THE physical return of Kuki-Zo legislators to the Manipur Legislative Assembly after three and a half long years presents a striking image of democratic resilience. On the surface, the administration under Chief Minister Yumnam Khemchand Singh frames this historic sitting as a crucial turning point, praising it as a triumph of reconciliation and a vital step toward healing a deeply fractured state. However, beneath this carefully crafted optics lies a far more unsettling reality. While the presence of these elected representatives in Imphal is framed as proof of a diminishing trust deficit, the concurrent legislative actions paint a starkly different picture. The House’s swift re-affirmation to push for a National Register of Citizens before conducting the population census is a deeply troubling move. Demanding an NRC in a region still reeling from violent displacement is not a path to harmony; it is a calculated political gamble. Pushing a register before establishing a reliable baseline count risks turning state mechanisms into tools of systematic exclusion, further entrenching divisions under the guise of legal process.
A sharp analysis of these policy moves uncovers dangerous loopholes in the government’s narrative of peace. By prioritizing the NRC and stalling the decennial census, the state apparatus effectively targets the vulnerable Kuki-Zo community, framing them as foreign infiltrators rather than displaced citizens seeking safety. This narrative is further fueled by deep-seated hostility from dominant valley groups and Naga factions, who blatantly view the minority community through an evil lens of collective guilt and existential suspicion. Pushing for complex verification measures while thousands remain trapped in relief camps creates an impossible standard for those who have lost their ancestral homes and essential documents to fire and violence. Moreover, the claims of administrative recovery are contradicted by structural failures. Moving supplementary grants heavily reliant on central funds cannot hide the collapse of local governance, seen in the ongoing postponement of local elections and severe shortages of medical staff in hill districts. Relying on temporary medical units and piecemeal relief cards merely paper over a broken healthcare and civic infrastructure.
True reconciliation cannot be bought with supplementary grants or engineered through performative assembly sittings. While the state highlights the partial resettlement of displaced citizens and the delivery of financial aid, these measures fail to address the core problem: a profound lack of security, institutional trust, and equal rights. The government’s willingness to exploit communal anxieties for political gain only deepens the divide, leaving the state deeply fragmented, unstable, and vulnerable to further conflict. By choosing political expediency over genuine dialogue, the leadership risks alienating ethnic minorities even further from the mainstream democratic process. The journey toward lasting peace requires honest accountability, the immediate restoration of constitutional protections, and an absolute rejection of policies designed to disenfranchise entire communities. Until the leadership moves beyond hollow legislative gestures and actively confronts the underlying prejudices dividing the valley and the hills, Manipur’s promise of unity will remain nothing more than a fragile illusion.
~ Zogam Today | Editorial | 04.09.2026
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