Who sustains the ongoing conflict in Manipur? 

More than three years after the outbreak of ethnic violence in Manipur in May 2023, a durable peace remains distant. Although large-scale clashes have declined, sporadic killings and violent incidents continue to unsettle everyday life.

Each fresh attack, ambush, disappearance, or act of arson revives collective anxieties and deepens mistrust between communities. The state remains fragmented by buffer zones, militarised checkpoints, and competing claims of victimhood.

Despite extensive security measures and repeated assurances from authorities, violence continues, suggesting that the crisis is rooted less in a mere law-and-order failure and more in unresolved political grievances and a deepening governance impasse.

This situation raises a critical question: who sustains the ongoing conflict in Manipur?

The answer does not reside in the actions of any single community, but rather in the interplay of political interests, historical grievances, competing territorial claims, and institutional failures. Ethnic conflicts are perpetuated by political incentives and structures that reproduce insecurity.

In Manipur, violence is embedded within the broader struggle over power, identity, territory, and recognition. The persistence of killings demonstrates that the conflict is not merely a law-and-order issue, but a crisis of political coexistence.

Majoritarian Politics and the Crisis of State Neutrality

The transformation of Manipur’s ethnic tensions into a prolonged conflict must be understood within the broader political context.

Over the past decade, the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has reshaped Indian politics, including in the Northeast. Although the party has expanded its influence through promises of development and national integration, critics contend that its political vision often privileges majoritarian aspirations, thereby exacerbating the crisis of state neutrality.

In Manipur, where the Meiteis are the dominant majority, many Kukis increasingly perceive state institutions and their functioning as increasingly aligned with Meitei political interests.

This perception was reinforced by the 2023 violence, during which thousands of Kukis were displaced from Imphal Valley, villages were destroyed, and communities became physically segregated. The inability or reluctance of the state government to prevent violence or facilitate meaningful rehabilitation led to a collapse of trust.

For many Kukis, the issue is no longer simply one of security but of political legitimacy. A growing section of the community believes that existing institutions are incapable of guaranteeing their safety and rights.

This perception has strengthened demands for a Separate Administration outside the authority of the Manipur government. Conversely, many Meiteis view such demands as a direct challenge to Manipur’s territorial integrity and historical identity. This produces a classic security dilemma: measures one community sees as necessary for survival, the other interprets as  threats.

The result is political deadlock, where coexistence appears increasingly difficult. Rather than addressing this crisis through sustained dialogue, the political process has often been overshadowed by competing narratives and electoral calculations. The absence of meaningful negotiations has hardened the conflict into a struggle over mutually incompatible visions of the future.

Historical Memories and the Politics of Victimhood

The current conflict is also shaped by memories of earlier episodes of violence. Ethnic conflicts rarely begin from a blank slate. Historical grievances become embedded within collective memory and continue to shape how communities interpret contemporary events.

The failure of the government, both at the centre and state, resulted in the escalation of the violence to communities that had so far maintained a semblance of neutrality. Since the formation of the popular government on 4 February 2026, the ethnic crisis in Manipur has acquired new dimensions, as localised clashes between Kuki and Naga villages escalated into broader inter-community tensions.

The Nagas and Kukis had a history of unresolved conflict, with the violence of the 1990s remaining a significant collective memory. The trauma of that period continues to shape interpretations of current developments, and recent tensions between the two communities have revived longstanding fears and insecurities. Every new act of violence reinforces older fears and strengthens perceptions of collective vulnerability.

Yet the politics of victimhood is not exclusive to any one community. Meiteis also possess their own narratives of suffering, displacement, and insecurity. The problem arises when competing memories become mutually exclusive, and each community recognises only its own pain while remaining sceptical of others’ suffering.

This creates a dangerous cycle in which historical grievances are repeatedly mobilised to justify contemporary political positions. Victimhood becomes a resource for mobilisation rather than a basis for empathy. Instead of fostering reconciliation, memories of past violence become instruments for sustaining present divisions.

The May–June 2026 Violence and the Failure of Militarised Peace

On 13 May 2026, three respected Kuki church leaders were killed when gunmen ambushed their convoy in Kangpokpi District around 10:25 a.m. They were returning from a Baptist Convention gathering in Churachandpur, a southern district in Manipur. Their deaths carried a powerful symbolism.

These were not combatants or political leaders but religious figures associated with efforts to promote dialogue. Their killing represented an attack not only on individuals but also on the possibility of reconciliation itself.

