Manipur바카라�s Quiet Fracture: Displacement, Distrust, and the Limits of Politics

In a relief camp in Lamka, Churachandpur, Neisi Misao (name changed) sits on a plastic chair, her fingers tracing the charred edges of a family photo album. Her home was burned down two years ago in the early days of the violence. Since then, she has shared a tarpaulin shelter with five other families. 바카라�They talk of governments. We talk of food,바카라� she says, her voice low. Her youngest child has not been to school in over a year. At the camp바카라�s edge, a teenage boy helps patch a leaking roof. He says his family is waiting for word on when they can return. 바카라�They say peace is coming. We don바카라�t know what that means.바카라�

In Manipur, where violence has redrawn the map of lives and livelihoods, the question of governance is not abstract. It is a matter of survival. Three months into the President바카라�s Rule, after two years of ethnic conflict, the state remains caught between slogans of unity and the grim arithmetic of displacement. The recent bid by 10 NDA legislators to form a 바카라�popular government바카라�바카라�claiming the support of 44 MLAs바카라�has brought the crisis back into focus. For many in the Valley, this move is seen as a return to normalcy. For the Hills, it signals a potential return to a government they view with suspicion, if not outright fear.

At the heart of this fracture lies a dissonance: the language of politics, popular mandates, territorial integrity, and constitutional order has little bearing on the ground realities of a state where homes remain burnt, schools stand empty, and markets have thinned to a trickle. The promise of free movement, declared with fanfare by the Home Minister, lies in tatters after the March 8 incident that left a 19-year-old dead in Kangpokpi. The symbolic protests over a bus concealing the word 바카라�Manipur바카라� have deepened the chasm between the Meitei-dominated Valley and the Kuki-Zomi-dominated Hills.

This piece is not about the political choreography in Imphal or Delhi. It is about the ordinary people, displaced families in relief camps, small traders earning a living, students whose futures are stalled, women who continue to protest, and community leaders who speak cautiously, if at all. It is their stories that reveal the limits of a governance model that promises peace without justice and a popular government that may have no constituency beyond the Valley.

Lives in Limbo

In Kangpokpi, where the March 8 바카라�free movement바카라� order unravelled into chaos, the memory of violence lingers. A 19-year-old boy, Lalgouthang Singsit, was shot dead when security forces fired at protesters. The highway, once a symbol of connection, is now a boundary. A woman, Kimneizou (name changed), a woman leader in Kangpokpi, watches from her doorstep. 바카라�They sent buses through our village without asking us. We see it as provocation.바카라� For many in the relief camps, the prospect of a 바카라�popular government바카라� elicits little more than a shrug. A farmer in Lamka asks, 바카라�What does it matter who rules from Imphal? No one came when our houses burned.바카라�

The markets reflect the same desolation. In Lamka, Lalboi arranges wilted vegetables on a wooden crate. His supply lines from Imphal were severed long ago; now, he depends on trucks coming in from Mizoram, bringing produce sourced as far as Assam. The journey바카라�once a straightforward route through Imphal바카라�now winds across state borders, crossing into Mizoram, then Assam, and back into Manipur바카라�s southern districts. A trip that used to take a da,y now stretches into a three-day journey covering over 700 kilometres, with goods often arriving damaged, delayed, or priced beyond what local buyers can afford. Costs have doubled, customers have thinned, and debts have mounted. 바카라�We sell less every day, but the debts grow,바카라� he says, almost matter-of-factly.

Across Manipur, inflation has surged. Small businesses and informal credit systems have shuttered as the backbone of rural economies has collapsed. GST collections have fallen sharply; the tourism sector has all but vanished. For traders like Lalboi, the issue is not who holds office but whether the trucks will move again. 바카라�Whether it is President바카라�s Rule or a new government, it is the same for us,바카라� he says. 바카라�The trucks are not moving. That is what matters,바카라� he laments.

In a makeshift classroom in a relief camp, a volunteer writes the alphabet on a whiteboard. Children recite it with little interest. At the back, 17-year-old Thangminlun sits quietly. 바카라�I wanted to be a teacher,바카라� he says. 바카라�Now, I don바카라�t know.바카라� Across the state, thousands of students remain out of school. There is no official data on learning outcomes since the conflict began; surveys like the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) have not been conducted, leaving a critical gap in understanding the full impact of the crisis. Many schools, particularly in the Hill districts, were converted into relief camps when violence first erupted, and despite talk of normalcy, they have yet to reopen fully.

Education is a victim, too. Access to university admissions and competitive exams has become a logistical and financial burden for students from the Hills. The cancellation of the SSC Combined Graduate Level Examinations in Churachandpur and Ukhrul districts by the Staff Selection Commission (North East Region) has deepened the sense of exclusion. District authorities in Churachandpur had submitted reports confirming the feasibility of holding exams safely. Still, service providers cited 바카라�law and order concerns,바카라� forcing candidates to travel long distances바카라�often a full day바카라�s journey to Aizawl, the Mizoram capital바카라�at a cost of at least ₹10,000. For many of the students affected, most from poor and displaced families, the cancellation is not just a logistical hurdle but a blow to aspirations already weakened by insecurity and loss.

The impact is not just a lost academic year. For many students, it is the erosion of faith that education offers a way forward. A teacher in Kangpokpi points to the drawings her students bring. 바카라�They draw guns,바카라� she says. 바카라�Not because they understand politics, but because that is the world they see.바카라� It is a quiet, unspoken transmission of conflict, a childhood shaped by what violence makes visible.

