The paradox of the approach to the Manipur issue

The ethnic conflict in Manipur has completed two years (May 2023–2025) with over 250 lives lost, thousands internally displaced, and continuing lawlessness. Despite this humanitarian and political crisis, no significant national attention or effective resolution framework has emerged from the Union government, highlighting a paradox in New Delhi's selective security engagement with border states.

Centre’s Neglect and Contradictory Political Priorities

• Uneven Response to Internal Conflicts: While Prime Minister Modi reacted swiftly to the April 2024 Pahalgam terror attack, the prolonged ethnic crisis in Manipur has not elicited any direct intervention or visit, reflecting a lack of prioritisation despite the scale of internal displacement and deaths.
• Security Optics Over Political Will: The Centre continues to ignore the core political issues in Manipur and instead pushes symbolic actions such as arms surrender ceremonies that serve optical political gains rather than address root causes.
• Stark Policy Contrast with Kashmir: Unlike Kashmir, which is perceived as central to India's national security matrix, Manipur’s crisis is dismissed as an internal disturbance, despite historical cross-border linkages with armed groups once backed by China and Pakistan.

Misplaced Security Focus and Ethnic Majoritarianism

• Ethnic Framing of Security Threats: The blame has been shifted disproportionately to alleged cross-border Kuki militants, while ignoring the mobilisation of valley-based insurgent groups (VBIGs) like Arambai Tenggol, effectively allowing them to fill the security vacuum.
• Buffer Zone Militarisation and State Failure: A ‘buffer zone’ demarcating Meitei and Kuki-Zomi-Hmar areas has outsourced law and order to armed vigilante groups, under the pretext of security while the state fails to protect vulnerable populations.
• Operational Reversal Post Operation All Clear (2004): The resurgence of VBIGs undermines gains from the 2004 Operation All Clear, revealing a failure to modernise security infrastructure, improve intelligence capacity, and enforce law and order objectively.

Flawed Border Policy and Incomplete Disarmament

• Obsolete Border Security Vision: The Rs 31,000 crore India–Myanmar border fencing project—especially along the 398-km Manipur-Myanmar stretch—is driven more by political optics and economic vested interests than by evidence-based security strategy. It alienates transborder ethnic communities (Nagas, Mizos), undermining the Act East Policy.
• Ineffective Arms Surrender Mechanism: Out of 6,020 arms looted, only around 4,000 have been returned; the spectacle of 246 country-made weapons surrendered by Arambai Tenggol days before a government deadline highlights superficial disarmament efforts with no real accountability.
• Delayed Central Intervention and its Messaging: The imposition of President’s Rule in February 2025, was less a solution and more a damage-control measure, indicating to armed groups that unchecked violence would no longer be tolerated, albeit without any clear reconciliation plan.

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