By Brojen Thangjam
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Part IV
Toward Sustainable Security and Peace
The preceding analysis suggests that the objective in Manipur cannot simply be a return to the condition that existed before May 2023. That order represented a form of managed instability in which violence was contained but underlying political contradictions and competing security structures remained unresolved. The task, therefore, is not to restore the past but to build a different political and security order. As John Paul Lederach’s work suggests, this requires moving beyond the immediate cessation of violence towards the constructive transformation of the relationships, institutions and social structures through which conflict is reproduced.
The United Nations’ conception of “sustaining peace” similarly goes beyond the absence of armed conflict. The framework adopted by member states in 2016 encompasses preventing the recurrence of conflict, addressing its root causes, strengthening institutions and the rule of law, promoting inclusive dialogue and mediation, and advancing justice, accountable governance and reconciliation. It is therefore concerned not simply with managing crises, but with creating conditions capable of sustaining peace over time.
For Manipur, however, this normative conception must be translated into a realistic political end-state. The objective cannot be the elimination of political differences, nor should it depend on the disappearance of competing identities, territorial aspirations or historical memories, which are likely to remain part of the political landscape. The challenge is instead to build a political and security order in which such differences can be expressed and contested without becoming sources of recurrent violence; in which security is provided principally through legitimate public institutions rather than competing systems of armed protection; and in which political disagreements can be managed within a functioning shared political community.
The five transitions that follow identify the principal changes required to move in that direction. They draw selectively on lessons from other conflict and post-conflict settings while recognising that their application to Manipur must remain grounded in its distinctive political, social and frontier context.
- From Security Management to Political Settlement
The immediate function of security management in a conflict is to prevent further violence, protect populations, restore public order and create conditions in which essential services and political engagement can function. These remain necessary functions of the State. But security management has a fundamental limitation: it can contain violence and create space for politics, but it cannot substitute for a political settlement. In Manipur, this distinction has become increasingly important as the conflict has come to involve questions of territorial security, political representation, institutional safeguards, displacement and return, and competing political aspirations that cannot ultimately be resolved through security measures alone.
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland illustrates this transition. The Troubles, which lasted from the late 1960s until the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement of 1998, involved prolonged political and communal violence between republican and loyalist armed groups, alongside the involvement of the British state and its security forces. More than 3,500 people were killed during the conflict. For a considerable period, British policy relied heavily on security measures to contain violence while the underlying political conflict remained unresolved. The movement towards the 1998 Agreement marked a shift towards a political process involving the principal political parties, the British and Irish governments and external facilitation, including an important role for US Senator George Mitchell. The talks eventually produced a broad settlement involving power-sharing, North-South and East-West institutions, rights and constitutional arrangements, as well as commitments concerning policing, security and paramilitary decommissioning (British-Irish Agreement, 1998; Northern Ireland Office, 1998).
The significance of this transition was not that security ceased to matter, but that it was no longer treated as the principal means of managing the political problem. The emphasis shifted towards institutions and processes through which competing claims could be negotiated. The settlement did not require the principal communities to abandon their identities or resolve their constitutional differences before entering political life together. Instead, it created political arrangements through which those differences could be managed without returning to violence (Northern Ireland Office, 1998).
The process was therefore broader than a single negotiation. Sustained facilitation, inclusive dialogue and engagement across different levels of society helped connect formal political negotiations with the wider relationships and perceptions that sustained division. Senehi’s analysis of constructive, transcultural storytelling is particularly useful here because it shows how community-level processes can begin to alter perceptions and relationships that formal political negotiations alone may not reach. The emergence of political space beyond the principal protagonists and the work of grassroots organisations therefore formed part of the wider process of transforming relationships and sustaining peace (Senehi, 2009).
The relevance of this experience lies not in a transferable model but in several institutional mechanisms. First, inclusive political dialogue is essential. A process confined to the State and organisations possessing the greatest coercive capacity would risk reproducing the logic of the conflict. A durable process would need to include the principal communities and political constituencies while creating space for civil society, traditional institutions, women, youth and displaced populations. Where armed organisations remain relevant to ending violence, their transition into a political process would also need to be addressed, without allowing coercive capacity to become the sole basis of political representation.
Second, credible facilitation can help where trust is severely weakened. An accepted facilitator or jointly agreed mediation mechanism can sustain communication and help manage political deadlock. The significance of George Mitchell lies less in the particular institutional arrangement than in the function of sustained facilitation, which created political space for actors who did not trust one another to remain engaged.
