodation and security governance therefore developed alongside one another rather than one replacing the other. The result was not a transition from a security-centred approach to political integration, but the coexistence of both, often producing tensions between the imperatives of national security and those of democratic accommodation.

This history also cautions against viewing the Northeast simply as a naturally unstable periphery, where geography, ethnicity, underdevelopment and international borders automatically produce conflict. Such a view risks making instability appear intrinsic to the region, rather than directing attention to the political arrangements, institutional choices and forms of governance through which conflict is produced and managed. Yet the security character of the Northeast has not disappeared. Its international borders, ethnic and social linkages across them, history of insurgency, patterns of migration and proximity to an increasingly unstable neighbourhood continue to make it strategically sensitive. At the same time, its strategic significance has expanded beyond the traditional concerns of internal security. The Northeast is increasingly viewed not only as a frontier requiring security and political management, but also as a space through which India seeks connectivity, trade and engagement with its eastern neighbourhood.

The evolution from the Look East to the Act East Policy reflects this changing conception of the Northeast. Connectivity initiatives such as the India–Myanmar–Thailand Trilateral Highway and the Kaladan Multimodal Transit Transport Project illustrate this shift. The same geographical characteristics that once contributed to perceptions of the Northeast as distant and vulnerable, especially its location, international borders and cross-border social linkages now also give it strategic value as a gateway to Southeast Asia. The Northeast is therefore no longer viewed only as a frontier to be secured, but increasingly as a strategic space through which India can pursue connectivity, trade and engagement with its eastern neighbourhood (Saisin, Somboonboorana, Chaisingkananont, & Laishram, 2025).

These objectives, however, do not always sit comfortably together. The borders have to be secured even as legitimate movement, trade and people-to-people interaction are encouraged. Cross-border social and ethnic linkages have to be managed even as the state seeks to consolidate territorial and political authority. Connectivity has to be expanded while also managing the vulnerabilities that greater connectivity can create, including the movement of illicit networks, trafficking, arms and other forms of transnational insecurity. The strategic challenge, therefore, is not simply to connect the Northeast more closely to India and its eastern neighbourhood, but to do so in ways that strengthen security, economic opportunity and political stability rather than creating new vulnerabilities.

The idea of the Northeast as a strategic space, however, should not be mistaken for the idea of a homogeneous region. The eight states differ markedly in their histories, political institutions, ethnic composition, cultures and relationships with the Indian state. Yet national security and development policy increasingly engages the Northeast through common regional institutions and frameworks. The Ministry of Home Affairs has a dedicated North East Division dealing with security, insurgency, political negotiations and border-related issues, while the deployment of the Assam Rifles under its dual-control system, together with the legal and institutional arrangements governing it, gives the region a distinctive security character. Alongside this security architecture, the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) and the North Eastern Council (NEC) provide an institutional framework through which the Northeast is also conceived and administered as a distinct, interconnected governance space for development, coordination and regional planning. The result is a strategic space that is administratively and strategically connected, but politically and culturally far from uniform.

The Northeast should therefore be understood as more than a conventional border region. It is a historically constructed and differentiated strategic space in which geography, territorial security, political authority, ethnic and social identities, migration, connectivity, trade and transnational activity intersect. Its significance lies not in being a single or homogeneous political space, but in the way these different dimensions are brought together through the ways the Indian state and the wider national imagination have sought to govern, secure, integrate and connect the region. The Northeast is thus simultaneously a frontier to be secured, a political space to be governed, a region of diverse communities and competing aspirations, and a gateway through which India seeks greater connectivity and engagement with its eastern neighbourhood. It is in this broader sense that the term “strategic” is used in this essay.

From Strategic Space to Strategic Challenge

A strategic challenge is not necessarily a military threat. It arises when developments within a particular space affect the state’s ability to pursue important political objectives, when the ways available to pursue those objectives prove inadequate or contested, or when the means available to the state are insufficient or poorly aligned with its ends. A strategic challenge can therefore emerge not only from threats to particular objectives, but also from tensions between ends, ways and means that make those objectives difficult to reconcile or achieve.

Strategy, in its broader sense, concerns the relationship between ends, ways and means. Lykke (1989) provided a useful formulation: ends are the objectives to be achieved; ways are the courses of action through which they are pursued; and means are the resources and capabilities available to pursue them. A strategic challenge can therefore arise when objectives are difficult to reconcile, available courses of action are constrained or produce unintended consequences, or the resources and capabilities available are inadequate to achieve the desired ends. In complex situations, these difficulties can interact, creating tensions or gaps between what the state seeks to achieve, how it seeks to achieve it, and what it has available to do so.

The Northeast illustrates why these relationships matter. India’s objectives in the region extend across several domains: maintaining territorial integrity and internal security, securing its international borders, accommodating political and ethnic diversity, strengthening connectivity and trade, and advancing engagement with its eastern neighbourhood. These objectives are reflected across the Government’s security, border-management and Act East frameworks. The Ministry of Home Affairs, for example, combines security and political management of the Northeast with border-related responsibilities, while the Act East framework places connectivity and engagement with Southeast Asia at the centre of India’s eastern strategy (Ministry of Home Affairs, 2026; Ministry of External Affairs, 2015).

These objectives are not necessarily contradictory, but they do not always point to the same courses of action. Stronger border control may affect established patterns of cross-border movement and social and economic linkages. Connectivity can create economic and strategic opportunities while also creating new vulnerabilities. Political accommodation may reduce conflict in one context while generating new political expectations in another. Security measures may contain immediate violence but, if prolonged or applied unevenly, may also affect perceptions of legitimacy. The strategic challenge, therefore, is not simply that the Northeast contains many problems. It is that the state must pursue several important objectives simultaneously, often through ways and means that advance one objective while constraining or complicating another.

This is why insurgency, ethnic conflict, migration, narcotics trafficking, border insecurity or economic underdevelopment cannot be viewed entirely in isolation. Their significance becomes strategic when they interact with one another and with India’s wider political and security objectives. The implications of any one development may therefore extend beyond the immediate problem or locality in which it occurs, affecting the state’s ability to pursue other objectives or limiting the policy choices available to it.

A conflict that appears local may therefore have implications for border security; instability along the frontier may affect connectivity and relations with neighbouring countries; and developments within the region may constrain India’s strategic choices or influence wider national objectives. It is this interaction among ends, ways, means, actors and levels that can turn developments within a strategic space into strategic challenges. The ends–ways–means relationship provides the organising strategic framework here, while actors and levels help explain how challenges emerge and propagate across the region.

Three Overlapping Strategic Dimensions

For the Northeast, this interaction can be understood through three overlapping strategic dimensions.