In Imphal, the Meira Paibis march again, demanding an apology from the Governor over the 바카라�Manipur바카라� bus row. They chant, 바카라�Manipur is indivisible,바카라� holding banners aloft. Many are in their sixties, custodians of an idea of unity that has become increasingly fraught바카라�one that has come to symbolise the Valley바카라�s political aspirations rather than a shared, inclusive future.

In the Hills, the mood is different. Kimneizou, a woman in Kangpokpi, offers a quiet observation. 바카라�We have protested, but no one listens. The government speaks to our leaders, but not to us.바카라� The words reveal more than fatigue. They point to a political arrangement where the concerns of women, particularly in the Hills, are mediated by male leaders, often in closed-door meetings in Delhi or Imphal. It is a system that demands patience from those who bear the weight of the conflict, but rarely grants them a voice in shaping its resolution.

The burdens in the Hills are layered: caring for the displaced, salvaging livelihoods, and navigating the persistent fear of renewed violence. Their silence is not in agreement. It is exhaustion and a measure of the distance between those who chant in the streets of Imphal and those who wait in the camps of Churachandpur.

Competing Narratives, Shared Loss

For Meitei civil society groups like COCOMI, the crisis is framed as a struggle to defend Manipur's 바카라�indivisible바카라� identity. In their view, the violence is not a breakdown of governance but the result of 바카라�narco-terrorism,바카라� 바카라�illegal immigrants,바카라� and a larger conspiracy to fracture the state. At the May 3 바카라�People바카라�s Convention바카라� in Imphal, their resolution declared Manipur 바카라�was, is, and shall always remain an indivisible entity,바카라� a phrase that has since echoed across Valley protests. In meetings with the Ministry of Home Affairs, COCOMI leaders demanded the lifting of the President바카라�s Rule and the return of a government that, in their words, 바카라�truly represents the people.바카라� Their stance leaves little room for reconciliation with the Kuki-Zomi, whom they accuse of secessionism and armed provocation.

For their part, the Kuki-Zomi communities hear the language of 바카라�territorial integrity바카라� as a refusal to acknowledge their suffering. For them, the demand for separate administration is not an abstract political claim but a response to the collapse of protection and trust. After two years of violence, displacement, and the impunity granted to groups like Arambai Tenggol, the Hills see the prospect of a BJP-led government not as a promise of stability but as the return of a system that sanctioned their marginalisation.

As Neisi Misao, a woman in a Churachandpur camp, puts it, 바카라�No one came when our homes burned. No one comes now. And they ask us to trust them again?바카라� The 바카라�free movement바카라� initiative announced by Home Minister Amit Shah, meant to symbolise reconciliation, ended in the death of 19-year-old Lalgouthang Singsit in Kangpokpi. For many in the Hills, the image of an empty state-run bus pushed through barricades under heavy security was less a gesture of peace than a performance staged for the cameras.

Naga voices, though more measured, watch with quiet unease. A student leader from Senapati, who spoke on condition of anonymity, says, 바카라�We are not in the fighting, but the fear is real. We know it could spread here. We see the weapons moving, the roads blocked, the anger rising.바카라� The Naga districts, while not directly drawn into the violence, remain wary of its spillover and sceptical of the state바카라�s ability to contain it.

In the Valley, the rhetoric is clear: Manipur must remain united, and those who challenge this are enemies of the state. But in the Hills, the talk is of survival. The phrase 바카라�popular government바카라� circulates in Imphal as a sign of restoration; in Churachandpur, it is met with silence. There is no consensus here, only parallel worlds. The return of a BJP-led government, without a reckoning for the violence, will not heal these fractures.

For the displaced, the market traders, the students, and the mothers waiting in relief camps, governance is not a slogan. It is the ration card that has not been renewed, the school that remains closed, and the promise of security that feels hollow. As the political debates continue in the Assembly and the media, the ground realities remain stark: homes lost, futures stalled, and the deep, unspoken fear that nothing will change.

The Limits of Political Arithmetic

The debate over a 바카라�popular government바카라� in Manipur is often reduced to numbers in an Assembly, but numbers alone do not settle the deeper questions this conflict has raised. No matter how it is formed, a government must find a way to speak to those who have been displaced, dispossessed, and left out of the state바카라�s imagination. The crisis has exposed the limits of politics that prioritise order over justice and arithmetic over reconciliation.

President바카라�s Rule has not resolved the conflict. It has contained its immediate violence but not its roots. Camps remain full. Markets are empty. Schools stay closed. Families wait for news that never comes. Institutions that were meant to protect have yet to earn back trust.

A return to Assembly rule, without confronting the failures that brought Manipur to this point, risks reinstating the same structures that allowed impunity to flourish. A government that claims the mantle of being 바카라�popular바카라� but cannot reach the displaced, the traders, and the mothers in the camps will govern in name, not in practice.

In a camp in Churachandpur, a father sits outside his shelter, watching the sun set behind a line of plastic sheets and tin roofs. 바카라�We wait for peace, but peace does not wait for us,바카라� he says quietly. His words capture what no Assembly vote can resolve: a crisis of trust and a longing for safety that has not been met. The crisis in Manipur is not about the restoration of government alone. It is about the restoration of trust between the Valley and the Hills, between state institutions and the people they claim to serve. Until that trust is rebuilt, the arithmetic of governance will remain hollow.

Sangmuan Hangsing is a researcher and alumnus of the Kautilya School of Public Policy.