Manipur has been in crisis since ethnic violence broke out on May 3, 2023. It is a site of ethnic conflict and of silent warfare, and the crisis now has three forms: a community crisis, a political crisis, and a security crisis. The State is effectively trifurcated, and the line between the state’s responsibility and community aggression has blurred.

The violence began between the Meitei and the Kuki and later escalated into a Kuki-Naga confrontation, drawing in all three communities. Reservation and illicit economic activity were seen as the root causes. The dispute later centred on ancestral land rights between the Naga and the Kuki.

The situation since May 3, 2023, is the new normal for the population, including the 60,000 people living in camps for the displaced. Congress leader Keisham Meghachandra Singh blamed “the government’s failure to restore lasting peace and normalcy in the state”.

The primary duty of any government is to protect life and property. The security machinery has remained in a mode of “spectatorship” while civilians are terrorised, abdicating its constitutional mandate. The State has failed to disarm armed groups that use violence to illegally draw demographic and geographical lines between the three conflicting communities.

Neither the Suspension of Operations (SoO) agreement with armed groups nor arms-seizing operations against them has brought peace or stability on the ground, or security to civilians. Chief Minister Yumnam Khemchand Singh said on October 25 that Manipur could not achieve lasting peace while “gun culture” persisted, and urged people to surrender illegal arms.

The peace process is run by non-state actors, especially armed groups, who are also managing a catastrophe that has been unfolding for more than three years. The state is governed by three parallel systems: the state apparatus, the community apparatus, and armed groups with different objectives and strategies.

The crisis now turns on existential rights that the state machinery has been unable to ease. Neither the government’s action nor its inaction is visible on the ground. For the Kuki community, any solution begins with a separate administration; the Naga community wants a guarantee of territorial sovereignty; and the Meitei community wants to preserve the State’s territorial integrity.

The government is visible only in the Imphal Valley, and the security buffer zone is recognised as a separation line between the valley and the hills. Paolienlal Haokip, the BJP MLA from Saikot, said, “A separate administration or a union territory is the need of the hour.”

Blaming armed groups across the border for fuelling the crisis is a strategy of political defence. The State’s actions on border fencing and the revocation of the free movement regime (FMR) will not be effective without the consent of the community that shares ethnic ties and historical connections with people across the border.

Since the violence began, no serious step has been taken to reduce the trust gap between the communities. The State peace committee has not met; intercommunity dialogue has not taken place; the displaced have not returned home; the SoO agreement has not worked; arms-seizing operations have failed; the cross-border flow of arms and drugs between India and Myanmar has not stopped; governance and development have not begun in Kuki areas; and the buffer zone between the two conflicting territories has not blurred or disappeared.

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Kuki Inpi Manipur, the apex Kuki body, said the Assembly session showed “a complete collapse of constitutional morality” and told Kuki-Zo legislators to boycott it. The Kuki-Zo Council, a joint body of Kuki-Zo tribal leaders, said in a statement on October 28 that it could consider “stronger political measures”, including asking Kuki-Zo MLAs to “withdraw from participation in the Manipur government”, if steps were not taken to ensure security and advance a political solution. Since May 2023, the State has been divided politically into three socio-geographical entities: a political state of the Meitei community, a greater land of the Naga community, and a separate administrative land of the Kuki community.

There are several claimants to a single chair of power in the State. The chair has four legs, and the fourth has been removed, so it cannot stand steadily on the other three. The first leg is the Meitei community, the second the Kuki community, and the third the Naga community. The fourth is inter-community trust, which the ruling party broke in May 2023. Land and political power can be retained, but trust, once lost, is difficult to restore.

Government by five

The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government in the State is run by five Cabinet members, including the Chief Minister. For the first time, the State has two Deputy Chief Ministers, and it has only two other Cabinet ministers.

The government of Yumnam Khemchand Singh was formed with two purposes: to silence dissidents within the party and among alliance partners, and to ease pressure from the Naga community. One Deputy Chief Minister each from the Naga and Kuki communities, and representatives of alliance partners such as the National People’s Party and the Naga People’s Front, were inducted into the government.

Manipur Chief Minister Yumnam Khemchand Singh chairs a security meeting at the Cabinet Hall of the Secretariat at Babupara, in Imphal on October 19, 2026.
| Photo Credit:
@YKhemchandSingh/X via ANI

The government is run by only five people in the Imphal Valley. Nemcha Kipgen, the Deputy Chief Minister from the Kuki community, took the oath virtually from Manipur Bhawan in New Delhi. She has not gone to Imphal since, and the two Deputy Chief Ministers have not met either.

A Cabinet meeting consists of only four people: the Chief Minister, one Deputy Chief Minister, and two Cabinet ministers. After taking the oath, Khemchand Singh expressed his commitment to restoring normalcy and accelerating socio-economic progress across Manipur. But Kuki leaders accused the new government of making no budget allocation to their constituencies. Violence and insecurity continue without interruption.