Third, thematic and multi-level engagement can allow a complex conflict to be addressed through connected negotiating processes rather than a single comprehensive bargain. Political representation, security guarantees, land and territorial concerns, displacement and return, institutional safeguards, economic recovery and inter-community relations can be addressed through related processes. The purpose would be to disaggregate a complex conflict for purposes of negotiation without fragmenting the political settlement itself.
Fourth, political possibilities need to be tested against institutional realities and followed through in implementation. Political aspirations need to be recognised and discussed openly while being examined against constitutional authority, democratic legitimacy, territorial implications, institutional feasibility and the interests of other communities. Demands need not simply be accepted or rejected; they can be translated into propositions that can be negotiated and accommodated. Any resulting agreement would also require mechanisms for implementation, monitoring and managing disputes over time. The Northern Ireland experience demonstrates that ending large-scale violence does not automatically produce reconciliation or eliminate political and social distance (Northern Ireland Office, 1998).
For Manipur, the relevance of Northern Ireland therefore lies in the architecture of political engagement, not in the substance of the settlement. The two conflicts are historically, constitutionally and politically different, and the Good Friday Agreement cannot simply be transplanted to Manipur. What is potentially transferable is the principle that a security framework, however effective in containing violence, needs to be accompanied by a political architecture capable of accommodating competing claims. This suggests moving beyond the search for a single grand bargain towards a structured and inclusive political process in which competing aspirations can be progressively negotiated, with dialogue, facilitation, thematic engagement, testing of political possibilities and implementation forming part of a connected political architecture.
The objective would not be to eliminate disagreement. In a deeply divided society, that may neither be possible nor desirable. The more important objective is to create institutions through which disagreement can be managed without returning to violence. The transition is therefore not a short-term withdrawal from security management but a gradual change in its function, with security creating the political space in which political architecture can develop.
- From Counterinsurgency to Frontier Governance
The second transition concerns the security architecture itself. For decades, security in Manipur was organised primarily around counterinsurgency, with institutions, operational practices and legal arrangements shaped by the need to contain armed challenges to the State. That framework remains relevant where armed threats persist, but it is no longer sufficient to define the security environment. The frontier now brings together counterinsurgency, border management, migration, organised crime, narcotics, intelligence, connectivity, trade and wider regional developments. The challenge is therefore not simply to replace counterinsurgency with another doctrine, but to rebalance the security architecture around a broader conception of frontier governance.
This means bringing the different functions of security and governance into a more coherent relationship. Border management, intelligence, policing, civil administration, diplomacy and engagement with frontier communities cannot operate as largely separate functions; they require closer coordination, clearly defined responsibilities and resources commensurate with the strategic task. The objective is not simply to control a porous frontier, but to distinguish legitimate movement and social and economic interaction from activities that threaten security, while preventing the movement of weapons, narcotics and other illicit networks across it. Connectivity and economic integration must therefore develop alongside effective border and internal security. The transition is thus not from security to governance, but towards a security architecture whose ways and means are adequate to the complexity of the frontier.
Macedonia: When Frontier Insecurity Becomes Internal Insecurity
The experience of Macedonia in the Balkans provides a useful comparative perspective. Macedonia’s borders connected it to Kosovo, Albania and other states, while its Albanian population maintained close geographical, cultural and familial links across these boundaries. The Kosovo crisis of 1999 brought a large refugee influx into Macedonia, while regional instability interacted with longstanding tensions between Macedonians and Albanians over political representation, rights and the role of the State. These pressures contributed to armed conflict in 2001.
The Macedonian experience is relevant because external and internal insecurity became closely intertwined. Cross-border ethnic connections and developments in Kosovo were viewed by many Macedonians through concerns about sovereignty and territorial integrity, while many Albanians experienced the same environment through perceptions of discrimination, political exclusion and insecurity. The conflict could therefore not be addressed simply by securing the physical border. The Ohrid Framework Agreement combined cessation of hostilities and disarmament with reforms in political representation, decentralisation, language rights and participation in public institutions. The response consequently moved beyond the management of armed violence towards changing the relationship between the State and the communities within the affected areas (Petroska-Beska & Kenig, 2009; Framework Agreement, 2001).
