India’s forgotten state: Manipur and the collapse of conscience

What does it feel like to be expunged from the public imagination? Ask the people of Manipur seared by this reality. In the past two years, they have become citizens of a no-man’s land, forgotten by a country, its people and its government. There has been almost a disdain in the lack of outrage over India’s northeastern state, which has been burning since 2023. Unfortunately, no Olympics took place in the interim. Nothing works more than a medal from a Manipur boxer for the country to claim its people as its own.

The people of Manipur have long seen through this conditional belonging and rightly question why some are more equal than others. Should a country define its responsibility by proximity? Barring two women who were gang-raped and then disrobed and paraded through the streets, the news coming from the state has also not been sensational enough for mainstream media. Big newsrooms are programmed to not report on the uncomfortable. Manipur flared while it was under the BJP rule and its much-touted double-engine with power both at the centre and state.

The country and its media have spent more time debating an influencer’s adult-rated remarks and Shahrukh Khan’s Met Gala attire than it has the deaths of 250 people in Manipur. Two years after ethnic clashes erupted in the state, more than 60,000 people continue to live in despairing conditions in overcrowded relief camps. In hundreds of homes where sons and husbands were torched or shot dead, there is silence. Would anyone even hear them if they were to speak? The line from Manipur to the rest of India has been cut.

The opposition asks why Prime Minister Modi has not visited the conflict-torn region once. Nor has there been a single statement in Parliament. Despite repeated demands, there is silence from the government benches when the state desperately needs a healing touch—someone to call them their own. The opposition’s demand for fresh elections has so far seen no response and the state meanders in uneasy and at times, violent oblivion.

Three years ago, armed with a majority, the BJP won 32 seats in the 60-member house in the assembly elections. Barely twelve months later, in May, its Chief Minister Biren Singh presided over some of the worst violence recorded in the country’s history. Clashes broke out between the majority Meitei tribe residing in the Imphal valley and the Kuki community living in the hill districts. The alleged trigger was the recommendation of Scheduled Tribe status for the dominant Meiteis.

Biren Singh’s election victory came amidst allegations of his past anti-Kuki sentiments. He however held on to his seat — with support from the central BJP leadership — while Meitei and Kuki communities were engulfed in sectarian violence leading to loss of lives and a state upended. Singh stepped down only in February this year when President’s rule was finally imposed in Manipur. It was months after the breakdown of governance in the state.

By then he had lost not just the trust of Manipur’s people. Certain sections within the BJP also wanted his ouster and he leaves behind a dubious legacy. The Supreme Court is hearing a petition asking for a court-monitored probe into audio tapes that allegedly indicate the involvement of Singh in further feeding the state’s ethnic violence.

While incidents of violence continue unabated as the two communities clash, the irony is that the Meiteis and the Kukis despite their deep divide have been clubbed together in this othering that is not new to the northeast region. For two years the state has been brought to its knees and an environment of hostility normalised.

Yet, there seems to be no concrete mechanism to save the state from itself. On the second anniversary of the clashes, Manipur, both in the valley and the hill regions with its visible chasm shut down together. Movement in the state is restricted; both the communities live within their areas and do not tread across even if it is for basic amenities like healthcare. A media report stated that “the situation is so dire in the relief camps that several people have died by suicide or in medical emergencies.” No other land on India’s map is with so little hope.

Does the centre have a policy for reconciliation in the region or will the people continue to suffer because, at the moment, their vote bank is dispensable? Thousands on both sides of the conflict are displaced living in frugal and unhygienic conditions with the state’s tacit approval, otherwise something would have changed on the ground.

In the Manipur conflict, there are questions on what defines a citizen. Ordinarily, the entitlement to live within the four walls of a home is absolute. Under extenuating circumstances, state help comes through a survival kit that could be in the form of rehabilitation and resettlement. The Northeastern state is a case study of how a forgotten people will be resurrected only when the time is politically right.

In the meantime, a country’s erosion of conscience and moral compass hurtles downwards. Where are the basic values that a civilisation is tethered to? Silence, whether through indifference or intentional, is complicity.

All Manipur asks for is a healing balm. When did humanity make that a bridge too far?