The first is the national-strategic dimension. At this level, the Northeast is connected to India’s larger objectives of national security, border management, connectivity, Act East and relations with neighbouring states. Its location places it within the wider strategic environment in which India manages its relations and competition with China, while instability in Myanmar adds uncertainty along the eastern frontier. At the same time, the region is expected to support India’s engagement with Southeast Asia through connectivity, trade and people-to-people links. India’s Act East Policy places ASEAN at its core and treats connectivity in its broadest sense – physical, economic, political and people-to-people – as a central objective (Ministry of External Affairs, 2023). The challenge at this level is therefore one of frontier governance, especially securing the border while allowing legitimate movement, interaction and connectivity to continue. Bertil Lintner’s analysis of the India–Myanmar frontier illustrates how these interests intersect. He identifies India’s eastward engagement, the need to deny insurgent groups cross-border sanctuaries, access to energy resources and the management of China’s influence in Myanmar as interconnected Indian interests (Lintner, 2016). The Northeast is therefore both a security frontier and part of the wider strategic field through which India seeks to protect its interests and expand its engagement eastward.

The second is the frontier-regional dimension. Here, the international boundary is not simply a line to be guarded, but a space where security, migration, ethnic linkages, trade, connectivity and transnational activity intersect. The India–Myanmar frontier illustrates this complexity particularly well. Instability in Myanmar can affect population movements, insurgent networks and cross-border flows of arms, narcotics and other illicit activity, while disrupting established social and economic linkages. At the same time, legitimate movement, trade and connectivity create economic and strategic opportunities but can also introduce new vulnerabilities. India’s border-management arrangements reflect this dual requirement: cooperation with Myanmar includes measures relating to arms smuggling, drug trafficking, transnational crime and immigration, alongside broader efforts to maintain peace and security in border areas (Ministry of Home Affairs, 2015, 2019). The challenge at this level is therefore one of frontier governance especially securing the border while allowing legitimate movement, interaction and connectivity to continue.

The third is the sub-state political-security dimension. This is where national and frontier pressures meet the political realities of individual states and communities. The challenge is not simply whether the state possesses sufficient coercive capacity, but whether it can maintain legitimate political authority and provide credible security in societies whose identities, interests and political aspirations may differ sharply. Internal conflict can acquire wider strategic significance when it weakens state capacity, disrupts connectivity, complicates border management, or creates space for external actors and transnational networks. The experience of the Northeast demonstrates how conflict within individual states can therefore extend beyond the immediate security problem to affect wider internal-security and frontier objectives. India’s own approach reflects this interconnection, combining security measures with political negotiations, autonomy arrangements, rehabilitation and efforts to address the demands of ethnic groups (Ministry of Home Affairs, 2026).

These dimensions are not hierarchical compartments. They overlap and influence one another: a local conflict can acquire frontier implications; frontier instability can acquire national-strategic significance; and national strategic priorities can shape the way the state responds to local political conflict. The strategic challenge lies precisely in managing these interactions rather than addressing each dimension in isolation. This way of looking at the Northeast is consistent with the broader insight of Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver’s Regional Security Complex Theory (RSCT), which draws attention to the interconnectedness of security dynamics within and across regional spaces (Buzan & Wæver, 2003). For the purposes of this essay, however, RSCT is not applied as a formal theoretical framework. Its relevance here is simply as a conceptual reference for recognising that security developments at one level can affect, and be affected by, dynamics at other levels. The three dimensions developed above are therefore used as an analytical lens for locating Manipur within the larger strategic environment of the Northeast.

Manipur at the Strategic Intersection

It is against this background that the particular significance of Manipur becomes clearer. Its location on the India–Myanmar frontier, with Moreh as a major land gateway into Myanmar, gives it a distinctive place in India’s eastern strategy and in the India–Myanmar–Thailand Trilateral Highway linking the Northeast with mainland Southeast Asia. The earlier Look East Policy and subsequently the Act East Policy gave this geography a new strategic meaning, positioning Manipur not only as a security frontier but also as a potential gateway for trade, connectivity and wider engagement with Southeast Asia. At the same time, the same frontier generates significant vulnerabilities: cross-border ethnic and familial linkages, insurgent networks, illicit flows and the effects of instability in Myanmar can complicate border management and expose Manipur to transnational security risks. Recent research on Manipur’s border security similarly highlights the simultaneous expansion of connectivity and persistence of insurgency, irregular migration and transnational crime (Saisin et al., 2025).

These external and regional pressures intersect with Manipur’s internal political and security environment. Conflict and weakened political authority within the state can disrupt connectivity, complicate management of the frontier and diminish confidence in the institutions responsible for security and governance, thereby affecting interests that extend beyond Manipur itself. The significance of Manipur therefore lies in the convergence of the three dimensions identified above: developments within the state can affect the management of the frontier, which in turn can have consequences for India’s wider security, connectivity and strategic engagement with its eastern neighbourhood. It is this convergence that makes Manipur a particularly revealing case through which to examine the changing strategic challenge in the Northeast.

To understand how these vulnerabilities have taken shape, it is necessary to examine the security architecture within which Manipur evolved—how the frontier was governed, how security institutions acquired their role, and how political accommodation and security management developed alongside one another.

(Brojen Thangjam recently retired from service with the United Nations. He can be reached at brojen2303@gmail.com)

The post Strategic Challenges in India’s Northeast: The Manipur Crisis and Pathways to Sustainable Security and Peace PART 1 first appeared on The Frontier Manipur.

Read more / Original news source: https://thefrontiermanipur.com/strategic-challenges-in-indias-northeast-the-manipur-crisis-and-pathways-to-sustainable-security-and-peace-part-1/

CM Links Tronglaobi Killings to Elements Keen on Derailing Peace Efforts, Calls for Unity

Highlighting public sentiment, Yumnam Khemchand said people across communities have expressed a strong desire for peace and stability. He urged citizens to remain united and vigilant against elements seeking to create division. TFM Report Manipur Chief Minister Yumnam Khemchand Singh on Wednesday (April 29) said the April 7 Tronglaobi blast, which killed two children, was […]

The post CM Links Tronglaobi Killings to Elements Keen on Derailing Peace Efforts, Calls for Unity first appeared on The Frontier Manipur.

Highlighting public sentiment, Yumnam Khemchand said people across communities have expressed a strong desire for peace and stability. He urged citizens to remain united and vigilant against elements seeking to create division.

TFM Report

Manipur Chief Minister Yumnam Khemchand Singh on Wednesday (April 29) said the April 7 Tronglaobi blast, which killed two children, was likely the handiwork of groups attempting to destabilize the state and obstruct ongoing peace efforts.

Referring to the Tronglaobi incident in which two children (siblings) were killed, he said the government under him believe that the incident must have been triggered by “those who did not want the formation of a popular government or those who want to create a volatile atmosphere. We will apprehend those responsible, they have no place to run”.

Addressing a gathering in Langthabal constituency in Imphal West district after inaugurating five infrastructure projects, the Chief Minister placed the incident in context. He noted that Manipur had been under President’s Rule since February 13, 2025, following the resignation of former Chief Minister N Biren Singh amid prolonged ethnic violence that began on May 3, 2023. President’s Rule was revoked on February 4, 2026, paving the way for the formation of a new government led by Singh, due to demand of forming a popular government from the general public.