The significance of Macedonia lies not in the specific arrangements of the Ohrid Agreement but in the broader principle that frontier security and internal political governance can become inseparable. Securing territory without addressing the political conditions within it may contain immediate threats while leaving the sources of insecurity intact. The experience also cautions against assuming that institutional reform automatically eliminates mistrust or deeper political differences. Its relevance lies instead in demonstrating the need to connect security measures with political inclusion, institutional reform and governance within the affected frontier space.
Several elements of this experience are relevant to the reorganisation of Manipur’s security architecture. First, border security needs to be integrated with internal security and governance. Physical control of the frontier remains necessary in the face of arms trafficking, narcotics, irregular movement and organised criminal networks, but border management is only one part of frontier security. Intelligence, policing, regulated movement, effective local administration and cooperation with communities are equally important. The objective is not simply to make the boundary more difficult to cross, but to make the frontier more governable.
Second, security institutions need clearer roles and closer coordination. Manipur’s existing arrangements evolved around institutions that combined counterinsurgency, border management and internal security responsibilities. The Assam Rifles is a particularly clear example of this overlapping architecture. The issue is therefore not simply whether existing institutions should continue to provide security, but whether their roles, responsibilities and coordination are sufficiently adapted to an environment in which counterinsurgency is only one part of the challenge. The police, civil administration, intelligence agencies, central security forces and military institutions need to operate within a more coherent division of functions while sharing information and coordinating their responses.
Third, legal and doctrinal arrangements need to evolve with the changing character of the threat. India’s counterinsurgency approach itself evolved towards recognising that security operations should create conditions in which political institutions and civil administration can function rather than attempt to resolve insurgencies through force alone. The transition now required is broader: security arrangements and counterinsurgency practices need to be calibrated to an environment in which policing, border management, intelligence, civilian governance and political engagement carry greater weight. This does not imply that coercive capacity becomes unnecessary; rather, its place and purpose within the wider security architecture need to change.
Fourth, connectivity and economic engagement need to be treated as part of frontier governance rather than as separate from security. The Northeast’s strategic importance increasingly derives not only from its vulnerability but from its role in India’s connectivity with Myanmar and Southeast Asia. Lawful trade, infrastructure, regulated movement and economic opportunity can strengthen the relationship between frontier communities and public institutions, while weak governance and exclusion can create space for illicit networks and external influence. Security and connectivity are therefore not competing objectives. Effective security is one of the conditions that makes connectivity possible, while well-governed connectivity can strengthen security.
Sanjib Baruah’s discussion of the aspiration for “walled sovereignty” provides a useful caution here. Greater physical control over a boundary may strengthen territorial authority without necessarily addressing the social and political networks that cross it. For Manipur, therefore, the objective should not simply be to make the frontier harder to cross, but to make it more governable, combining border control with intelligence, policing, diplomacy, local administration and community engagement while distinguishing legitimate movement from illicit activity (Baruah, 2020).
The transition from counterinsurgency to frontier governance is consequently not a withdrawal from security. Counterinsurgency remains one instrument where armed threats persist, but it can no longer provide the organising logic for the entire frontier. The deeper transition is towards a security architecture in which security institutions work alongside political and civilian institutions to manage movement, protect communities, disrupt illicit networks, support lawful connectivity and respond to changing regional conditions. In this sense, the shift is from securing the frontier primarily as a boundary to governing it as a political, social and strategic space.
- From Community Militarisation to Public Security
The third transition concerns the growing militarisation of security at the community level. When communities experience prolonged insecurity and lose confidence in public protection, they naturally begin to organise their own security. In Manipur, this has gone beyond temporary community defence. Armed mobilisation, local defence structures and the circulation of weapons have increasingly become part of the social landscape of the conflict. The longer such structures persist, the greater the risk that militarisation becomes embedded in community identities, informal networks and everyday social life.
This creates a longer-term security problem. A generation of young people has acquired experience in surveillance, checkpoint duties, bunker and trench construction, firearms, tactical movement and organised community defence. Many may have entered these roles from a genuine desire to protect their communities, but prolonged participation can make armed mobilisation part of their formative social and political experience. Over time, this can shape how political differences are understood, making threat, deterrence and collective defence more familiar responses than negotiation and compromise. The challenge, therefore, is not simply to remove weapons, but to prevent community protection from becoming a durable system of armed authority and to rebuild public security as the primary source of legitimate protection.
