Despite multiple directives from the Supreme Court of India urging the Manipur government to protect and restore properties abandoned due to the ongoing ethnic violence, public and private buildings across the state continue to be illegally occupied by community-based organizations and local groups. From the valley to the hills, the breakdown in enforcement has become a reflection of the fragile administrative control in a conflict zone now entering its second year.
On September 25, 2023, the Supreme Court ordered the Manipur government to ensure that the properties of displaced persons, whether destroyed, burnt, or deserted, are protected from encroachment and illegal occupation. It instructed Deputy Commissioners and Superintendents of Police to prevent further usurpation and warned that violators would face legal consequences, including contempt of court charges. Yet, compliance on the ground has been minimal.
Government Properties Rebranded: A Silent Usurpation
Since the eruption of ethnic violence in May 2023, a disturbing pattern has unfolded in Manipur’s conflict-affected regions: the quiet repurposing of government infrastructure by non-state actors. Nowhere is this more visible than in Churachandpur district, where prominent tribal organizations have moved into state-owned properties and rebranded them as their own administrative or political headquarters with little to no state resistance.
The Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum (ITLF), a conglomerate representing the recognized tribes of the Churachandpur district, initially took over the newly constructed Churachandpur Medical College (CMC) as its base of operations. When the college resumed academic functions in June 2023, ITLF shifted to Churachandpur College, then again to the District Library, remaining there until March 26, 2025.
Meanwhile, Kuki Innpi Manipur (KIM), the apex body of the Kuki people, has continuously occupied the District Circuit House in B. Aizalon since the early months of the violence. On April 8, the building was whitewashed to be renamed as KIM’s Secretariat.
None of these takeovers have been formalized or legally sanctioned. No official government notification authorized the reallocation or temporary reassignment of these properties. Yet government employees, district officials, and the public have had to navigate around a new, unofficial reality in which non-state actors control key public infrastructure. The implications are grave. This is not merely administrative overreach but the emergence of parallel governance.
By rebranding state infrastructure and operating from government buildings, groups like ITLF and KIM are not just symbolizing political authority; they are actively exercising it. Meetings with tribal chiefs, youth organizations, village volunteers, and even elected representatives are now hosted in these spaces. Press briefings and emergency declarations are issued from buildings that once represented state neutrality and civic purpose.
The government’s silence in the face of these developments reveals a profound crisis of legitimacy. Whether due to fear of backlash, sympathy for the groups involved, or sheer administrative collapse, the state appears unable or unwilling to assert its authority. What began as makeshift arrangements have hardened into long-term occupations, reshaping public memory and spatial control.
In conflict zones, control over physical infrastructure is power. Government properties’ prolonged and visible occupation signals that formal governance has been suspended, if not replaced. More dangerously, it communicates that institutions can be claimed and repurposed without legal consequence so long as one commands enough influence. This erodes public trust in the state’s ability to protect property and its role as a neutral administrator.
In its December 2024 directive, the Supreme Court asked the Manipur government to produce a detailed list of encroachments and assess whether criminal charges or mesne profits: compensation for wrongful occupation should be pursued. But unless those occupying state infrastructures are held accountable, these directives risk becoming nothing more than paper mandates in a state already witnessing institutional capture.
No difference in the Valley
The illegal occupation of property is not confined to the hill districts. A parallel pattern has emerged in the Imphal Valley, one marked by an even more chilling climate of fear. Multiple independent accounts suggest that Meitei militant-leaning groups, most notably Arambai Tenggol, have taken over private homes and community buildings abandoned by fleeing Kuki families. These properties, from modest homes to large residential plots, were left behind as violence consumed mixed neighbourhoods in the early days of the conflict.
Some of these homes were subsequently reoccupied, refurnished, and repurposed for coordination meetings, logistics, or informal administrative functions. Displaced owners who attempted to return found their properties barricaded, marked with new insignia, or quietly absorbed into the local power structure. Entire lanes in Imphal’s outskirts, once inhabited by Kuki families, now display flags or graffiti signalling new ownership. In some cases, youth clubs and local institutions have expanded into adjacent plots belonging to displaced persons.