“After a consistent demand for the revocation of President’s Rule and installation of a popular government through the voices of the public, I became the Chief Minister (I did not lobby for the post nor did I know that I would be the one for the post),” said the Chief Minister.

On the occasion, Khemchand also emphasized that peace remains the foremost requirement for development. The projects included three water supply schemes and two community halls. He added that since assuming office, his focus has been on initiating a “journey for peace” aimed at rebuilding trust and harmony among communities.

Over the past two months and twenty days, Singh said he has engaged extensively with MLAs, officials, and civil society groups, while also visiting both hill and valley districts—including Jiribam, Senapati, Kangpokpi, and Ukhrul—to understand public grievances and promote reconciliation. He pointed out that the Tronglaobi blast occurred shortly after his visit to Jiribam, calling it an “unfortunate” attempt to derail the fragile peace process.

Highlighting public sentiment, Singh said people across communities have expressed a strong desire for peace and stability. He urged citizens to remain united and vigilant against elements seeking to create division.

Reaffirming the government’s commitment, Singh said development initiatives would continue across all regions, including remote areas, despite ongoing challenges, and called for collective cooperation to build a peaceful and progressive Manipur.

The post CM Links Tronglaobi Killings to Elements Keen on Derailing Peace Efforts, Calls for Unity first appeared on The Frontier Manipur.

Read more / Original news source: https://thefrontiermanipur.com/cm-links-tronglaobi-killings-to-elements-keen-on-derailing-peace-efforts-calls-for-unity/

CM Links Tronglaobi Killings to Elements Keen on Derailing Peace Efforts, Calls for Unity

Highlighting public sentiment, Yumnam Khemchand said people across communities have expressed a strong desire for peace and stability. He urged citizens to remain united and vigilant against elements seeking to create division. TFM Report Manipur Chief Minister Yumnam Khemchand Singh on Wednesday (April 29) said the April 7 Tronglaobi blast, which killed two children, was […]

The post CM Links Tronglaobi Killings to Elements Keen on Derailing Peace Efforts, Calls for Unity first appeared on The Frontier Manipur.

Highlighting public sentiment, Yumnam Khemchand said people across communities have expressed a strong desire for peace and stability. He urged citizens to remain united and vigilant against elements seeking to create division.

TFM Report

Manipur Chief Minister Yumnam Khemchand Singh on Wednesday (April 29) said the April 7 Tronglaobi blast, which killed two children, was likely the handiwork of groups attempting to destabilize the state and obstruct ongoing peace efforts.

Referring to the Tronglaobi incident in which two children (siblings) were killed, he said the government under him believe that the incident must have been triggered by “those who did not want the formation of a popular government or those who want to create a volatile atmosphere. We will apprehend those responsible, they have no place to run”.

Addressing a gathering in Langthabal constituency in Imphal West district after inaugurating five infrastructure projects, the Chief Minister placed the incident in context. He noted that Manipur had been under President’s Rule since February 13, 2025, following the resignation of former Chief Minister N Biren Singh amid prolonged ethnic violence that began on May 3, 2023. President’s Rule was revoked on February 4, 2026, paving the way for the formation of a new government led by Singh, due to demand of forming a popular government from the general public.

“After a consistent demand for the revocation of President’s Rule and installation of a popular government through the voices of the public, I became the Chief Minister (I did not lobby for the post nor did I know that I would be the one for the post),” said the Chief Minister.

On the occasion, Khemchand also emphasized that peace remains the foremost requirement for development. The projects included three water supply schemes and two community halls. He added that since assuming office, his focus has been on initiating a “journey for peace” aimed at rebuilding trust and harmony among communities.

Over the past two months and twenty days, Singh said he has engaged extensively with MLAs, officials, and civil society groups, while also visiting both hill and valley districts—including Jiribam, Senapati, Kangpokpi, and Ukhrul—to understand public grievances and promote reconciliation. He pointed out that the Tronglaobi blast occurred shortly after his visit to Jiribam, calling it an “unfortunate” attempt to derail the fragile peace process.

Highlighting public sentiment, Singh said people across communities have expressed a strong desire for peace and stability. He urged citizens to remain united and vigilant against elements seeking to create division.

Reaffirming the government’s commitment, Singh said development initiatives would continue across all regions, including remote areas, despite ongoing challenges, and called for collective cooperation to build a peaceful and progressive Manipur.

The post CM Links Tronglaobi Killings to Elements Keen on Derailing Peace Efforts, Calls for Unity first appeared on The Frontier Manipur.

Read more / Original news source: https://thefrontiermanipur.com/cm-links-tronglaobi-killings-to-elements-keen-on-derailing-peace-efforts-calls-for-unity/

Manipur Crisis Through Conflict Theory: A Two-Level Mistrust Model

The Manipur crisis as a simultaneous breakdown of vertical trust between citizens and the state, and horizontal trust among communities. Using conflict theory, it argues that structural inequalities, identity fears, security dilemmas, and cultural violence have transformed the crisis into a self-sustaining cycle of mutual insecurity. Lasting peace requires rebuilding institutional legitimacy and intergroup trust, […]

The post Manipur Crisis Through Conflict Theory: A Two-Level Mistrust Model first appeared on The Frontier Manipur.

The Manipur crisis as a simultaneous breakdown of vertical trust between citizens and the state, and horizontal trust among communities. Using conflict theory, it argues that structural inequalities, identity fears, security dilemmas, and cultural violence have transformed the crisis into a self-sustaining cycle of mutual insecurity. Lasting peace requires rebuilding institutional legitimacy and intergroup trust, not merely restoring law and order.

By Sheikh Abdul Hakim

The Manipur crisis can be theorised as a breakdown of social cohesion at two levels: the vertical level, between citizens and the state, and the horizontal level, among communities. Social-cohesion theory defines the horizontal dimension as trust among people and groups, while the vertical dimension concerns trust between citizens and institutions such as the government. In Manipur, both have weakened at the same time, making the crisis far deeper than a normal law-and-order problem.

Core thesis

From the perspective of conflict theory, Manipur is not merely a clash of communities. It is a conflict over security, land, recognition, political power, identity, dignity, and trust. The immediate violence began in May 2023 around ethnic tensions linked to Scheduled Tribe status, affirmative-action benefits, land and political anxieties; by 2026, Reuters reported around 260 deaths and more than 60,000 displaced, while ACLED described the two major communities as living in near-complete segregation after two years of violence.

The central problem is this: each community now sees its own survival as insecure, and many citizens no longer believe that institutions can protect them with neutrality, speed, and fairness. Once that happens, every incident is interpreted not as an individual crime, but as evidence of collective danger.

1. Structural conflict: unequal power, land, representation and resources

Classical conflict theory begins from the idea that society is not always harmonious; it is often shaped by struggles over scarce resources and institutional power. In Manipur, the relevant resources are not only money or jobs. They include land, constitutional protection, political representation, administrative control, access to security, development, mobility, and cultural recognition.