Rwanda: Rebuilding Public Security after Ethnic Violence
Post-genocide Rwanda provides an instructive, although very different, comparison. The 1994 genocide and civil war had devastated the country’s political and security institutions, while large numbers of soldiers and militia members had fled into neighbouring countries. Rebuilding security therefore required more than restoring order. It required reconstructing institutions capable of exercising authority across a society emerging from extreme communal violence. Rwanda subsequently pursued security-sector reform, including the restructuring and integration of military forces, the development of a professional police service, and the rebuilding of justice and administrative institutions.
The first lesson is that demilitarisation of society and strengthening of the State’s legitimate security capacity have to proceed together. Rwanda did not attempt to create security simply by reducing the role of armed institutions. Following the genocide, members of the former government army were integrated into a new national defence structure alongside the forces of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, contributing to the creation of what became the Rwanda Defence Force. The process was part of a wider effort to establish a coherent national security architecture in place of divided and competing armed structures.
This distinction is important for Manipur. The objective of demilitarisation cannot be to weaken the State’s capacity to protect citizens. It is to move legitimate coercive capacity away from fragmented community structures and into professional, accountable public institutions. Rwanda’s subsequent development of professional security institutions and its growing contribution to UN peacekeeping illustrate how military capability can be retained while its institutional purpose and national role are transformed.
The second lesson is that disarmament has to be accompanied by demobilisation and reintegration. Rwanda established a Demobilization and Reintegration Commission in 1997, and subsequent programmes supported the demobilisation and reintegration of more than 70,000 former combatants. These programmes combined the removal of combatants from armed structures with medical support, education, vocational training, livelihoods and other assistance intended to enable them to rebuild civilian lives (United Nations, 2014).
This has particular relevance to Manipur because the present concern is not simply the existence of weapons. It is the possibility that young people who have acquired military experience during the conflict may carry the habits, networks and identities of armed mobilisation into the post-conflict period. Disarmament that removes weapons without creating alternative livelihoods, social roles, civic identities and legitimate avenues for participation may leave the underlying problem unresolved. Contemporary UN DDR guidance accordingly treats reintegration as a long-term process involving economic, social, psychosocial, political and security dimensions rather than as a short-term post-disarmament programme.
The third lesson is that the transition has to create alternative forms of agency for young people. A young person who has spent years protecting a village, manning a checkpoint or carrying a weapon does not simply become a civilian when the weapon is removed. The transition requires opportunities to acquire education and skills, find meaningful livelihoods, participate in community life and develop new forms of civic and political identity. UN guidance on youth, peace and security similarly emphasises youth participation, community engagement and pathways that prevent renewed recruitment into armed groups.
This suggests that a future process in Manipur should not treat young members of community defence structures simply as a weapons-management problem. It should ask what happens to them after demobilisation. Some may have legitimate claims to recognition for protecting their communities; others may require education, vocational training, psychosocial support or livelihood assistance. Some may be suitable for integration into legitimate security institutions subject to appropriate screening, training and professional standards. Others will need pathways into civilian employment, public service, community development or political participation. The objective should be to convert military experience into civilian capability and civic participation rather than allowing it to become a permanent source of status and authority.
The fourth lesson is that community participation should be retained, but its form must change. Communities cannot simply be excluded from the security process after relying upon their own structures for protection. Local knowledge, community networks and participation can be valuable to public security, but they need to operate within accountable institutions and under a clear legal framework. The transition should therefore be from community defence to community participation in public security, rather than from community involvement to state control alone.
This is also where justice becomes relevant. Rwanda’s post-genocide justice response operated at several levels, including international and national mechanisms and the community-based Gacaca courts. Gacaca was created to address the enormous backlog of genocide-related cases and incorporated community participation, accountability, truth-telling and reconciliation. It contained restorative elements, although its actual operation also involved significant retributive dimensions and has generated substantial debate over due process and impartiality. Its relevance here is not as a model to be transplanted, but as an illustration of how communities can participate in addressing past violence while remaining connected to a wider system of public authority.
The Rwanda experience therefore suggests that demilitarisation is not a single event but a process of institutional and social transformation. Weapons have to be removed from unauthorised hands, armed structures have to be dismantled or brought within legitimate institutions, former combatants and militarised youth need viable civilian futures, and communities need confidence that public institutions can provide protection and justice. Security-sector reform, DDR, justice, youth engagement and community participation are consequently not separate programmes. They are different parts of the same transition from fragmented armed protection towards public security (Wielenga & Harris, 2011).
