After Reading This Article You Can Solve This UPSC Mains PYQ (2025) :
What are the major challenges to internal security and peace process in the North-Eastern States? Map the various peace accords and agreements initiated by the government in the past decade.15 Marks (GS 3 Internal Security)
Context
Following the end of President’s Rule in February 2026 and the return of select tribal legislators to the Assembly, political channels have begun reopening; however, an outbreak of Naga–Kuki-Zo clashes has created a destabilizing second ethnic fault line in the hill districts.
Introduction
Internal security in multi-ethnic border states requires preserving institutional legitimacy alongside the rule of law. In Manipur, while the political divide between the valley and the hills shows tentative signs of thawing, resurgent territorial conflicts within the hills and severe humanitarian crises present a complex challenge to state capacity.
Transition Towards Political Normalcy
- Restoration of Civilian Governance: The revocation of President’s Rule in February 2026 led to the installation of an elected government under a new Chief Minister, accelerating reconciliation efforts.
- Abatement of Routine Violence: Everyday physical clashes between the Meitei and Kuki-Zo communities have abated over the three years following the May 2023 unrest.
- Reclaiming Constitutional Space: Two Kuki-Zo MLAs attended the Assembly session, defying the boycott directive issued by the Kuki Inpi Manipur that demanded a separate administration prior to political re-engagement.
- Institutional Dialogue: The return of legislators reflects an acknowledgment that formal legislative platforms must function even while core ideological contestations persist.
Resurgence of Intra-Hill Conflict
- Spread of Inter-Tribal Violence: Localized disputes expanding across the hills since February resulted in the deaths of 15 Kuki-Zo persons, 11 Nagas, three security personnel, and a truck driver by July, with casualties continuing to rise.
- Role of Armed Militias: Non-state armed groups claiming community mandates have actively revived hostilities, leading to the burning of villages and fresh displacement.
- Echoes of the 1990s: The clashes revive historic contestations regarding territorial control of the hills and the primacy of competing customary laws.
Humanitarian Distress and Blockades
- Protracted Displacement: Thousands of internally displaced persons are entering their fourth year in relief camps.
- Relief Camp Mortality: A reply under the Right to Information Act, 2005 confirmed over 700 deaths inside relief camps, caused primarily by acute deficits in basic healthcare and essential nutrition.
- Weaponization of Supply Lifelines: Partisan economic blockades along National Highway 2 (NH-2) and National Highway 37 (NH-37) have stranded essential drugs and rations, leaving hill medical centers dysfunctional and impacting the smaller Kuki-Zo population heavily.
Significance of Establishing Peace and Stability in Manipur
- Restoration of Legislative Primacy: Validates the authority of constitutional forums over uncompromising civil society boycotts.
- Multi-Front Security Overstretch: A triangular conflict dynamic (Meitei, Kuki-Zo, and Naga) severely strains central and state peacekeeping resources.
- Strategic Border Vulnerability: Instability in a frontier state impairs cross-border connectivity and exposes critical administrative fault lines.
- Humanitarian Benchmark: Emphasizes that peace-building cannot succeed through security operations alone without basic human security.
- Efficacy of Special Provisions: Highlights the necessity of activating mechanisms under Article 371C to resolve hill governance impasses.
Major Challenges Confronting the Restoration of Peace in Manipur
- Unregulated Non-State Armed Groups: Armed groups operating outside formal oversight undermine settlements, accentuated by disputes surrounding the Suspension of Operations (SoO) framework.
- Weaponized Economic Blockades: Recurrent disruptions on NH-2 and NH-37 serve as coercive leverage, causing severe localized inflation and medical shortages.
- Institutionalization of Relief Camps: Prolonged camp stays create persistent public health and nutritional failures that standard welfare grants fail to mitigate.
- Unsettled Land and Customary Jurisdictions: Friction persists between statutory bodies under the Manipur (Hill Areas) District Councils Act, 1971 and hereditary village chiefs exercising customary authority.
- Narrow Electoral Timelines: The upcoming Assembly elections risk incentivizing polarizing campaign rhetoric among competing ethnic constituencies.
Way Forward
- Verifiable Militia Containment: Condition security restraint on strict, verified encampment and total weapons accounting for all armed groups.
- Securing Arterial Highways: Designate NH-2 and NH-37 as protected transit corridors, enforcing dedicated armed convoys and treating blockades as criminal offenses.
- Dated Resettlement Roadmap: Replace open-ended relief camp maintenance with a time-bound, secure rehabilitation plan for villages of return.
- Harmonizing Customary and Statutory Laws: Convene a statutory boundary and rights settlement process led by the Hill Areas Committee (HAC).
- Institutionalized Multi-Track Dialogue: Establish a formal tripartite consultative platform involving Meitei, Naga, and Kuki-Zo stakeholders to defuse communal rhetoric.
- All-Party Electoral Code: Formulate binding ground rules among political parties to prohibit communal mobilization ahead of the Assembly elections.
Conclusion
Sustainable peace in Manipur requires the state to manage both the hill-valley divide and intra-hill contestations simultaneously. Lasting stability hinges on strict legal even-handedness, uniform enforcement of criminal law, and equitable protection of all citizens irrespective of ethnic identity.
| Important Current to Concept (CTC) from this Article for UPSC 1. Article 371 2. Autonomus District Council in Manipur |