Frances Stewart’s theory of horizontal inequalities is especially useful. It argues that conflict becomes more likely when economic, political, social and cultural inequalities are experienced not merely by individuals, but by identity groups. Stewart’s framework defines horizontal inequalities as inequalities among groups sharing a common identity, and notes that when cultural differences overlap with economic and political differences, resentment can deepen into violent struggle.

Applied to Manipur, the hill-valley divide becomes more than geography. The valley is associated with demographic concentration, political centrality and administrative visibility; the hills are associated with land protection, tribal autonomy, distance from state services and fear of domination. The Meitei demand for Scheduled Tribe status, and the opposition to it from Kuki-Zo and other tribal groups, therefore, became a symbolic struggle over who will control the future rules of land, reservation, recognition and security. That is why the conflict cannot be reduced to one incident alone.

2. Identity conflict: when grievance becomes community consciousness

Social Identity Theory, developed by Henri Tajfel and John Turner, helps explain how people begin to see events through the lens of “us” and “them.” Their work showed that even minimal group distinctions can generate in-group preference and out-group suspicion; in a violent setting, this tendency becomes far more dangerous.

In Manipur, the crisis has turned identity into a security boundary. A killing, arrest, rumour, checkpoint, relief measure or government statement is no longer judged only on facts. It is often judged through the question: “Is this against my community or in favour of the other?” This is the psychological moment where horizontal mistrust becomes self-reinforcing.

The tragedy is that people who once shared markets, schools, roads, workplaces and friendships can begin to see one another as representatives of collective threat. At that stage, individual guilt disappears behind collective suspicion. Conflict theory calls this the hardening of group boundaries.

3. Security dilemma: every group’s self-defence frightens the other

The ethnic security dilemma is one of the most powerful explanations for Manipur today. Lake and Rothchild argue that intense ethnic conflict is not caused simply by “ancient hatred”; it is often produced by collective fear of the future, especially when groups doubt whether the state can credibly protect them. When the state’s authority weakens or is seen as biased, communities begin preparing for their own defence; those preparations then look threatening to the other side, causing a spiral.

This is visible in Manipur’s armed village-defence atmosphere, buffer zones, checkpoints, displacement camps, segregated settlements, and fear of crossing into the “other” area. Reuters reported that weapons were in circulation, including arms stolen from police or smuggled from Myanmar, while many Kukis and Meiteis moved out of mixed areas.

The security dilemma works like this:

One side says: “We are arming or blocking roads only to protect ourselves.”

The other side hears: “They are preparing to attack us.”

The state intervenes: one group sees protection, another sees bias.

Result: fear grows even when both sides claim they want safety.

Thus, Manipur’s crisis has moved from grievance to fear, and from fear to separation.

4. Vertical mistrust: the crisis of state legitimacy

Conflict theory also asks: who controls institutions, and do people see those institutions as neutral? In Manipur, vertical mistrust has become central. Many citizens no longer evaluate the state only by laws written on paper; they evaluate it by lived experience: Who came when we were attacked? Whose FIR was registered? Whose dead were honoured? Whose displaced families were heard? Whose roads were opened? Whose suffering was ignored?

The Supreme Court’s intervention itself shows the gravity of the institutional-trust problem. In its [Manipur violence order], the Court stressed the need to restore faith and confidence in the justice system, ensure that perpetrators are punished according to law, and sustain public confidence in investigation and prosecution. It also constituted a three-judge committee led by Justice Gita Mittal for relief, rehabilitation and survivor support, and appointed an outside police officer to supervise investigations.

This matters theoretically because when citizens lose confidence in institutions, they seek security from community organisations, armed volunteers, pressure groups, ethnic councils, rumour networks and local defence structures. The state then loses its monopoly over trust, even if it still has formal authority.

In simple terms: a government may control territory, but it cannot produce peace unless people believe it is fair.

5. Cultural violence: when language makes violence acceptable

Johan Galtung’s theory divides violence into direct violence, structural violence, and cultural violence. Direct violence is visible: killings, arson, sexual violence, displacement, attacks. Structural violence is built into unequal systems. Cultural violence is the language, symbols, stereotypes and narratives that make direct or structural violence appear acceptable.

In Manipur, cultural violence appears when entire communities are reduced to labels: “illegal,” “terrorist,” “drug-linked,” “land-grabber,” “anti-national,” “aggressor,” or “enemy.” Once such language spreads, the crime of an individual is transferred onto a whole community. This is how collective blame is manufactured.

The theoretical danger is that cultural violence does not always look like violence. It may look like a slogan, a speech, a rumour, a meme, a funeral speech, a protest placard, or a social-media post. But it prepares the mind to accept cruelty.

6. Conflict entrepreneurs: those who benefit from division

Conflict theory also pays attention to actors who gain from instability. These may include extremist groups, armed networks, political hardliners, black-market actors, rumour-spreaders, and leaders who gain influence by presenting themselves as sole protectors of a community.

Lake and Rothchild note that [ethnic activists and political entrepreneurs] can build upon insecurity and polarise society. In Manipur, this means the conflict is not sustained only by spontaneous anger. It is also sustained by networks that turn fear into mobilisation, mobilisation into power, and power into bargaining strength.

This is why peace is difficult: for ordinary people, peace means returning home; for conflict entrepreneurs, peace may mean losing relevance.

7. Displacement and segregation: mistrust becomes geography

Displacement changes conflict from an event into a living structure. Once people are separated into camps, protected zones and community-specific territories, mistrust becomes geographical. ACLED’s description of near-complete segregation is therefore not only a demographic fact; it is a conflict-theory warning. Separation reduces everyday contact, and reduced contact allows rumours to replace relationships.

Intergroup Contact Theory, associated with Gordon Allport and later work by Pettigrew, suggests that contact reduces prejudice best when there is equal status, common goals, cooperation and authority support. But unsafe, unequal or forced contact can deepen fear. Therefore, simply telling communities to “live together again” is not enough. They need conditions where coexistence is safe, dignified and institutionally protected.

The Manipur crisis in one theoretical formula

Structural insecurity + identity fear + weak institutional trust + armed separation + hostile narratives = prolonged ethnic conflict.

Or more simply:

Vertical mistrust makes people doubt the state. Horizontal mistrust makes people fear neighbours. Together, they create a society where every action is suspected, every rumour travels fast, and every tragedy can become another trigger.

What conflict theory teaches for Manipur

The first lesson is that policing alone cannot solve a conflict that has become structural and psychological. Security is necessary, but security without trust can be read as occupation, bias or threat.

The second lesson is that justice must be both real and visible. The Supreme Court’s emphasis on restoring public confidence in investigation and prosecution is crucial because, in a mistrust society, justice hidden from public confidence will not heal public wounds.

The third lesson is that peace must operate at three levels: stop direct violence, correct structural grievances, and defeat cultural hatred. Galtung’s framework makes clear that removing guns is only the beginning; societies must also remove the narratives and inequalities that make violence return.