- From Ceasefire Management to Political Transformation
The fourth transition concerns the transformation of ceasefire arrangements from mechanisms that manage armed conflict into processes that lead towards political settlement. A ceasefire can reduce violence and create space for dialogue, but it does not by itself alter the political authority of armed organisations. Where armed groups retain weapons, territorial influence or parallel systems of governance while negotiations remain open-ended, a temporary security arrangement can gradually become a stable political equilibrium. The challenge is therefore to ensure that ceasefires remain transitional mechanisms through which armed authority is progressively transformed into legitimate political authority.
The experience of the Northeast provides an important caution. Ceasefires and Suspension of Operations arrangements can reduce violence and create space for political dialogue, but they can also allow armed organisations to retain political, social and economic influence when the political process does not advance. Research on the Indo-Naga ceasefire has shown how prolonged ceasefire arrangements can coexist with parallel military structures and civilian governance institutions, creating a political equilibrium that may reduce open conflict without producing a permanent political settlement (Baruah, 2003). Sanjib Baruah’s discussion of the Naga peace process similarly raises the danger of a “no war, no peace” condition in which arrangements intended to be transitional become part of the political order they were meant to transform (Baruah, 2003).
The lesson is not that ceasefires are inherently problematic. Their value lies precisely in creating the security and political space in which a settlement can be pursued. The difficulty arises when the management of armed conflict becomes detached from the transformation of armed authority. When an armed organisation continues to exercise coercive, political or administrative influence while negotiations remain inconclusive, the ceasefire can become an equilibrium in its own right rather than a bridge towards a different political order.
Colombia: From Armed Authority to Political Participation
Colombia provides a useful contrasting experience. The 2016 peace agreement with the FARC-EP did not treat the ceasefire as the endpoint of the process. The agreement linked the cessation of hostilities to the laying down of arms, demobilisation and reintegration, political participation, security guarantees and transitional justice. The United Nations was given a formal verification role, including verification of the laying down of arms.
The significance of the Colombian experience lies in the fact that the armed organisation was required to change its relationship with the State. The FARC did not simply cease fighting while retaining its armed structure as a parallel political authority. Its members laid down their weapons, entered a reintegration process and the organisation transitioned into legal political participation. By September 2017, the UN reported the completion of the FARC’s weapons handover and its transformation into a political party (United Nations Verification Mission in Colombia, 2017).
This was not a simple or complete success. Reintegration, security guarantees, land access and implementation of other parts of the agreement have remained difficult, and dissident armed groups continue to pose security challenges. Nevertheless, the Colombian experience demonstrates an important principle: a ceasefire becomes a pathway towards political transformation when armed authority is progressively exchanged for political participation and public security.
The implication for Manipur is not that every ceasefire arrangement should immediately require disarmament regardless of circumstances. Security guarantees and political confidence may need to precede or accompany the reduction of armed capacity. But a peace process cannot indefinitely separate political dialogue from the question of armed authority. If an armed organisation retains weapons, territorial influence and parallel authority while negotiations continue without a credible pathway towards political transformation, the ceasefire risks becoming an end-state rather than a transition.
The objective should therefore be to establish a clear sequence in which reductions in armed authority are matched by credible political and security guarantees. Monitoring and confidence-building can create the initial space; political dialogue can address the underlying claims; security guarantees can reduce the perceived need for armed protection; and disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration can progressively transfer authority from armed organisations to legitimate political and public institutions.
A ceasefire can stop the fighting, but it cannot by itself transform the political relationship that produced the fighting. A ceasefire becomes a pathway to peace when it begins to make its own continuation unnecessary by progressively replacing armed authority with political legitimacy, institutional guarantees and public securi.
- From Separation and Displacement to a Shared Political Community
The fifth and final transition concerns the movement from separation and displacement towards a shared political community. Physical separation can sometimes be necessary to stop immediate violence. Where communities no longer feel safe living alongside one another, separation can provide the security needed to contain conflict. The difficulty arises when an arrangement intended to manage violence becomes a permanent condition in which communities remain physically and socially disconnected. Stability can prevent renewed violence, but without reconnection it can also freeze the divisions that produced the conflict.
Cyprus: From Separation to Reconnection
The experience of Cyprus provides a useful, if cautionary, illustration. Following intercommunal violence in the 1960s and the division of the island in 1974, the United Nations buffer zone contributed to prolonged physical stability but did not produce a comprehensive political settlement. The experience demonstrates both the value and limitation of separation: it can prevent renewed large-scale violence without necessarily rebuilding the relationships required for a shared political future.