In the aftermath of the killings, a hostage crisis unfolded involving the abduction of civilians from both the Naga and the Kuki communities. Ordinary villagers suddenly found themselves transformed into bargaining chips in a widening conflict.

After nearly a month of uncertainty, the fourteen Kuki hostages were eventually released on 9 June 2026. The release should have marked a turning point, but reports emerged of the killing of a Kuki farmer on the same day.

Within 24 hours, the bodies of the six missing Nagas were also recovered, and the sense of relief generated by the hostage release quickly evaporated. Then, on the dawn of 11 June 2026, armed attackers struck Kultuh Kuki village in Kamjong district, burning seven houses and killing two individuals.

These incidents reveal how violence in Manipur increasingly operates through a logic of retaliation and counter-retaliation. Every death produces demands for justice. In the absence of justice, demands for revenge emerge.

Every retaliatory act then generates new grievances that justify further violence. The cycle becomes self-perpetuating. Perhaps the most troubling aspect of these events is that they occurred despite one of the largest concentrations of security forces anywhere in India.

Since 2023, Manipur has witnessed the deployment of thousands of personnel from the Army, Assam Rifles, CRPF, BSF, and state police units. Buffer zones separate communities, highways are heavily guarded, and vulnerable areas are subjected to constant surveillance.

In June 2026, the Union Government further strengthened the security architecture by deploying additional CoBRA commandos from the CRPF, an elite force known for its counter-insurgency operations. Yet even this enhanced security presence failed to prevent the chain of killings, village attacks, or retaliatory violence.

This contradiction exposes the limits of a security-centric approach. The problem in Manipur is not the absence of force; it is the force’s inability to address political grievances. That failure underscores the article’s central claim: the conflict persists because coercion cannot resolve the underlying struggle over coexistence.

Security personnel can patrol roads, establish checkpoints, and separate hostile groups. They cannot resolve disputes over indigeneity, territory, autonomy, political representation, and historical memory.

A soldier may prevent violence at one location, but cannot eliminate the distrust that makes violence possible elsewhere.

The persistence of killings despite overwhelming militarisation suggests that Manipur’s crisis is fundamentally political rather than merely security-related. The state has become increasingly securitised, but peace remains absent. Militarisation may temporarily contain violence, but it cannot create reconciliation.

Beyond Zero-Sum Politics

The tragedy of Manipur lies in the apparent incompatibility of competing political aspirations. While the Kukis hold on to their demand for a Separate Administration outside the Manipur government’s jurisdiction, many Meiteis regard Manipur’s territorial integrity as non-negotiable. Because these positions are rooted in genuine fears and historical experiences, compromise becomes exceedingly difficult.

Yet history demonstrates that even the most deeply entrenched ethnic conflicts are not beyond resolution.

Lasting peace does not depend on communities abandoning their distinct identities. Instead, it rests on the creation of institutions capable of accommodating diversity, addressing competing aspirations, and enabling communities to live together without violence or subjugation.

The first step must be recognising suffering across communities. Every community in Manipur has experienced loss, displacement, and trauma. Acknowledging this shared suffering does not erase political differences, but it creates the moral foundation for dialogue.

Second, accountability is essential. The culture of impunity that has characterised many conflicts in Northeast India has repeatedly undermined peace efforts.

Killings, abductions, and attacks on civilians must be investigated transparently, regardless of the identity of the perpetrators. Justice should be viewed not as an obstacle to peace but as one of its preconditions.

Third, political negotiations must address the underlying issues rather than merely managing symptoms. The central government can no longer rely exclusively on security deployments and crisis management.

Serious discussions regarding autonomy, power-sharing, territorial governance, constitutional safeguards, and community security mechanisms are necessary if lasting peace is to be achieved.

Finally, civil society, religious leaders, and community organisations must reclaim space from extremists and hardliners. The murder of pastors and peace advocates demonstrates how vulnerable reconciliation efforts have become. Yet it is precisely these voices that remain indispensable for rebuilding trust.

The recurring killings in Manipur compel us to confront an uncomfortable truth: the conflict endures not because peace is unattainable, but because the political will and courage required to pursue a meaningful political settlement remain lacking.

Until sustained political dialogue replaces an over-reliance on securitisation, and mutual recognition takes the place of competing narratives of victimhood, each new killing will stand as a stark reminder that Manipur remains suspended between war and peace—unable to fully escape one or achieve the other.

Views expressed are that of the author and do not reflect EastMojo’s stance on this or any other issue.

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