India's Forgotten Fire: Three Years of Ethnic War in Manipur
India's Forgotten Fire:
Three Years of Ethnic War in Manipur
Over 260 dead, 60,000 displaced — and a nation that largely looked away.
On the morning of May 3, 2023, fires broke out across the hills and valleys of Manipur, India's small northeastern state nestled against the borders of Myanmar. They were not the kind of fires that make the front pages of national newspapers. They were homes. Churches. Temples. And human beings.
Three years later, the fires have not entirely gone out.
The violence that erupted in Manipur on May 3, 2023 was between the Meitei people — a majority that lives in the Imphal Valley — and the Kuki-Zo tribal communities from the surrounding hills.[1] What began as street protests hardened quickly into something that analysts would struggle to describe without reaching for words like "civil war." According to government figures, as of late 2024, 258 people have been killed, more than 60,000 displaced, over 1,000 injured, 4,786 houses burned and 386 religious structures vandalised, including temples and churches.[2]
2023
The Spark and the Kindling
The proximate cause of the violence was a row over affirmative action. On April 14, 2023, the Manipur High Court passed an order seemingly recommending Scheduled Tribe status for the dominant Meitei community — a decision the Supreme Court later called "completely factually wrong."[3] For tribal communities like the Kuki-Zo, who had long held protections over their ancestral hill lands, the move was existential. For the Kukis and other hill tribes, the Meitei demand raised serious concerns about land rights, as Scheduled Tribe status would allow Meiteis to legally acquire land in areas currently protected for tribal communities.[4]
But the roots go far deeper than a court order. Analysts say the current conflict is not the result of a single incident but a culmination of long-standing grievances.[4] The conflict has increasingly taken on a religious dimension. The Meitei community is largely Hindu, while Kuki and Naga groups are predominantly Christian, adding another layer of mistrust with religious identity now overlapping ethnic divisions.[4]
By the time the situation had taken the shape of a civil war, both communities were arming themselves. Meitei militias led mobs to raid state police armouries. Approximately 6,000 firearms were looted from police armouries and stations in the aftermath of the violence — along with an estimated 6.5 lakh rounds of ammunition.[5]
On May 18, 2023, all ten elected Kuki-Zo legislators — including members of the ruling BJP — jointly demanded a separate administration for their communities under the Constitution of India, alleging that the violence had received tacit support from the state government led by Chief Minister N. Biren Singh.[6]
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| April 14, 2023 | Manipur High Court order recommending ST status for Meitei community triggers protests |
| May 3, 2023 | Ethnic violence erupts between Meitei and Kuki-Zo communities |
| May 18, 2023 | All 10 Kuki-Zo legislators demand separate administration |
| July 19, 2023 | Viral video of two Kuki-Zo women paraded naked forces national attention |
| July 20, 2023 | PM Modi breaks months-long silence on Manipur |
| Aug 10, 2023 | Modi defeats no-confidence motion in two-hour speech; opposition walks out |
| Sep 2, 2023 | Editors Guild releases fact-finding report on media coverage; FIR filed against it |
| Oct 5, 2023 | Human rights defender Babloo Loitongbam's home attacked by Meitei Leepun |
| Nov 2024 | National People's Party withdraws support from Biren Singh government |
| Feb 9, 2025 | CM N. Biren Singh resigns after 20 months; President's Rule declared |
| March 2025 | Six Supreme Court judges visit displacement camps in Manipur |
| Feb 4, 2026 | President's Rule revoked; Yumnam Khemchand Singh sworn in as new CM |
| March 21, 2026 | First direct Meitei-Kuki-Zo dialogue in three years — underlying issues unresolved |
| April 7, 2026 | Fresh bomb attack kills a five-year-old boy and a six-month-old girl in Bishnupur |
State Failure
The Government's Silence and Complicity
When a state burns, the country looks to its leaders. In Manipur's case, the country looked — and found an absence.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi failed to make any public comments on Manipur for months — opposition leaders tabled the no-confidence motion specifically to force him to speak.[7] When he finally spoke on August 10, 2023, it was only after the viral video showing Kuki-Zo women being stripped and sexually assaulted had forced the nation's hand. In a two-hour speech, Modi dismissed the no-confidence motion as a vain attempt to "defame India" and devoted most of his address to attacking the opposition alliance.[8]
