Manipur Is Burning and India’s Leaders Are Looking Away

PAHARI BARUAH

Three years into a brutal ethnic conflict, fresh killings expose not just a fractured state, but a dangerous failure of political will in New Delhi

There is a silence surrounding Manipur that is as violent as the conflict itself.

It is the silence of a nation that has learned to look away. The silence of power that calculates the cost of attention and decides, repeatedly, that Manipur does not matter enough.

In April 2026, the northeastern state is no longer merely unstable-it is unraveling. What began in May 2023 as a conflict between Meitei and Kuki-Zo communities has hardened into a protracted, multi-sided war. Now, with fresh clashes between Kuki and Tangkhul Naga groups in Ukhrul district, the lines of violence are expanding, threatening to pull in communities that had, until recently, remained at the margins.

Three more dead. Dozens injured. Homes burned before dawn.

These are no longer incidents. They are patterns.

Each side offers its own version of truth-of who fired first, who defended, who retaliated. But after three years of bloodshed, these competing narratives have ceased to clarify anything. Instead, they have become part of the machinery of conflict, feeding cycles of fear and revenge that no authority seems capable-or willing-to break.

More than 260 people have been killed since 2023. Over 62,000 remain displaced, many living in conditions that would shame any democracy that claims to value dignity. Entire neighbourhoods have been erased, replaced by segregated enclaves policed not by trust, but by guns.

And still, the violence continues to mutate.

Manipur is Burning Again

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The killing of two infants in Bishnupur earlier this month-killed in their own home by a suspected rocket attack-should have marked a line that could not be crossed. Instead, it barely registered in the national conscience. The outrage was local. The grief was local. The silence, however, was national.

This is not just a failure of empathy. It is a failure of governance.

Because conflicts do not sustain themselves for three years without political permission-whether explicit or implied.

In Manipur, that permission has come in the form of absence.

PM Modi takes boat ride on Hooghly river

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not made a meaningful visit to the state during its most catastrophic period. Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who once flew in as violence first erupted, has not maintained the sustained, visible engagement required of a crisis that has effectively partitioned a state along ethnic lines.

This absence is not a neutral act. It sends a message-one that people in Manipur understand all too well: that their suffering does not command urgency.

The contrast is difficult to ignore. As political capital is invested heavily in election campaigns across other parts of India, Manipur remains trapped in a loop of statements, curfews, and security deployments-managed, but not resolved.

The government’s approach has been overwhelmingly securitized. Thousands of central forces have been deployed. Internet shutdowns have become routine. Movement is controlled. Information is contained.

But security without political strategy is not stability. It is containment.

And containment, in Manipur, has failed.

An estimated 6,000 looted firearms and hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition remain in circulation. Armed groups operate with increasing confidence. Civilian “village volunteers” have become de facto militias. The state, in many areas, no longer holds a monopoly on violence-a condition that should alarm any functioning democracy.

Meanwhile, the political questions at the heart of the conflict remain unaddressed.

The Meitei demand for Scheduled Tribe status continues to generate fear among tribal communities. The Kuki-Zo demand for a separate administrative arrangement reflects a complete breakdown of trust in the existing state structure. Naga anxieties, now sharpened by direct involvement in violence, add another volatile layer.

These are not peripheral issues. They are existential ones.

Yet there has been no sustained, inclusive political dialogue capable of addressing them. No credible peace process that brings all stakeholders into a framework of negotiation. No visible attempt to move beyond reactive governance.

Instead, there is drift.

Even the reinstatement of an elected government in 2026, under Chief Minister Yumnam Khemchand Singh, has done little to alter the ground reality. Outreach efforts remain symbolic, constrained by limited political authority and an environment where trust has all but collapsed.

The result is a conflict that is not just continuing-but evolving.

The entry of Naga groups into direct confrontation with Kuki forces marks a dangerous turning point. It transforms Manipur from a deeply polarized conflict into a potentially wider crisis with regional implications, including spillover risks across India’s sensitive northeastern corridor.

For a country that seeks to project itself as a global power, this should be a moment of reckoning.

Because Manipur is not an isolated crisis. It is a mirror.

It reflects what happens when historical grievances are left to fester, when identity politics is weaponized, and when political leadership chooses optics over intervention. It exposes the limits of a governance model that prioritizes control over resolution, and visibility over responsibility.

Most of all, it raises a question that cannot be easily dismissed:

What does it mean for a democracy when a part of it can burn for three years—and still struggle to be seen?

The answer, in Manipur, is being written in ashes.

And unless there is a fundamental shift-from silence to engagement, from force to dialogue, from neglect to accountability-the fire will not stop at Ukhrul, or Bishnupur, or Imphal.

It will continue to spread.

Quietly. Relentlessly.

Just beyond the India’s gaze.

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