Union home minister Amit Shah last week instructed security forces and the state administration to ensure free movement of people across Manipur. Taking the cue, a Meitei group tried to organise a peace march to Kuki areas, which was not welcomed. The Kuki groups view these as attempts by the state administration to impose a unilateral “peace” while ignoring their concerns. The Meitei-Kuki clashes that erupted in May 2023 led to the death of close to 250 persons, the destruction of homes and public buildings and the looting of armouries. The ethnic cauldron that Manipur is continues to simmer. The state administration lost credibility as armed gangs took control of the streets and forced their writ on civilians. The civil war in Myanmar, an open border, and cross-border ethnic ties complicated the situation with the administration suspecting ethnic groups of facilitating gun running and drug trade. The resignation of the discredited Biren Singh as chief minister in February and the imposition of the governor’s rule have helped to break the impasse and created the space for talks and to rebuild trust among communities and between them and the state administration.

Violence is now restricted to pockets, and the positive, albeit muted, response from ethnic groups to a call from the administration to surrender arms looted from the state armouries suggests that the state is on the mend. However, the process of healing is likely to take time considering the scale and intensity of atrocities the warring parties inflicted on rivals. Trust and peace can’t be foisted on a people through official diktat: It will require a major outreach from the administration — historically, dominated by the Meiteis — and political actors for the communities, currently in a state of siege, to respond to peace overtures. Platforms such as the Kuki-Zo council should recognise that maximalist positions and the politics of confrontation are unsustainable in the long run.