"There will soon be peace in Manipur." — Prime Minister Narendra Modi, August 10, 2023. The violence continued for 18 more months.[8]
The situation in the state was compounded by the conduct of its own Chief Minister. A Kuki civil body — the Kuki Organisation for Human Rights Trust (KOHUR) — approached the Supreme Court with purported audio tapes of Chief Minister N. Biren Singh, in which he is heard claiming that he himself instigated the violence. The non-profit Truth Labs Forensic Services, backed by former Chief Justice M. N. Venkatachaliah, assessed the voice in the recording as belonging to Singh with 93% certainty.[9]
The Supreme Court of India expressed concerns over what it termed the "absolute breakdown of law and order" in Manipur.[2] Facing a no-confidence motion, Singh resigned on February 9, 2025, after 20 months of intermittent violence. President's Rule was declared shortly after, with the Union government taking direct control through the Governor.[10]
Amnesty International noted Singh's resignation while emphasising that accountability for those who perpetrated and enabled the violence had yet to be achieved, and that his departure did not constitute justice for the victims.[2]
On February 4, 2026, President's Rule was revoked and BJP leader Yumnam Khemchand Singh was sworn in as the new Chief Minister. On March 21, 2026, the new Chief Minister held a peace meeting described as the first direct dialogue between Meitei and Kuki-Zo representatives in three years — though analysts agreed that the underlying questions of accountability, land rights, and constitutional protection of tribal communities remained completely unresolved.[11]
Press Failure
The Media That Looked Away
If the government's silence was a failure of governance, the media's silence was a failure of democracy itself.
Mainstream television channels in India ignored the Manipur conflict for months, covering it only after the viral video of two naked women being paraded by a mob surfaced — a moment that shamed the nation into momentary attention.[12]
"Sporadic coverage — that is the most generous phrase that can be used to define the reporting of the relentless ethnic conflict in Manipur since May 2023. When ordinary people were being killed in the internecine warfare between different armed groups, the story, if reported at all, was buried on an inside page." — Newslaundry, November 2024 [13]
A formal academic study put numbers to that failure. A study of Hindustan Times' reporting on the Manipur violence found that 89 percent of its coverage was generated from locations outside Manipur — such as New Delhi, Guwahati, and Kolkata — with only a negligible portion coming from the state's conflict zones. More than half of the stories reflected the viewpoint of the state government. The coverage significantly favoured the representation of Meitei civilians over Kuki-Zo civilians by over 71 percent.[14]
| Metric | Finding |
|---|---|
| Reports filed from within Manipur | ~1% |
| Reports filed from outside Manipur (Delhi, Guwahati, Kolkata) | 89% |
| Stories reflecting state government viewpoint | >50% |
| Civilian coverage favouring Meitei over Kuki-Zo | 71.42% |
| Coverage turning point | Only after viral video, July 19, 2023 |
The Editors' Guild of India attempted to investigate the coverage — and was punished for it. In September 2023, the Manipur police filed two FIRs against the Guild's fact-finding team — authors Seema Guha, Bharat Bhushan, and Sanjay Kapoor — and Guild president Seema Mustafa, invoking sections of the IPC relating to promoting enmity between groups. One FIR even invoked Section 66A of the IT Act — a provision struck down by the Supreme Court in 2015.[15]
The Guild's report had found that journalists in Manipur wrote "one-sided reports" and that ground reporting from Kuki-majority districts "disappeared in the days after the clashes broke out." The internet ban imposed by the government made it impossible for reporters to file balanced accounts from conflict zones.[16]
Journalists and activists on the ground faced direct violence. Human rights defender Babloo Loitongbam's home was vandalised on October 5, 2023, by members of Meitei Leepun, which had issued a public boycott call against him for documenting human rights abuses during the conflict.[17]
"The coverage overall underscores a missed opportunity for conducting a critical and ethical journalistic inquiry. When hundreds of people were killed and religious places destroyed, the editorial pages were not proportionate to the crisis faced by the people on the ground."[14]
Global Response
The International Gaze India Ignored
While India's mainstream media hesitated, the rest of the world was watching.