Unlike in the hills, where occupations are visible and even declared, the valley’s takeovers often happen under the radar. This calculated invisibility intensifies the sense of helplessness for displaced communities. Law enforcement, meanwhile, remains largely absent or inactive.
A defining feature of the valley’s encroachment crisis is the absence of formal complaints. Displaced persons living in relief camps or exile fear reprisal. Even sympathetic Meitei neighbours remain silent, wary of crossing powerful groups. This climate of fear has paralyzed the justice system, which depends on grievance and redressal mechanisms to function.
Yet the law remains unequivocal: encroachments, regardless of motive, are illegal. The Supreme Court’s orders apply equally across all districts and communities. But when those orders are not enforced, they cease to be law; they become aspiration.
A question of sovereignty
Across the state, occupying groups often justify their actions as a necessity born from a lack of government support, the need for shelter, or the urgency of organizing resistance. These justifications, however, do not stand up to constitutional scrutiny.
The continued normalization of illegal occupation, even when community-driven or framed as strategic, risks embedding a culture of impunity. It also hardens ethnic divides, turning previously integrated neighbourhoods into segregated strongholds.tw What emerges is a quiet but potent form of ethnic cleansing by inertia, not through mass violence alone, but through institutional silence.
The state’s monopoly over the core sovereignty markers of the law, enforcement, and property rights is steadily unravelling. If groups can occupy homes, block returns, and refashion government buildings without fear of consequence, what remains of the state in the everyday lives of citizens? Even more troubling is the selective silence from the state. The reluctance to act suggests complicity or abdication in both hills and valleys. In either case, the cost is borne by the displaced, the dispossessed, and the very notion of democratic governance.
Supreme Court demands accountability
In a decisive shift, the Supreme Court, on December 9, 2024, issued a fresh directive demanding full disclosure from the Manipur government. A bench led by Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna asked the state to submit detailed lists of:
- Properties that were burnt or looted,
- Properties that have been encroached or trespassed, and
- Concrete steps for restitution—including criminal prosecution and compensation mechanisms.
The Court’s demand for mesne profits is notable. It goes beyond restoration, invoking deterrence as a financial consequence for illegal occupation. The judiciary is making clear that encroachment is not just a civil wrong but a punishable act.
The Court’s directives were informed by the work of the Justice Gita Mittal Committee, set up in August 2023 to oversee the humanitarian response. It has submitted 34 reports highlighting progress and persistent blockades in rehabilitation. While the Committee acknowledged temporary shelters and skill training programs, it emphasized a significant obstacle: non-cooperation by those illegally occupying property. In many areas, the return of the displaced has been stymied not by infrastructure failure but by the political protection enjoyed by encroachers.
The Manipur government’s response to public outrage and judicial intervention has been largely symbolic. In October 2023, the Governor issued a directive reinforcing the Supreme Court’s September order, warning of legal consequences for encroachment. But no significant enforcement has followed.
Deputy Commissioners and police officers, who were instructed to uphold these orders, have avoided mainly action, particularly in areas controlled by local militias or influential civil groups. No arrests, no evictions, no prosecutions. This isn’t just a policy failure, it is institutional complicity. By failing to act, the administration is inadvertently legitimizing an alternative system of land and building control.
Trust deficit, administrative paralysis
The Supreme Court’s patience is wearing thin. Senior Advocate Colin Gonsalves, representing petitioners, told the bench: “The trust of the people in the state and Union governments is at stake.” Chief Justice Khanna acknowledged the urgency.
As of November 2024, the Union Government confirmed 258 deaths in the conflict. Thousands remain displaced, some permanently. Their homes lie destroyed, others repurposed or claimed by new occupants.
What remains unanswered after every court order and official Committee is: When and how will rightful owners get their homes back? This is not just about property. It is about citizenship, dignity, and democratic belonging, and whether a tribal woman from Churachandpur or a Meitei elder from Imphal can ever trust the state again.
Until then, the silent takeover of homes and offices, under the indifferent gaze of the administration, remains the loudest testimony to a state in retreat.
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