Final theoretical framing

Manipur today is best understood as a crisis of mutual insecurity. The Meitei fear loss of identity, land security, demographic balance and historical centrality. The Kuki-Zo fear loss of land, autonomy, physical safety and equal protection. Other communities fear being dragged into a binary conflict that may erase their own concerns. The government faces a legitimacy deficit because different communities judge its actions through different wounds. Therefore, the problem is not only that communities disagree. The deeper problem is that they no longer trust the same facts, the same institutions, or the same future.

The crisis began with events. It now survives through structures. It will end only when Manipur rebuilds both: vertical trust in the state and horizontal trust among communities.

(Sheikh Abdul Hakim is Director, Social Welfare, Government of Manipur)

 

The post Manipur Crisis Through Conflict Theory: A Two-Level Mistrust Model first appeared on The Frontier Manipur.

Read more / Original news source: https://thefrontiermanipur.com/manipur-crisis-through-conflict-theory-a-two-level-mistrust-model/

Manipur Crisis Through Conflict Theory: A Two-Level Mistrust Model

The Manipur crisis as a simultaneous breakdown of vertical trust between citizens and the state, and horizontal trust among communities. Using conflict theory, it argues that structural inequalities, identity fears, security dilemmas, and cultural violence have transformed the crisis into a self-sustaining cycle of mutual insecurity. Lasting peace requires rebuilding institutional legitimacy and intergroup trust, […]

The post Manipur Crisis Through Conflict Theory: A Two-Level Mistrust Model first appeared on The Frontier Manipur.

The Manipur crisis as a simultaneous breakdown of vertical trust between citizens and the state, and horizontal trust among communities. Using conflict theory, it argues that structural inequalities, identity fears, security dilemmas, and cultural violence have transformed the crisis into a self-sustaining cycle of mutual insecurity. Lasting peace requires rebuilding institutional legitimacy and intergroup trust, not merely restoring law and order.

By Sheikh Abdul Hakim

The Manipur crisis can be theorised as a breakdown of social cohesion at two levels: the vertical level, between citizens and the state, and the horizontal level, among communities. Social-cohesion theory defines the horizontal dimension as trust among people and groups, while the vertical dimension concerns trust between citizens and institutions such as the government. In Manipur, both have weakened at the same time, making the crisis far deeper than a normal law-and-order problem.

Core thesis

From the perspective of conflict theory, Manipur is not merely a clash of communities. It is a conflict over security, land, recognition, political power, identity, dignity, and trust. The immediate violence began in May 2023 around ethnic tensions linked to Scheduled Tribe status, affirmative-action benefits, land and political anxieties; by 2026, Reuters reported around 260 deaths and more than 60,000 displaced, while ACLED described the two major communities as living in near-complete segregation after two years of violence.

The central problem is this: each community now sees its own survival as insecure, and many citizens no longer believe that institutions can protect them with neutrality, speed, and fairness. Once that happens, every incident is interpreted not as an individual crime, but as evidence of collective danger.

1. Structural conflict: unequal power, land, representation and resources

Classical conflict theory begins from the idea that society is not always harmonious; it is often shaped by struggles over scarce resources and institutional power. In Manipur, the relevant resources are not only money or jobs. They include land, constitutional protection, political representation, administrative control, access to security, development, mobility, and cultural recognition.

Frances Stewart’s theory of horizontal inequalities is especially useful. It argues that conflict becomes more likely when economic, political, social and cultural inequalities are experienced not merely by individuals, but by identity groups. Stewart’s framework defines horizontal inequalities as inequalities among groups sharing a common identity, and notes that when cultural differences overlap with economic and political differences, resentment can deepen into violent struggle.

Applied to Manipur, the hill-valley divide becomes more than geography. The valley is associated with demographic concentration, political centrality and administrative visibility; the hills are associated with land protection, tribal autonomy, distance from state services and fear of domination. The Meitei demand for Scheduled Tribe status, and the opposition to it from Kuki-Zo and other tribal groups, therefore, became a symbolic struggle over who will control the future rules of land, reservation, recognition and security. That is why the conflict cannot be reduced to one incident alone.

2. Identity conflict: when grievance becomes community consciousness

Social Identity Theory, developed by Henri Tajfel and John Turner, helps explain how people begin to see events through the lens of “us” and “them.” Their work showed that even minimal group distinctions can generate in-group preference and out-group suspicion; in a violent setting, this tendency becomes far more dangerous.

In Manipur, the crisis has turned identity into a security boundary. A killing, arrest, rumour, checkpoint, relief measure or government statement is no longer judged only on facts. It is often judged through the question: “Is this against my community or in favour of the other?” This is the psychological moment where horizontal mistrust becomes self-reinforcing.

The tragedy is that people who once shared markets, schools, roads, workplaces and friendships can begin to see one another as representatives of collective threat. At that stage, individual guilt disappears behind collective suspicion. Conflict theory calls this the hardening of group boundaries.

3. Security dilemma: every group’s self-defence frightens the other

The ethnic security dilemma is one of the most powerful explanations for Manipur today. Lake and Rothchild argue that intense ethnic conflict is not caused simply by “ancient hatred”; it is often produced by collective fear of the future, especially when groups doubt whether the state can credibly protect them. When the state’s authority weakens or is seen as biased, communities begin preparing for their own defence; those preparations then look threatening to the other side, causing a spiral.

This is visible in Manipur’s armed village-defence atmosphere, buffer zones, checkpoints, displacement camps, segregated settlements, and fear of crossing into the “other” area. Reuters reported that weapons were in circulation, including arms stolen from police or smuggled from Myanmar, while many Kukis and Meiteis moved out of mixed areas.

The security dilemma works like this:

One side says: “We are arming or blocking roads only to protect ourselves.”

The other side hears: “They are preparing to attack us.”

The state intervenes: one group sees protection, another sees bias.

Result: fear grows even when both sides claim they want safety.

Thus, Manipur’s crisis has moved from grievance to fear, and from fear to separation.

4. Vertical mistrust: the crisis of state legitimacy

Conflict theory also asks: who controls institutions, and do people see those institutions as neutral? In Manipur, vertical mistrust has become central. Many citizens no longer evaluate the state only by laws written on paper; they evaluate it by lived experience: Who came when we were attacked? Whose FIR was registered? Whose dead were honoured? Whose displaced families were heard? Whose roads were opened? Whose suffering was ignored?

The Supreme Court’s intervention itself shows the gravity of the institutional-trust problem. In its [Manipur violence order], the Court stressed the need to restore faith and confidence in the justice system, ensure that perpetrators are punished according to law, and sustain public confidence in investigation and prosecution. It also constituted a three-judge committee led by Justice Gita Mittal for relief, rehabilitation and survivor support, and appointed an outside police officer to supervise investigations.

This matters theoretically because when citizens lose confidence in institutions, they seek security from community organisations, armed volunteers, pressure groups, ethnic councils, rumour networks and local defence structures. The state then loses its monopoly over trust, even if it still has formal authority.

