The paradox of the approach to the Manipur issue

Kham Khan Suan Hausing

is a Professor and former Head of the Department of Political Science, University of Hyderabad. He is also an
Honorary Senior Fellow, Centre for Multilevel Federalism, Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi

The stance on what is also a national security issue is problematic

As the stalemated conflict in Manipur completes two years, the veritable wait for the Godot of
political settlement continues to remain elusive. Despite unleashing a trail of devastation, the
loss of over 250 lives and an unfolding human tragedy which compelled thousands of internally
displaced persons to live in sub-human makeshift relief centres for over two years, Manipur’s
violence has not secured a high-order-of-national-priority. This is gallingly evident as Prime
Minister Narendra Modi maintains his stoic refusal to visit the State and offer a definitive road
map to break the impasse. This compares starkly with the topmost-priority accorded by him to
the Pahalgam terror strike on April 22, which led to the curtailment of his official visit to Saudi
Arabia and the announcement of policy measures.

The very short military stand-off between India and Pakistan and the swift response made
eminent sense given the overwhelming and dominant mood of the nation that something
decisive had to be done not only to decimate terrorist infrastructure across the Line of Control,
but also penalise Pakistan for its alleged sponsorship of cross-border terrorism. As the stand-
off and the terms of the understanding/ceasefire likely to be agreed upon by the two nuclear
powers continue to take centre-stage, it is highly unlikely that Manipur’s continuing human
tragedy and political impasse will get the serious attention it deserves.

The approach to the northeast

What explains this paradox? And in what way does this follow a broader pattern of New Delhi’s
engagement with Manipur, and, by extension, Northeast India?

A clue lies in making a long-term assessment of New Delhi’s approach to the Northeast, and for
that matter Manipur, which is underscored by its obsession with national security and regime
consolidation. Unlike Kashmir, which is the focus in a series of triangular conflicts with Pakistan
and China, Manipur’s case does not present an imminent threat to India’s national security
despite concerted efforts over the past two years to make this as such. Although both of India’s
adversaries were involved in the training of armed independentist groups such as the Naga
National Council and its progeny, the NSCN-IM, the Mizo National Front, the United Liberation
Front of Assam, and the United National Liberation Front, in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, their
support to these groups remains remote and diminished.

However, because the policy mandarins in Delhi best understand the language of national
security, concerted attempts had been made by certain quarters of valley-based civil society
groups and self-professed national security experts to squarely blame Manipur’s violence on
‘lungi-clad’ Kuki armed militants across the India-Myanmar border. A case in point is the failed
attempt to amplify this threat by the then Chief Minister’s office in mid-September 2024 by
invoking credible ‘intelligent inputs’ which forewarned imminent crossover and attack by over
‘900 Kuki militants’ based in Myanmar with the capabilities to launch rocket launchers against
Meitei villages. On hindsight, this security bluster was a half-clever ploy to whip up a
majoritarian sense of insecurity and used that as a pretext to prepare the grounds for a series
of offensive strikes against Kuki-Zomi-Hmar villages beyond the ‘buffer zone’ on the pretext of
combing operations.

Interestingly, the protagonists of national security remain conspicuously muted on the more
serious threat posed by the large-scale mobilisation of valley-based insurgent groups, or VBIGs
and their foot soldiers in the wake of this violence since May 3, 2023. One immediate
consequence of this is the outsourcing of law and order to these groups on the pretext that the
State fails to protect villages which remained exposed to transgressions and offensive attacks
across the buffer zone. This zone, ideated and enforced by the Indian paramilitary forces after
Home Minister Amit Shah visited the State towards the end of May 2023, lies in the foothills
and marks the point of territorial and demographic separation between the Meiteis and Kuki-
Zomi-Hmars.

Such a problematic stance on a national security issue has also effectively neutralised the
security gains obtained by India since it successfully flushed out VBIGs from their safe havens
in the valley areas in Operation All-Clear (2004). Instead of prioritising substantive security
issues such as an upscaling of intelligence-gathering capabilities, counterinsurgency skills,
modernisation and professionalisation of the Indian Army and police, the Indian security policy
continues to be stuck in a time-warp of political optics.

The case of fencing as an obsolete outlook

The unusual zeal with which New Delhi pushes the agenda of revoking the free movement
regime and spending over ₹31,000 crore for fencing the 1,643 kilometre India-Myanmar
border, including the 398 kilometre-long Manipur-Myanmar border, is clearly an instance of an
obsolete security overdrive. While this may simultaneously cater to the perceived sense of
insecurity whipped up by majoritarian groups based in the valley and eminently suit the pork-
barrel brand of politics with promissory collateral benefits to contractors and brokers, the lines
of divide are clearly apparent as the Naga, and Mizo, among others, have registered their
staunch opposition. Unless such a policy framework is tailored to win the hearts and the minds
of transborder people — which seems to be the case here — it is neither likely to augment
India’s national security nor promote India’s neighbourhood first policy via the Act East policy
across the India-Myanmar border and beyond.

Unfortunately, a longitudinal assessment of India’s national security policy framework across

political regimes demonstrates that it is driven more by political optics in ways which help
consolidate political regimes, rather than being hard-wired in upskilling security infrastructure.
This explains why beyond the public spectacle of holding piecemeal arms surrender events, no
sincere effort is made to recover sophisticated arms (numbering over 6,000) and ammunition
(numbering over 5,00,000) given away to armed groups since the outbreak of violence.
Notwithstanding this, barely around 4,000 of the 6,020 arms snatched away from the State
armouries have so far been deposited in response to the State government’s call. Interestingly,
894 of these were deposited in response to two deadlines — announced by Governor Ajay
Kumar Bhalla, on February 28, which was extended to March 6, 2025.

The self-congratulatory and nonchalant way in which voluntary arms surrender was pressed
for political optics became evident on February 27, a day before the first dateline, when a
cavalcade of the Arambai Tenggol, an armed militia accused of perpetrating atrocities against
several Kuki-Zomi-Hmar villages, marched across the streets and surrendered 246 weapons at
a police station in Imphal. Even though many of these so-called surrendered arms are country-
made guns, there is neither a persistent follow-up action after the second deadline passed on
March 6, nor any serious attempt to nab and prosecute defaulting individuals under the Arms
Act.

An incremental approach such as this may be the key to gradually stabilising law and order.
However, the easy and abundant availability of arms and ammunition in the hands of armed
groups in the State is likely to perpetuate the ethnic security dilemma even as there is no
sustained and credible security guarantee from the State. The reluctant imposition of
President’s Rule on February 13, 2025 as a convenient escape route to an imminent and
inglorious fall of the Bharatiya Janata Party government, after an open revolt within its ranks,
and the change of political guard in the State seems to have signalled a subtle, yet stern,
message to armed groups across the divide that violence is not going to be tolerated.

Looking ahead
A halting, yet incremental return to normalcy may, however, impel serious political
engagements with rival stakeholders in ways that simultaneously accommodate legitimate
demands and promote trust and legitimacy to state institutions. As rival parties respectively
commemorated May 3 as ‘separation day’ and a ‘day of remembrance and reflection’ to push
their divergent political agendas, breaking the political impasse and stabilising law and order
require substantive policy reorientations that transcend political optics and regime
consolidation.

The views expressed are personal