New fault lines

Why in the News

Violence between the Naga and Kuki-Zo communities has spread across Manipur’s hill districts since February, opening a second ethnic fault line in the State. It follows three years in which the conflagration of May 2023 between the Meitei and Kuki-Zo communities had slowly begun to abate. Nearly a year of President’s Rule gave way in February 2026 to a Bharatiya Janata Party led government, and two Kuki-Zo legislators have since returned to the Assembly for the first time since the community’s boycott began. The tension is that political space is reopening between the valley and the hills at the same moment as a new conflict is closing it inside the hills.

What has moved towards normalcy since 2023?

1. A new State government: President’s Rule ended in February 2026 with the formation of a Bharatiya Janata Party led government under a new Chief Minister. Attempts to engineer a thaw between the Meitei and Kuki-Zo communities gathered pace after it.
2. Everyday violence abating: Routine violence between the two communities has reduced over the three years since the May 2023 conflagration.
3. Return to the Assembly: Two Kuki-Zo MLAs attended the Assembly session this month, the first attendance since legislators from the community began boycotting it after the attacks in Imphal at the start of the ethnic conflict.
4. Defiance of the boycott directive: The two legislators acted against a directive of the Kuki Inpi Manipur, the Kuki-Zo civil society organisation, to continue the boycott until there was a concession on the demand for a separate administration.
5. What the attendance signals: Their presence represents an acknowledgement that the political space should reopen even while the underlying differences persist.

What does the new Naga and Kuki-Zo conflict look like?

1. Spread from localised disputes: Violence that began as local disputes has spread across the hill districts since February.
2. The toll to July: At least 15 Kuki-Zo people, 11 Nagas, three security personnel and a truck driver were killed till July. More have died in the two months since.
3. Villages burnt: Houses in both Naga and Kuki-Zo villages have been burnt down, and the newly displaced have moved into camps.
4. Armed groups as the driver: Armed groups claiming to act on behalf of their respective communities have revived the conflict rather than the communities having drifted into it.

Why do the hill districts keep returning to the same dispute?

1. A 1990s precedent: The present violence echoes the Naga and Kuki violence of the 1990s, which was fought over the same questions.
2. Control of the hills: The dispute resurrects the argument over which community controls the hill areas.
3. Customary law: It also resurrects the question of whose customary laws prevail in those areas, which no settlement between the valley and the hills addresses.

What are civilians bearing?

1. Displacement that has not ended: Many of those displaced in 2023 remain in relief camps three years later.
2. Deaths inside the camps: A reply under the Right to Information Act, 2005 puts the number who have died in these camps at over 700, many for want of access to basic health care and adequate nutrition.
3. Blockades on essentials: Blockades imposed by partisans of each community against the other have held up essentials and medicines. The smaller Kuki-Zo community is the worse affected by them.
4. Health system in the hills: Health centres in the hills have been left dysfunctional, so the blockades fall on a system with no reserve capacity.

Challenges to restoring peace in Manipur

1. Armed groups outside any political process: Groups claiming a community mandate operate without being party to a settlement, so no agreement binds them. Eg. The Suspension of Operations arrangement with Kuki militant groups has been in dispute since 2023.
   The Fix: Make continued security force restraint conditional on verified cantonment and weapons accounting for every group claiming a community mandate.
2. Blockades used as routine leverage: Economic blockades on the highways are a standing bargaining tool, and they fall hardest on the hill districts. Eg. National Highway 2 and National Highway 37 are the only supply lifelines into the State.
   The Fix: Treat every blockade as a criminal offence with named organisers, and run dedicated escort convoys on the two national highways.
3. Relief camps becoming permanent: A camp population that persists for years accumulates health and nutrition failures that no relief budget corrects. Eg. Residents displaced in 2023 are entering a fourth year without returning home.
   The Fix: Publish a dated resettlement plan with security guarantees for each village of return, instead of open ended camp maintenance.
4. Land and customary rights left unsettled: Hill administration and customary village authority run alongside each other with no forum to resolve a conflict between them. Eg. The Manipur (Hill Areas) District Councils Act, 1971 governs the district councils while village chiefs exercise customary authority over land.
   The Fix: Convene a statutory settlement process on boundaries and customary rights through the Hill Areas Committee of the Legislative Assembly.
5. Electoral timing narrows the window: Assembly elections are due next year and the government’s tenure ends soon, so a contested campaign will overlap the containment effort. Eg. Displaced residents will vote while still living in relief camps.
   The Fix: Secure an all party agreement on ground rules for communal rhetoric before campaigning opens.

Conclusion

Manipur’s peace effort is now being asked to hold two fronts at once. The divide between the valley and the hills is easing at the level of political participation, while a conflict inside the hills is hardening beneath it, and the arrangements built for the first do not reach the second. What the State can supply is even handedness: criminal law applied identically across communities, and protection of civilians that does not vary by ethnicity. Whether that standard survives an election campaign is the thing to watch.

Back2Basics: The hill and valley administration of Manipur

1. Article 371C: It carries a special provision for Manipur, empowering the President to constitute a Hill Areas Committee of the Legislative Assembly drawn from members representing the hill constituencies.
2. What the Committee does: It considers legislation and administration affecting the hill areas, and the Governor reports annually to the President on the administration of those areas.
3. District Councils: Six autonomous district councils function in the hill districts under the Manipur (Hill Areas) District Councils Act, 1971, outside the Sixth Schedule framework used in some other North Eastern States.
4. The demographic split: The Imphal valley holds the bulk of the State’s population and is largely Meitei, while the surrounding hill districts are home to the Naga and Kuki-Zo communities.

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.”