In simple terms: a government may control territory, but it cannot produce peace unless people believe it is fair.

5. Cultural violence: when language makes violence acceptable

Johan Galtung’s theory divides violence into direct violence, structural violence, and cultural violence. Direct violence is visible: killings, arson, sexual violence, displacement, attacks. Structural violence is built into unequal systems. Cultural violence is the language, symbols, stereotypes and narratives that make direct or structural violence appear acceptable.

In Manipur, cultural violence appears when entire communities are reduced to labels: “illegal,” “terrorist,” “drug-linked,” “land-grabber,” “anti-national,” “aggressor,” or “enemy.” Once such language spreads, the crime of an individual is transferred onto a whole community. This is how collective blame is manufactured.

The theoretical danger is that cultural violence does not always look like violence. It may look like a slogan, a speech, a rumour, a meme, a funeral speech, a protest placard, or a social-media post. But it prepares the mind to accept cruelty.

6. Conflict entrepreneurs: those who benefit from division

Conflict theory also pays attention to actors who gain from instability. These may include extremist groups, armed networks, political hardliners, black-market actors, rumour-spreaders, and leaders who gain influence by presenting themselves as sole protectors of a community.

Lake and Rothchild note that [ethnic activists and political entrepreneurs] can build upon insecurity and polarise society. In Manipur, this means the conflict is not sustained only by spontaneous anger. It is also sustained by networks that turn fear into mobilisation, mobilisation into power, and power into bargaining strength.

This is why peace is difficult: for ordinary people, peace means returning home; for conflict entrepreneurs, peace may mean losing relevance.

7. Displacement and segregation: mistrust becomes geography

Displacement changes conflict from an event into a living structure. Once people are separated into camps, protected zones and community-specific territories, mistrust becomes geographical. ACLED’s description of near-complete segregation is therefore not only a demographic fact; it is a conflict-theory warning. Separation reduces everyday contact, and reduced contact allows rumours to replace relationships.

Intergroup Contact Theory, associated with Gordon Allport and later work by Pettigrew, suggests that contact reduces prejudice best when there is equal status, common goals, cooperation and authority support. But unsafe, unequal or forced contact can deepen fear. Therefore, simply telling communities to “live together again” is not enough. They need conditions where coexistence is safe, dignified and institutionally protected.

The Manipur crisis in one theoretical formula

Structural insecurity + identity fear + weak institutional trust + armed separation + hostile narratives = prolonged ethnic conflict.

Or more simply:

Vertical mistrust makes people doubt the state. Horizontal mistrust makes people fear neighbours. Together, they create a society where every action is suspected, every rumour travels fast, and every tragedy can become another trigger.

What conflict theory teaches for Manipur

The first lesson is that policing alone cannot solve a conflict that has become structural and psychological. Security is necessary, but security without trust can be read as occupation, bias or threat.

The second lesson is that justice must be both real and visible. The Supreme Court’s emphasis on restoring public confidence in investigation and prosecution is crucial because, in a mistrust society, justice hidden from public confidence will not heal public wounds.

The third lesson is that peace must operate at three levels: stop direct violence, correct structural grievances, and defeat cultural hatred. Galtung’s framework makes clear that removing guns is only the beginning; societies must also remove the narratives and inequalities that make violence return.

Final theoretical framing

Manipur today is best understood as a crisis of mutual insecurity. The Meitei fear loss of identity, land security, demographic balance and historical centrality. The Kuki-Zo fear loss of land, autonomy, physical safety and equal protection. Other communities fear being dragged into a binary conflict that may erase their own concerns. The government faces a legitimacy deficit because different communities judge its actions through different wounds. Therefore, the problem is not only that communities disagree. The deeper problem is that they no longer trust the same facts, the same institutions, or the same future.

The crisis began with events. It now survives through structures. It will end only when Manipur rebuilds both: vertical trust in the state and horizontal trust among communities.

(Sheikh Abdul Hakim is Director, Social Welfare, Government of Manipur)

 

The post Manipur Crisis Through Conflict Theory: A Two-Level Mistrust Model first appeared on The Frontier Manipur.

Read more / Original news source: https://thefrontiermanipur.com/manipur-crisis-through-conflict-theory-a-two-level-mistrust-model/

Myanmar Exclusive: SAVIOR OR SCAMMER? NUG’s Sagaing Fundraising Chief Accused of Siphoning Millions for Luxury as War Refugees Starve

This case highlights a critical vulnerability in the resistance movement: the absence of a robust, independent financial oversight mechanism. As the political crisis in Myanmar seeks international legitimacy, the trust of donors is its most valuable currency. By M. Richard A storm of internal dissent is threatening to shatter the fragile trust in the National […]

The post Myanmar Exclusive: SAVIOR OR SCAMMER? NUG’s Sagaing Fundraising Chief Accused of Siphoning Millions for Luxury as War Refugees Starve first appeared on The Frontier Manipur.

This case highlights a critical vulnerability in the resistance movement: the absence of a robust, independent financial oversight mechanism. As the political crisis in Myanmar seeks international legitimacy, the trust of donors is its most valuable currency.

By M. Richard

A storm of internal dissent is threatening to shatter the fragile trust in the National Unity Government’s (NUG) financial networks, as whistleblowers accuse a high-ranking regional fundraiser of running a brazen “half-for-me, half-for-the-cause” scheme. Demands for an independent forensic audit are mounting against one Chaw Suu Han, reportedly the head of the NUGPay fundraising apparatus in Sagaing Region, who stands accused of diverting tens of millions of Kyats—intended for war refugees and frontline fighters—to finance a lavish personal lifestyle.

While Chaw Suu Han is alleged to have publicly solicited donations since 2023 for noble causes such as school construction and communication equipment for local People’s Defence Force (PDF) units, internal documents obtained by the Sagaing Funding Rise Group reveal a stark contradiction. The financial opacity stands in sharp contrast to the dire needs of displaced families in Salingyi township, juxtaposed against the social media display of luxury assets by the official and her family.

Chaw Suu Han, an alleged member of the People’s Revolutionary Aid Force under the [Ministry of Defense of Myanmar’s National Unity Government], has been managing an online pay account. Under the guise of funding humanitarian aid, she has collected millions of Kyats from towns including Salingyi in Sagaing, as well as Gangaw and Myaing in Magway.

 

Sagaing has become one of the epicenters of resistance against the military regime.

 

‘The Missing Ledger’ and the Amnesty International Grant

In September 2025, facing mounting accusations of financial malfeasance, Chaw Suu Han had issued a defiant but elusive defensive statement, according to a source. She is reported to have stated, “I have published all accounts” and further challenged her accusers, stating, “Want to see the books? Come audit them face-to-face—but you must guarantee your safety,” before announcing, “I have stopped all aid. I am no longer accepting donations.”

However, internal sources contradict these claims. Whistleblowers report that “no comprehensive accounts have been published”, no audit reports submitted to the NUG, and that despite her public statement, she continues to solicit funds under the banner of “People’s Donations.”