Subsequent efforts in Cyprus have therefore gone beyond maintaining the ceasefire line. The opening of crossing points, bicommunal projects, technical cooperation and confidence-building measures have created opportunities for interaction around practical concerns such as the environment, cultural heritage, water and economic activity. UN-supported technical committees have specifically been used to develop confidence-building measures and enable the two communities to cooperate on issues of common concern (United Nations Security Council, 2018). These initiatives have not resolved the larger political dispute. Their significance lies in demonstrating that practical interests can sometimes be shared even where political trust remains limited.
For Manipur, this suggests that immediate reconciliation should not be treated as a prerequisite for every form of interaction. Communities that have experienced displacement and violence cannot simply be expected to trust one another again. A more realistic starting point is to create conditions in which contact becomes safe, voluntary and useful. Education, health, transport, markets, water, environmental protection, cultural activities and local economic exchange can provide limited spaces for interaction without requiring communities first to resolve their deepest political differences.
The longer-term purpose is not to erase difference or manufacture reconciliation. It is to create conditions in which difference no longer has to be experienced as a source of insecurity. Communities can retain distinct identities, histories and political aspirations while developing sufficient social, economic and institutional interdependence to recognise that their security and prosperity are not necessarily opposed to one another.
Return and Reintegration: From Displacement to Belonging
The experience of displaced populations adds another dimension to this transition. A lasting peace cannot be established while large sections of the population remain unable to return or rebuild secure lives. Displacement affects property, livelihoods, education, public services, demographic patterns and relations between communities. At the same time, premature return can reproduce insecurity where questions of safety, land, property, livelihood and justice remain unresolved. While return is a physical event, reintegration is a political and institutional process.
Bosnia and Herzegovina illustrates the importance of institutions in making return meaningful. Following the 1992–95 war, the Property Law Implementation Plan (PLIP) helped enforce property restitution and resolve claims by displaced persons whose homes had been occupied or otherwise lost. By the end of December 2003, the implementation ratio had reached 92.5 per cent, with 201,902 of 218,310 registered property claims finalised (Office of the High Representative [OHR], 2004). Its significance extended beyond property restitution: it demonstrated that a right to return has limited meaning without institutions capable of enforcing it against local political obstruction and enabling access to documentation, justice, public services and protection.
The Bosnian experience therefore suggests that return cannot depend on political assurances alone. It requires a dedicated institutional mechanism, clear procedures for resolving competing claims, effective monitoring and the capacity to enforce decisions. The model cannot simply be transplanted to Manipur, but its emphasis on institutional coordination, enforceable property rights and sustained implementation offers useful lessons for addressing the complex questions of return, recovery and reintegration.
Sinjar in Iraq provides a contrasting caution. Despite efforts to facilitate the return of Yazidis after the defeat of ISIL, insecurity, damaged infrastructure, property problems, weak livelihoods, governance difficulties and continuing trauma made durable return difficult. UNDP’s experience in Sinjar highlights the importance of restoring infrastructure, services and livelihoods alongside security and trust in creating conditions for dignified and sustainable return (Thangjam, 2025).
For Manipur, return and rehabilitation are therefore part of the wider task of rebuilding a shared political space. People can return only when they feel secure, and that requires confidence in public institutions. Return also raises questions of land and property, which require credible administrative and judicial mechanisms, while rebuilding livelihoods requires economic recovery. This may require a dedicated mechanism for return and property claims that can receive claims, verify documents, resolve competing claims and ensure that decisions are actually implemented.
There is also a deeper institutional dimension to this transition. Inter-community peace will remain fragile if the institutions through which communities govern themselves are unable to adapt to social and economic change. Durable coexistence requires institutions that are representative and accountable and that can respond to women, youth and other voices that may not always be reflected in established structures of authority. Such reform is most likely to be legitimate when it is community-led and inclusive, bringing customary authorities, elders, women, youth and other representatives into the process of institutional adaptation. Practical interdependence can reinforce this process through cross-community education and youth programmes, shared economic activities, cooperation in environmental and water management, cultural and sporting exchanges, and local markets and transport links. Their value lies less in their immediate scale than in creating repeated opportunities for cooperation and gradually changing expectations about what is possible.