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom specifically documented the targeting of Kuki-Zo Christians and called for accountability for the destruction of places of worship.[2] The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed alarm at threats against human rights defenders — specifically naming Babloo Loitongbam — and called on Indian authorities to protect them and hold those responsible accountable.[17]
Insurgent groups resurfaced in Manipur over the past year. Failure to resolve the conflict risks not just more bloodshed and displacement, but could also derail dialogue with militants and destabilise other parts of northeastern India, upsetting hard-earned peace in neighbouring states, the International Crisis Group warned.[11]
| Organisation | Position / Finding |
|---|---|
| US Commission on International Religious Freedom | Documented targeting of Kuki-Zo Christians; called for accountability |
| UN High Commissioner for Human Rights | Expressed alarm at threats against human rights defenders including Babloo Loitongbam |
| International Crisis Group | Warned conflict risks destabilising all of Northeast India |
| Human Rights Watch | Documented "absolute breakdown of law and order"; called for prosecution of armed groups |
| Amnesty International | Called Singh's resignation insufficient; demanded accountability for perpetrators |
Human Cost
The People Left Behind
In the end, the story of Manipur is not a story of governments or media organisations. It is the story of more than 60,000 people living in relief camps, stripped of their homes, their livelihoods, and in many cases, their loved ones.
"The government is providing very limited food so we are providing as much as we can and taking help from the church. Without the church we would not have been able to support these internally displaced people. There is no drinking water in the camp." — Government health worker managing a Kuki-Zo displacement camp, Churachandpur, March 2025 [2]
A 40-year-old Kuki farmer from Kangpokpi district who fled with his wife and three children in May 2023 summarised the reality of two years in a relief camp simply: "We are suffering here so much."[2]
Fresh violence erupted again in April 2026. In Bishnupur district, a suspected armed group hurled a bomb at a house in the Moirang area. A five-year-old boy and a six-month-old girl were killed instantly while they slept.[4]
Around 60,000 Nepali-speaking people in Manipur — caught between two communities whose conflict is not their own — are also living in constant fear. "Those who remain here live in constant fear. We are caught in a conflict that is not ours," said Shiv Kumar Basnet, a community leader in the region.[4]
Two years after the initial outbreak, the two communities live in near-complete segregation, with an uneasy truce persisting amid periodic flares of violence.[11]
The Question India Must Answer
Three years on, Manipur is still burning. The fires are lower now, the headlines rarer, the outrage dulled by repetition and the grinding logic of news cycles. But the internally displaced remain displaced. The perpetrators of documented atrocities remain unaccountable. The structural causes — land rights, tribal protections, political manipulation of ethnic identity — remain unaddressed.
None of the evidence in this report is speculative. The casualty figures come from government statements. The forensic analysis of the Chief Minister's voice was conducted by Truth Labs, a non-profit backed by former Supreme Court justices. The media coverage failures were documented in peer-reviewed research. The international alarm was raised by the United Nations, the United States, and every major human rights organisation that examined the situation.
The question is not whether Manipur's crisis was real — the evidence is overwhelming. The question is why a democracy of 1.4 billion people allowed a state of 2.9 million to burn for three years without consequence, accountability, or justice.
The country that prides itself on being the world's largest democracy must decide what that phrase means when its most vulnerable citizens — ethnic minorities, tribal communities, children sleeping in their homes — are killed, displaced, and forgotten by the institutions sworn to protect them.