Perhaps the most damning allegation involves international funding. Sources allege that since early 2023, Chaw Suu Han allegedly received grants from Amnesty International totaling 3.5 million Kyats per project, titled “Support for Democratic and Human Rights Defenders in Myanmar.” Whistleblowers claim these funds were never utilized for revolutionary purposes, never registered in official donation lists, and were instead funneled directly into her personal coffers.

A Symptom of Systemic Rot

Chaw Suu Han’s case is not an isolated incident; rather, it is a stark symptom of what critics describe as deep-seated corruption endemic to the NUG’s financial structures, said a source.

Allegations have been hurled at may others. Kyaw Moe Tun (NUG Rep to UN): Allegedly misappropriated $2.6M from the Myanmar UN account, paying only $300k in dues while the rest vanished while Chaw Suu Han allegedly collected millions in donations with unclear accounts and missing supplies.

Daw Kyi Pyar was the Permanent Secretary of the Prime Minister’s Office for Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG), serving until her resignation in February 2026. She was embroiled in a major controversy starting in November 2025 over allegations of corruption, nepotism, and bullying, often described by critics as running her office as a “family business” She is also accused of appointing husband and nephew to the Presidential Office; of embezzlement and purchasing million-dollar jewelry. Another leader Pencilo fled to the US under the guise of “revolution,” buying property and opening businesses, labeled a “Revolutionary Merchant” while Chaw Suu Han, claimed 3.5 million Kyats per project donation for refugees, yet the funds remain unaccounted for. |

PM Mahn Win Khaing Than has been accused of inaction regarding the Daw Kyi Pyar case, shielding “his own people.” Chaw Suu Han, in the meanwhile, never investigated or held accountable by the NUG; instead packaged by some media as a “Revolutionary Model”, said a source who did not want to be identified.

As one internal critic reportedly noted, “When high-ranking officials weaponize ‘security’ and ‘political sensitivity’ to shield graft, the grassroots is forced into a predatory scramble to ‘grab and run’ as the only means of survival.”

The Response & The Silence

When approached for comment by journalists, Chaw Suu Han reiterated, “I have published all accounts,” but failed to provide a public link to these records. She continued to challenge critics to “audit face-to-face” while citing safety concerns.

Meanwhile, the [NUG Prime Minister’s Office](https://www.nugmyanmar.org/) has maintained a wall of silence. Since September 2025, complainants have repeatedly contacted the office via email, open letters, and Messenger demanding:

– An independent audit of Chaw Suu Han’s funding sources and usage.

– Full disclosure of all foreign funds received and their specific purposes.

To date, the NUG has not responded.

Local citizens who have reported her financial opacity have faced threats and intimidation. Due to her regional influence and alleged protection by certain officials, the voices of whistleblowers have been systematically silenced.

This case highlights a critical vulnerability in the resistance movement: the absence of a robust, independent financial oversight mechanism. As the political crisis in Myanmar seeks international legitimacy, the trust of donors is its most valuable currency. Without transparency, the risk of systemic corruption threatens to erode the very foundation of the cause.

Such actions, if found to be true through legal process, violate not only the laws of Myanmar but also the sacred duty of loyalty to the people. If the NUG fails to act, critics warn, the morale of the resistance—and the flow of life-saving donations—may soon dry up entirely.

 

 

The post Myanmar Exclusive: SAVIOR OR SCAMMER? NUG’s Sagaing Fundraising Chief Accused of Siphoning Millions for Luxury as War Refugees Starve first appeared on The Frontier Manipur.

Read more / Original news source: https://thefrontiermanipur.com/myanmar-exclusive-savior-or-scammer-nugs-sagaing-fundraising-chief-accused-of-siphoning-millions-for-luxury-as-war-refugees-starve/

National Press Day observed Journalists are crusaders of truth : Governor

IMPHAL, Nov 16: The National Press Day was observed here today at 1st Bn Manipur Rifles banquet hall under the aegis of the Department of Information and Public Relations (DIPR). Among others, Governor Dr A Najma Heptulla, Chief Minister Okram Ibobi, IPR Commissioner K Radhakumar ad DIPR Director Meghachandra Kongbam attended the National Press Day […]

IMPHAL, Nov 16: The National Press Day was observed here today at 1st Bn Manipur Rifles banquet hall under the aegis of the Department of Information and Public Relations (DIPR). Among others, Governor Dr A Najma Heptulla, Chief Minister Okram Ibobi, IPR Commissioner K Radhakumar ad DIPR Director Meghachandra Kongbam attended the National Press Day […]

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2016/11/national-press-day-observed-journalists-are-crusaders-of-truth-governor/

India’s crackdown in Kashmir: is this the world’s first mass blinding?

For the past month, while the attention of the world has been fixed on every dramatic twist in the US presidential election, the renewal of armed conflict between India and Pakistan has barely touched the headlines. In the past few weeks, the two nuclear states have, between them, killed two dozen civilians and injured scores […]

For the past month, while the attention of the world has been fixed on every dramatic twist in the US presidential election, the renewal of armed conflict between India and Pakistan has barely touched the headlines. In the past few weeks, the two nuclear states have, between them, killed two dozen civilians and injured scores […]

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2016/11/indias-crackdown-in-kashmir-is-this-the-worlds-first-mass-blinding/

RT: China tells US not to meddle in Hong Kong’s internal affairs

China tells US not to meddle in Hong Kong’s internal affairs China has warned the United States against meddling in Hong Kong’s internal affairs after Vice President Joe Biden met

China tells US not to meddle in Hong Kong’s internal affairs

China has warned the United States against meddling in Hong Kong’s internal affairs after Vice President Joe Biden met with two former Hong Kong legislators who expressed concern that Beijing is tightening control over the territory.

Biden met with Anson Chan, former chief secretary and founder of pro-democracy group Hong Kong 2020, and Martin Lee – founder of Hong Kong’s opposition Democratic Party – at the White House on Friday.

PHOTO: The Vice President drops by a meeting with Hong Kong pro-democracy advocates Martin Lee and Anson Chan. Photo: RT.com

PHOTO: The Vice President drops by a meeting with Hong Kong pro-democracy advocates Martin Lee and Anson Chan.
Photo: RT.com

Vice President Biden underscored Washington’s “long-standing support for democracy in Hong Kong and for the city’s high degree of autonomy under the ‘one country, two systems’ framework,” the White House said in a statement.

In response, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it “firmly opposes any countries meddling in the city’s internal affairs in any way,” South China Morning Post quoted.

“Hong Kong affairs are China’s internal affairs,” said a spokesperson for the Office of the Commissioner of the Foreign Ministry in Hong Kong.

The official added that Hong Kong is currently going through a sensitive political reform period.

“[We] would hope the US would be cautious of their words and actions regarding Hong Kong affairs and not let Hong Kong issues impede Sino-American relations,” he noted.

Commenting on the activists’ concerns over press freedom and other core values in Hong Kong, the spokesperson said that “Over the past 17 years since Hong Kong’s return, the region has seen the successful implementation of the ‘one country, two systems’ framework, which contributed to Hong Kong’s great socioeconomic and democratic development.”