Cyprus therefore offers the useful lesson that separation can create the stability necessary to stop violence, while Bosnia demonstrates that return requires institutions capable of restoring rights and enabling reintegration. Sinjar, on the other hand, cautions that physical return without security, livelihoods and functioning institutions may not lead to durable reintegration. For Manipur, the longer-term objective should therefore not be a return to an imagined pre-conflict social order, nor should it require communities to surrender their distinct identities. It should be to develop forms of social, economic and institutional interdependence that make coexistence increasingly sustainable, while allowing different communities to retain their identities and participate in institutions and relationships that make a shared political future possible.
Beyond Elite Bargaining: The Need for Internal Democratisation
The five transitions are not self-executing. Their success depends not only on the state’s capacity to provide security, build institutions and facilitate political engagement, but also on the willingness of political and community actors to transform existing forms of authority. This raises an important question about the design of a political settlement: who speaks for a community, how is that authority obtained, and to whom is it accountable?
This question is particularly relevant to proposals for a consociational settlement in Manipur including those advanced by some scholars (Kipgen and Ganie (2025). Consociationalism is a form of power-sharing designed for deeply divided societies in which ordinary majoritarian politics may leave important communities permanently insecure or excluded. In its classical formulation, it combines a broad coalition among the principal communities with proportional representation, some degree of autonomy for those communities, and mechanisms such as minority vetoes on matters considered vital to their interests (Horowitz, 2014). Its attraction in Manipur is evident: where political aspirations and security concerns are strongly organised around community identities, institutionalising power-sharing and minority protection may provide important safeguards against domination.
But consociationalism has also attracted a substantial body of criticism. One concern is that power sharing can place considerable political authority in the hands of community elites. Because the model depends on elites who can negotiate across communal boundaries, it may produce arrangements in which citizens participate mainly through representatives of their respective communities, rather than as individuals in a wider democratic system. Research on the quality of democracy under power-sharing has therefore identified possible weaknesses in electoral competition, popular participation, transparency and accountability. Another concern is that strong group vetoes can produce political immobilism, particularly when disagreement between community representatives becomes difficult to overcome. Critics have also argued that institutionalising political representation around fixed communal identities can reinforce the very divisions that the settlement is intended to manage.
These criticisms do not make consociationalism irrelevant to Manipur. They point instead to the question that any power-sharing arrangement would have to address: how can collective protection be combined with democratic accountability within each community? Power-sharing establishes arrangements between communities; internal democratisation seeks to ensure that authority within communities becomes more representative, accountable and responsive. Power-sharing without the latter can reproduce elite domination, while internal democratisation without the former cannot by itself resolve the larger conflict.
The distinction is important because consociational settlements necessarily depend to some extent on political and community elites. Indeed, elite accommodation is central to the model. The question is therefore not whether elites should participate in negotiating a settlement—they inevitably will—but whether the institutions they negotiate can subsequently develop forms of representation and accountability that extend beyond established elites. A negotiated settlement may begin with elite accommodation, but its legitimacy cannot end there.
This issue is particularly important where customary institutions exercise substantial authority. Customary institutions have an important role in preserving identity, social cohesion and community rights, particularly in the hill areas. Their customary character does not make them illegitimate. But neither does tradition by itself provide an enduring basis for political authority. The relevant question is whether institutions rooted in customary practice can adapt to changing social and economic conditions while becoming more transparent, representative and accountable.
Land and hereditary authorities illustrate this challenge. Population growth, market integration, migration, infrastructure development and changing economic aspirations are placing new pressures on customary systems of landholding and authority. Where land tenure is uncertain or decision-making is concentrated without adequate accountability, questions of economic opportunity and access to resources can acquire wider political and ethnic significance. Similarly, the evolution of hereditary chieftainship raises questions about how customary legitimacy can coexist with principles of representation and democratic participation. The objective need not be to replace customary institutions with a uniform external system, but to examine how they can protect collective interests while becoming more responsive to contemporary needs.
Internal democratisation also has to include constituencies whose influence within established structures may be limited. Women have played highly visible roles in social mobilisation, community protection and relief, but this does not necessarily translate into comparable participation in political negotiations, land governance or formal decision-making. Younger generations present a different but equally important challenge. Prolonged conflict can create forms of authority around armed mobilisation and community defence, while limited opportunities for education, employment and political participation can perpetuate dependence on such structures. Bringing these constituencies more fully into political and institutional life is therefore part of reducing the social reproduction of conflict.
