PREMIUM

In that regard, Manipur’s past and present tell us how the use of PR as an instrument of statecraft has transformed over the decades, especially since 2014, when Modi came to power.

Manipur’s many “states of exception”

If it weren’t tragic, it would probably be just political humour – Manipur has been less of a state and more of a “state of exception”. The phrase may be broadly defined as a situation in which the “normal” judicial-administrative order is suspended to allow for the practice of emergency powers, such as martial law.

Broadly, PR in the Indian system, based on Article 356 of the Constitution, is a form of “state of exception” because it allows the central government to dismiss the elected legislature of states and rule directly through the governor. In Manipur, it was imposed even before it became a full state in 1972 – in 1967 and 1969 – in response to the collapse of the state government.

In Manipur, however, PR should be seen in conjunction with the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA). First imposed in Manipur in 1981, the AFSPA further amplified the central government’s direct rule in the state and created a dense “state of exception” that lingers on to this day. It engendered a regressive culture of securitised governance by giving security forces broad leeway to use lethal force against civilians to maintain law and order.

Interestingly, out of the ten times that PR was imposed in Manipur, which is the highest among all states in independent India so far, only one was in response to a security crisis. In 1993, a deadly conflict between the Kukis and the Nagas broke out, forcing New Delhi to impose PR for 346 days – the longest in the state so far. In 1969, it was imposed to tackle a compounded political-security crisis when the government fell apart amid a Meitei secessionist insurgency that was developing in the backdrop.

In that sense, successive governments in New Delhi have not used the PR in Manipur as its go-to conflict management tool. Factoring the AFSPA is crucial because the law remained active in the state even when there was no PR. In other words, the PR may not be the best yardstick to assess how previous central governments have dealt with complex politico-security crises in Manipur, which is what the state is facing since May 2023.

No PR when needed?

While successive Congress-led governments used PR frequently, the BJP-led ones under Modi have used it in four instances — Maharashtra (2014), Arunachal Pradesh (2016), Uttarakhand (2016) and Jammu and Kashmir (2019). But, none of these were imposed to quell an active armed conflict. Even in West Bengal, where the BJP high command has often called for PR in response to incidents of civil violence, it has not taken the leap.

In Manipur, where an intense ethnic conflagration has gone on for more than a year, the Modi government has said that it will use PR as only a "last resort". This is noteworthy given the extraordinary scale and scope of violence, the gross inefficacy of the state government in restoring calm, and the unprecedented territorial fracturing of the state from within. Why did the second Modi government not use PR in Manipur?

This is likely because Manipur too is ruled by the BJP. In fact, Modi, while campaigning in Manipur before the 2022 assembly elections, projected the party’s government in the state as a “double engine” government. Imposing PR would require the Centre to suspend its second “engine” in the state. This, needless to say, would appear politically abortive.

However, if this was indeed the motivation, then the strategy failed to preserve the BJP’s political ground in Manipur, where the party and its local ally lost both parliamentary seats in the 2024 general election. In fact, by not imposing the PR, the BJP likely lost traction among large sections of the Kuki-Zo population who have been demanding central rule to protect themselves from what they see as state government-sponsored Meitei aggression.

While the BJP high command has refrained from using the PR in Manipur to protect its own state government from dissolution, it has used other means to impose its writ. This includes the ‘Unified Command’, a joint security mechanism that is headed by New Delhi’s own security advisor to the state government. This structure, also used in Assam to quell insurgencies, may be seen as the security equivalent of PR, which is predominantly a political instrument. The Union home ministry also recently held a high-level “review meeting” on Manipur without the chief minister.

These provisions and moves indicate New Delhi’s desire to exercise control over Manipur without resorting to the PR, which the Modi government has repeatedly used to highlight what it sees as a long history of Congress-led misgovernance. Yet, in Manipur’s case today, oddly, the PR might be more effective in restoring calm and even public trust in the state. This is also because, under Modi, New Delhi has created an unequal geography of securitised governance in Manipur by withdrawing the AFSPA from select police districts in and around the Metei-dominated Imphal Valley while allowing it to remain in force in the Kuki-Zo-dominated hills.

It is time the new NDA government frees itself from the restraints of its political rhetoric and takes some hard decisions to fix the cycle of violence and mistrust in Manipur.