Ensure dignity, way back for Manipur’s displaced

Why in the News

The Supreme Court has expressed shock at reports of deaths, including unnatural deaths, in relief camps for internally displaced people (IDPs) in Manipur. The displacement follows ethnic violence that has remained intractable for over three years. The Manipur government told the State Assembly this month that the number of people in relief camps and temporary locations has fallen to 28,899, from nearly 60,000 at the peak of the violence. The tension is between camp management and settlement. The State can staff camps and supply medicines, and neither step restores the conditions for people to go home. The Meitei and Kuki conflict remains unsettled, and it has now acquired a Naga and Kuki dimension as well.

Why is healthcare access the sharpest cost of prolonged displacement?

1. Concentration in the capital: Manipur’s healthcare system is heavily concentrated in Imphal, so specialist treatment is a journey rather than a local service for most of the State.
2. The two tertiary hospitals: The Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences and the Regional Institute of Medical Sciences are the State’s two tertiary government hospitals. Both are located in the capital.
3. What segregation did to access: Once violence induced ethnic segregation set in, Kuki-Zo people from the hills could no longer travel to the Valley for treatment.
4. The gap in the hills: Healthcare facilities in the hills lack specialists and essential equipment, so the referral chain has no second tier to fall back on.

What does the geography of treatment now look like?

1. Treatment outside the State: Some patients have had to seek healthcare outside Manipur. The closest destination is Aizawl, a journey of over 12 hours by road.
2. Blockades as a health problem: Persistent blockades obstruct patients travelling to hospitals. They also obstruct the movement of medicines and of medical personnel.
3. Nutrition in the camps: The food provided in many camps is nutritionally deficient. That compounds the burden on a health system already out of reach.
4. A temporary refuge made permanent: What was meant to be temporary shelter has left thousands of people dependent on an inadequate and fragile healthcare system.

What do the displacement figures show?

1. The current count: The number of IDPs in relief camps and temporary locations stands at 28,899.
2. The decline from the peak: The figure was nearly 60,000 at the peak of the violence, so more than half of those displaced have left the camps.
3. What the fall does not measure: A falling count records movement out of camps. It records nothing about whether people returned to their own homes or their own areas.
4. The duration: The displacement has run for over three years, so the population still in the camps is the population with nowhere else to go.

Why can camp management not substitute for a political settlement?

1. The unresolved conflict: Without a durable solution to the Meitei and Kuki conflict, the conditions for safe and sustainable rehabilitation remain out of reach.
2. The widening fault line: The conflict has increasingly acquired a Naga and Kuki dimension, so a settlement between two communities no longer covers the dispute.
3. What the State can do now: The State must ensure adequately staffed medical facilities at or near the camps, along with supplies of medicines and other essential services.
4. What a settlement requires: Dialogue and confidence building measures are the route to a political settlement that ends the violence and allows displaced people to rebuild with security and dignity.

Challenges to the rehabilitation of Manipur’s displaced

1. Return depends on security guarantees the State cannot yet give: Displaced households will not return to mixed or frontier areas without an assurance against renewed attack, so camp exits outpace actual resettlement. Eg. Buffer zones along the Valley and hill boundary have been held by central forces since 2023 rather than dismantled.
   The Fix: Publish a village wise return plan naming the security arrangement, the timeline and the compensation attached to each village.
2. Documentation loss blocks entitlements: People who fled without papers lose access to rations, pensions, school admission and land records, so displacement hardens into a durable loss of status. Eg. Camp residents have needed fresh identity documentation to reach welfare schemes tied to place of residence.
   The Fix: Run a single window re issue drive for identity, land and school records inside the camps, with the camp address accepted as proof of residence.
3. India has no statutory framework for internal displacement: Relief rests on executive discretion and court direction rather than on an enforceable entitlement, so standards vary by State and by episode. Eg. The Supreme Court has had to intervene on camp conditions in place of a statutory authority enforcing them.
   The Fix: Enact a framework law defining minimum camp standards, return entitlements and a named authority accountable for each.
4. Education loss compounds across cohorts: Children in camps lose school years that are never recovered, so the displacement transfers to the next generation. Eg. School buildings in the affected districts were used to house displaced families, removing both the premises and the schooling.
   The Fix: Attach a residential bridge school to each camp cluster, with enrolment tracked against the pre displacement register.
5. A relief economy entrenches the camp: Sustained rations, cash relief and camp based work create a livelihood structure that competes with the decision to return. Eg. Bru families displaced from Mizoram in 1997 lived in relief camps in Tripura until the resettlement agreement of 2020.
   The Fix: Convert relief into a time bound resettlement package payable on return, rather than an open ended entitlement payable in the camp.

Conclusion

Displacement in Manipur has stopped being a housing problem and become a health one. The camps are the point at which an already concentrated health system fails the people furthest from it. The State’s immediate obligation is staffed medical facilities at or near the camps, with the medicines and personnel to run them. The unresolved question is political, since a return that is safe and durable now needs a settlement covering the Naga and Kuki dimension as well as the Meitei and Kuki one.

Back2Basics: internally displaced people

1. Who they are: Internally displaced people are persons forced to flee their homes by conflict, violence or disaster who have not crossed an international border.
2. How they differ from refugees: A refugee crosses an international border and gains protection under international refugee law. An internally displaced person remains under the jurisdiction of their own State.
3. The governing standard: The United Nations Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, 1998 set out the rights of displaced people and the duties of the State, without binding treaty force.
4. The position in India: India has no dedicated law on internal displacement, so relief and rehabilitation run through executive schemes and State level orders.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2025, GS3, 15] 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.”