This has direct implications for the five transitions. Political settlement requires representatives with genuine legitimacy within their communities. Frontier governance requires local institutions capable of participating in the management of a complex strategic space. Public security requires citizens to experience institutions as serving them as individuals as well as members of communities. Demilitarisation requires credible civilian, political and economic alternatives. And movement from separation towards a shared political community requires institutions through which people can participate beyond the boundaries of ethnic protection.
Internal democratisation is therefore not an additional reform agenda placed alongside peacebuilding. It is one of the conditions that makes the five transitions sustainable. A settlement that protects communities externally but leaves authority internally unaccountable may stabilise relations between elites without sufficiently changing the political conditions within communities. Conversely, a settlement that opens greater participation within communities but fails to address their collective security concerns will struggle to gain acceptance.
The broader implication is that consent to a political settlement has to operate at more than one level. Communities need arrangements that protect their legitimate collective interests, but those arrangements must also create space for accountability, participation and institutional adaptation within them. The difficult conversation is consequently not only between communities. It also has to take place within communities. The peace settlement, in this sense, has two dimensions: it has to be negotiated between communities, but its democratic foundations have to be built within them.
Conclusion: From Managed Instability to Sustainable Peace
The five transitions discussed in this essay are ultimately part of a single movement from managing conflict to transforming the conditions that reproduce it. They are not sequential steps but mutually reinforcing changes in the political and security order. Political settlement requires credible public security; public security requires political legitimacy; security arrangements need to create pathways towards political transformation rather than become permanent mechanisms of managed instability; and physical separation and displacement need, over time, to give way to safe return, reintegration and practical interdependence. Taken together, these transitions seek to move security away from competing forms of community protection towards a shared public good, and political authority away from armed structures towards legitimate public institutions.
The pathways proposed here draw on the broader peacebuilding literature, including the World Bank–United Nations emphasis on prevention, inclusive political processes, institutions, security and economic recovery, but localise and contextualise these ideas to Manipur’s particular political, social and frontier conditions. This does not require the elimination of political disagreement or the erasure of distinct identities. Questions of territory, autonomy and constitutional arrangements will remain contested. What must change is the means through which differences are pursued, together with the institutional and social conditions that reproduce insecurity, exclusion and mistrust. This includes credible mechanisms for political accommodation, public security, return and reintegration, as well as economic recovery. The erosion of livelihoods, disruption of trade and connectivity, loss of productive assets and prolonged dependence on relief can deepen insecurity and make recovery more difficult.
The implications extend beyond Manipur itself. The Northeast is simultaneously a politically diverse region and a strategically important frontier, and the manner in which India responds to the crisis will shape both dimensions. Sustainable peace in Manipur is therefore also in India’s larger strategic interest. It would strengthen the security and governability of the India–Myanmar frontier, reduce the space for armed and illicit networks, facilitate the restoration of trade and connectivity, and create more favourable conditions for India’s engagement with Myanmar and Southeast Asia. India’s Act East Policy explicitly links its eastern engagement with economic cooperation, connectivity and people-to-people relations, while the Government has recognised the relationship between peace and stability along the Myanmar border and the development of the Northeast.
A security framework that treats the region primarily as a zone of instability risks reproducing the tendency to address political problems principally through security institutions. Conversely, frontier governance that combines political accommodation, legitimate public authority, effective security, economic opportunity, connectivity and social trust can strengthen both sustainable peace within Manipur and India’s wider strategic objectives. Allowing the present crisis to harden into another form of managed instability would risk deepening displacement, militarisation, communal separation and institutional mistrust, making eventual political accommodation progressively more difficult.
The central implication is therefore not a return to the pre-May 2023 equilibrium, but the development of a political and security order capable of managing persistent differences without allowing them to become recurrent sources of organised violence. Sustainable peace should not be understood as a final settlement in which all differences have been resolved. It is better understood as a condition in which communities increasingly have credible political, institutional and economic means of pursuing their interests without relying on armed protection or permanent separation. If that condition can gradually be established, the reduction of violence can generate a wider peace dividend, releasing social, political and economic energies absorbed by insecurity, displacement and militarisation and redirecting them towards livelihoods, reconstruction, public services, connectivity and participation in a shared political future. The trajectory is not predetermined; it depends on the choices made by the State, political actors, communities and institutions, and on their willingness to move from managing the consequences of conflict towards changing the conditions that sustain it. That, ultimately, is the transition from managed instability to sustainable security and peace.
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(Brojen Thangjam recently retired from service with the United Nations. He can be reached at brojen2303@gmail.com)
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