Normalcy was restored from March 2022 to April 2023 under N. Biren Singh’s government. The state was mismanaged from May 2023 to February 2025, also under Biren Singh. From February 2025 until February 4, 2026, it was under President’s Rule. Since February 2026, the Khemchand Singh government has been in office, and its term runs to February 2027.

The government of Manipur is indirectly run from New Delhi; the Chief Minister and others go to Delhi to take orders. Until September 2026, no Kuki-Zo MLA had attended a sitting of the Manipur Legislative Assembly in Imphal in person since May 3, 2023. Two of the community’s 10 legislators did so on September 2, despite the Kuki Inpi Manipur’s call for a boycott.

Observers note that MLAs of alliance partners are not happy; leaders of all communities across the state are not happy; there is no normal governance, and no existing development project has been completed, and no new one has begun in Kuki areas since May 3, 2023. The three-year term of the BJP’s State president, A. Sharda Devi, who was appointed in 2021, ended in 2024, though she continues in the post. The BJP faces several crises of its own in the State and has lost grassroots support across communities.

Lalboy Doungel, a local resident of Lamka (Churachandpur), said: “The Constitution is not working in the state, or Manipur is not governed by the Constitution. If the Centre wishes to do something, that will work within seconds, but the people of Manipur want something, that will not happen?”

Elections and rival demands

The BJP governments in the State and at the Centre are working on a two-front strategy for the Assembly elections due in February-March 2027. On one front, the party is polarising the Nagas, dividing the Meitei, and marginalising the Kuki. On the other, it is taking leaders of armed groups from all three communities to the negotiating table for electoral bargaining. The BJP promised a lot to the hardliners of the communities during the last Assembly elections but seems to have no intention of delivering. Its working strategy is to divide the communities and rule.

Indigenous community members take part in a mass rally organised by the Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI) and other civil society organisations in Imphal on October 31, 2026, demanding restoration of peace following ethnic violence in Manipur.
| Photo Credit:
VISHMA AHANTHEM/AFP

The Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI), a Meitei umbrella body, led a mass rally of the Meitei and Naga communities in Imphal on October 31 under the banner “Abrogate SoO, End Proxy War”. Its convenor, Y.K. Dhiren, said, “Leaders of the Union and state governments must be held accountable for the killings of Meiteis in the state.” The protesters demanded an immediate end to the proxy war that the government of India is allegedly waging in Manipur.

Zomi communities held a cultural festival in Churachandpur on October 30 to show their community solidarity. It was organised by a Mizoram-based cultural group, and people from Mizoram and Assam also took part. Naga organisations held a rally in Ukhrul district on November 5, demanding an end to the proxy war in Manipur and the removal of the Assam Rifles from Naga areas.

A new narrative is being constructed that makes the Naga a full party to a conflict that began between the Meitei and the Kuki. The United Naga Council endorsed the October 31 rally in Imphal, which pressed for the abrogation of the SoO agreement and removal of the Assam Rifles. Naga civil bodies also demanded Deputy Chief Minister Nemcha Kipgen’s resignation. The Kuki-Zo Council, for its part, has accused Nagas of continuing attacks on Kuki-Zo people.

The Nagas are annexing more territory from the Kuki with the help of the State’s security forces. The Kuki are taking help from across the border to protect their territory against the Nagas. The Meitei community wants the implementation of the National Register of Citizens, the scrapping of the FMR, quick installation of fences on the border, withdrawal of the Assam Rifles from the State, and abrogation of the SoO agreements with Kuki armed groups. The Kuki community wants a separate administration, protection of its territorial rights, and security.

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A Sabar Institute analysis of the Special Intensive Revision of the electoral roll shows a sharp divide between the Imphal Valley and the hill districts. The 20 hill constituencies account for 66.4 per cent of all names removed, with an average of 79 removals per booth compared with 32 in the valley. Churachandpur district alone, largely populated by the Kuki-Zo community, especially after the Meitei community was internally displaced, accounts for 38,264 deletions, nearly a quarter of all names removed in the State.

The BJP’s women’s wing held a protest against the Congress Lok Sabha MP Angomcha Bimol Akoijam in Imphal in October. Experts say the BJP finds him a disturbing voice in both New Delhi and Imphal, and the biggest barrier to its strategy for winning the Assembly elections in Manipur.

A conflict that began between two communities now involves three. After more than three years, who is responsible for the bloodshed: the State government, the Centre, the security forces, the Manipur Police, or community leaders? Is Manipur slipping out of anyone’s control?

The solution lies in intercommunity trust, and Imphal, not New Delhi, must take decisions on all matters of state affairs. MLAs must think about their fellow citizens and see that weapons are seized from armed groups. Community leaders must take the people of the hills into their confidence to check the illegal cross-border flow of drugs, weapons, and other contraband. The government should not test people’s patience or overlook the State’s future. It must start trilateral talks with the three communities.

Suwa Lal Jangu is assistant professor, political science, Mizoram University, Aizawl.