Cycle of violence: On Manipur, the persistence of hostilities

📌 Summary:

• Context: Violence re-erupted in Manipur following bombing on April 7 killing a 5-year-old boy and infant girl in Bishnupur district; even moderate CM Yumnam Khemchand Singh struggling to restore peace

• Core argument: Ethnic quagmires are the hardest conflicts to untangle — hostile elements resist normalisation; every incident is ethnicised; early inaction makes later resolution far harder

• Causal chain of perpetuation: (1) Previous government failed to nip 2023 Meitei-Kuki-Zo ethnic tensions early — entrenching hostility (2) No space for empathy in ethnicised discourse — every incident is framed by group identity (3) ~60,000 people remain displaced since 2023 violence; unable to return to segregated, securitised localities (4) Rehabilitation consistently sidelined by policy — focus on containment rather than resolution (5) Ethnic communities in hills and valley increasingly fortified into separate enclaves

• International parallel: Lesson from ethnic conflicts globally — without active trust-building, cycles of retaliatory violence self-perpetuate

• Solutions proposed: Move rehabilitation from margin to centre of policy; government must build cross-ethnic trust; restore space for civil society dialogue; nominee chief ministers must show independence from ethnic lobbies

🎯 UPSC Relevance: GS3 – Internal Security: NE insurgency, ethnic conflict; GS2 – Governance: state governance failure; GS1 – Society: Communalism, ethnic diversity; GS4 – Ethics: compassionate governance

🔑 Key Term: Ethnic Conflict – violence driven by perceived ethnic, communal or tribal group identity differences; in Manipur involves Meitei (valley/plains) vs Kuki-Zo (hill tribes) communities; persistent since May 2023 with over 200 deaths and 60,000+ displaced