Healing Manipur: Fragile Peace and Genuine Reconciliation

• The President’s Rule, a tool of the Centre, has declined since the 1990s due to S.R. Bommai’s landmark judgment, regional party influence, and public disapproval.

• The rule has been extended in Manipur by another six months, but the Centre struggles to find a durable solution to the ethnic conflict.

• Post-N. Biren Singh’s resignation and the fall of the BJP government, there has been a discernible but fragile calm.

• A crackdown on militant groups has reduced open violence, and some families displaced since May 2023 have begun to return home.

• The ethnic schism between Kuki-Zo and Meitei communities remains unbridged.

• Administrative steps, particularly de-weaponisation and defanging of militant groups acting for ethnic interests, must continue to break the impunity of these groups and encourage moderates to raise their voices for reconciliation.

• The BJP’s national leadership has shown little inclination to treat the issue urgently, leaving it to civil servants and security forces.

• The Centre’s responsibility is to foster political conditions to bridge the ethnic divide, but this responsibility must be shared. Political parties and civil society groups must defy hardliners and begin the work of reconciliation.