"Right now, no one in Manipur feels safe. We do not know what might happen next." — Arjun Jogi, local activist, April 2026 [4]
Sources & Citations
- Human Rights Watch Manipur: Investigate Ethnic Violence — May 2023. First major international documentation of the conflict's origins and initial casualties. hrw.org
- Human Rights Watch India: Ethnic Clashes Restart in Manipur — March 27, 2025. Documents renewed violence, displacement camp conditions, Supreme Court's "absolute breakdown" language, and political developments. hrw.org
- Scroll.in Manipur High Court order on Scheduled Tribe status for Meiteis is 'factually wrong', says SC — May 17, 2023. Reports Supreme Court's criticism of the High Court order that triggered the conflict. scroll.in
- Kathmandu Post Fresh violence erupts in India's Manipur, Nepali speaking community fearful — April 19, 2026. Reports the April 7 bomb attack, religious dimensions of the conflict, and situation of Nepali-speaking residents. kathmandupost.com
- The Print / The Wire Arms looted in Manipur sold beyond the valley — The Print, March 2025; The Wire, May 2024. Both cite senior Manipur police officers on the ~6,000 firearms and 6.5 lakh rounds looted from armouries. theprint.in
- Scroll.in Manipur: Kuki-Zo MLAs demand separate administration as condition for peace talks — October 16, 2024. Documents the 10 Kuki-Zo legislators' demands and the background of the May 2023 joint declaration. scroll.in
- VOA News Modi's Hindu Nationalist Government Defeats No-Confidence Motion — August 10, 2023. Documents that the no-confidence motion was tabled specifically because Modi had made no earlier public comments on Manipur. voanews.com
- NBC News / Reuters India's Modi survives no-confidence vote over his handling of ethnic violence — August 11, 2023. Reports Modi's two-hour speech, his "defaming India" framing, the opposition walkout, and his closing remarks on Manipur. nbcnews.com
- The Wire Biren Singh's Voice Sample: What the Supreme Court Said on Central Forensic Labs — April 2026. Reports the 93% voice-match finding by Truth Labs and the Supreme Court's ongoing proceedings. thewire.in
- Business Standard Manipur violence case: SC orders forensic test of full 48-minute audio clip — January 7, 2026. Documents Biren Singh's resignation on February 9, 2025 and subsequent President's Rule. business-standard.com
- International Crisis Group Finding a Way Out of Festering Conflict in India's Manipur — Report 346, February 14, 2025. Draws on dozens of interviews in Manipur and New Delhi; warns of regional destabilisation. crisisgroup.org
- Al Jazeera The video that shattered the silence around Manipur — July 29, 2023. Analysis of how the viral video broke months of mainstream media silence on the conflict. aljazeera.com
- Newslaundry Burning Manipur, silence in media — Northeast bias or self-censorship? — November 21, 2024. Analyses the pattern of mainstream Indian media neglect of the Manipur conflict. newslaundry.com
- Newsreel Asia Study: Media's Coverage of Manipur Violence Biased, Superficial — January 20, 2025. Reports the peer-reviewed study of Hindustan Times' Manipur coverage showing 89% of reports filed from outside the state. newsreel.asia
- The Wire / Scroll.in Manipur: Police Files FIR Against Editors Guild — September 4, 2023. Documents the two FIRs filed against Guild members including invocation of the struck-down Section 66A. thewire.in / scroll.in
- Scroll.in Journalists in Manipur wrote 'one-sided reports', says Editors Guild fact-finding team — September 3, 2023. Reports on the Guild's findings about partisan coverage and the impact of the internet ban. scroll.in
- CIVICUS Monitor India: Raids on journalists and activists escalate while those reporting on Manipur and Kashmir are silenced — October 30, 2023. Documents the attack on Babloo Loitongbam and UN alarm at threats against human rights defenders. monitor.civicus.org
- ACLED Political Violence in India's Manipur State: 2023–2025 — Infographic mapping two years of political violence data. acleddata.com
This article is based on reports from Human Rights Watch, International Crisis Group, Scroll.in, The Wire, NBC News, VOA News, The Print, Al Jazeera, Newslaundry, CIVICUS Monitor, and official Supreme Court proceedings. All factual claims are cited above. Readers are encouraged to consult primary sources directly.
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