“As a result, the people in Hong Kong are enjoying unprecedented democratic rights and freedom, which has won international acclaim,” the official added, as quoted by Xinhua news agency.

 

Read Full Story: http://rt.com/news/china-us-biden-interfere-897/

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2014/04/rt-china-tells-us-not-to-meddle-in-hong-kongs-internal-affairs/

Explaining the Siege: The Unending Blockades in Manipur


By Bibhu Prasad Routray 21 September 2011 : The ongoing blockades in Manipur entered 52… more »


By Bibhu Prasad Routray

21 September 2011 : The ongoing blockades in Manipur entered 52 days on 21 September. Even by the prevailing norms in the state where blockades are imposed with religious regularity by almost anybody- militant formations, civil society organisations, student outfits, tribal bodies – this time around the siege has gone wee bit too far, with no end in sight.

As people in the state struggle to meet their ends with scarce commodities, this is an attempt to explain the issue at hand and examine the options for the governments in Imphal and New Delhi to put an end the current logjam.

Issue at hand:

Upgradation of the Sadar Hills sub-division of the Senapati district to a full-fledged district.

The issue is at least two decades old. Incidentally, the Manipur State Legislative Assembly has twice passed resolutions supporting the creation of the Sadar Hills district. Creation of this new district is not an easy proposition for the area under the Sadar Hills, and largely dominated by the Kuki tribe, is seen by the Nagas as part of their traditional homeland. Both Nagas and Kukis have fought bitter internecine clashes through out the 1990s resulting in deaths of hundreds.

The biggest stumbling block before the issue, thus, has been “one posed by ethnic contestations over territory informed by archaic notions of ethnic homelands”. The issue also highlights the division between the Hill and the Valley areas of the state. Geographically, 90 per cent of the State area is hilly and contains 41 per cent of the population. The rest 59 per cent of the state’s total population, are located in the Valley, housing the state’s capital.

The Key Players:

1. Sadar Hills District Demand Committee (SHDDC): Consisting of Kuki tribals, the SHDDC since 31 July 2011 has blocked NH 39, which connects Imphal with Dimapur (in Nagaland). It also has blocked NH 53 that connects Imphal with Assam.

2. United Naga Council (UNC): In anticipation that the SHDDC agitators may have their way, this apex political organization of the Naga tribes within Manipur on 21 August imposed its own blockade along all the other highways (NH 39& NH 150) leading out of the state, thus effectively cutting off the state from the rest of the country. UNC opposes the creation of the district on the fear that the creation of the district would split the Naga population and would further put their ultimate goal of being a part of a unified Nagalim that brings together all the Naga inhabited areas of Nagaland, Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh under one administrative unit in jeopardy. The UNC further insinuates that the demand for Sadar Hills district is part of a sinister divide and rule policy by the Government of Manipur, indirectly hinting at a machination by the valley based Meitei communities who they feel are against the Nagas.

3. Manipur Government: Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh has promised the SHDDC that a final decision on creation of the Sadar Hills district would be made after the Committee on Reorganization of Administrative and Police Boundaries (CRAPB) submits its report in three months. The first meeting of the state chief secretary-headed Committee on Reorganization of Administrative and Police Boundaries (CRAPB) was convened on 15 September to seek people’s comments and opinion on remapping of district boundaries. Meanwhile, several civil bodies have appealed to the government not to rearrange the boundaries on the basis of religion, language or communities.

4. New Delhi: It has resisted intervening as the issue remains an internal political problem in Manipur and has remained free from ethnic violence. Any intervention would be seen as a bias in favour of or against particular tribes. Thus, it believes that this situation is better handled by the State government. In any event, Manipur police is 20,000 strong, and has 10,000 police commandos at its disposal. In any event, the convoys of trucks are being provided security by the Manipur Rifles personnel and Indian Reserve Battalions (IRB) battalions along with central forces, the BSF, CRPF and Assam Rifles, although full safety of the vehicles has not been ensured. Six trucks including two carrying medicines were burnt down by the UNC protesters at Nungkao area under district along NH 39 on 16 September.

Options before the State Government:

1. Force open the Highways: This would appear to be the easiest of solutions. However, all the Highways passing through the state obviously can’t be kept open by security force presence all round the year. The state would require at least 20 dedicated battalions of security forces for the purpose. Neither the state nor New Delhi can afford this. The other option is to concentrate only on Highway 53 that connects Manipur with Assam and is less troublesome to keep operational. However, this Highway is simply unusable in its vast stretches. The Border Roads Organisation (BRO), which is the repairing agency, has set a deadline of 2013 to complete its work.

2. Create Sadar Hills district: It will placate the Kukis, who would then lift the blockade on NH 39 and 53. However, the decision would annoy the Nagas who would continue the blockade on rest of the highways. The decision will certainly have a spillover effect in Nagaland, where the Nagas would eventually impose fresh blockades on NH 39, which passes through Nagaland. It has happened so many times in future and will recur. The Manipur state government, which now can still get its supplies through convoys of trucks under police and security force protection into the valley areas, will be completely at the mercy of the Nagaland government. New Delhi can intervene in that inter-state conflict scenario, but the danger is that the conflict may also take dangerous turn towards vicious inter-tribal violence between the Nagas and Kukis in Manipur, a worst case scenario New Delhi would try to avoid.

3. Do nothing till the storm passes over: This is a policy the Ibobi Singh government has been frequently accused of. Blockades demanding creation of the Sadar Hills district is almost an annual ritual, for past several years. On previous occasions, protesters have gone home after deliberations and assurances by the state government. Only this time, this has gone on for so long. Since there have been multiple resolutions in the Assembly favouring the creation of the district, the government can’t now reject it. But an Ostrich like policy will keep the issue alive, allowing it to return in possibly worse forms.

4. Get the Nagas and Kukis to talk to each other: On paper, it may sound fine, but is a highly improbable scenario, given the acrimony both communities bear towards each other and also, the hostility they have towards the state government.

5. Create the district, but under different names: As a respected editor friend of mine Pradip Phanjoubam suggests: “The state government could experiment with things like naming the proposed Sadar Hills district as Senapati (South) and the old Senapati as Senapati (North). The point is to send out the message to those demanding as well as opposing the formation of this new district that the new district has no other intent than administrative convenience.”

6. Do nothing till a humanitarian crisis forces the New Delhi to impose President’s rule: Presuming nothing improves, the closing act of the state government may be a transition to the President’s Rule to avoid a humanitarian crisis. As Pradip Phanjoubam opined, “This is not so much about punishing the government for allowing the situation to go out of hand leaving the state with the distinct possibility of completely descending into total chaos, but instead of finding a way out of the present dangerous problem.” This unfortunately looks to be the only way out of the present impasse

This article was sent to Kanglaonline by Bibhu Prasad Routray
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Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/09/explaining-the-siege-the-unending-blockades-in-manipur/