Opinion In Manipur, consent is the key to reset

Together, these communiqués show the thin ice beneath the official announcement. A road may be declared open, but the common ground remains contested. Power is not the same as command enforced through battalions or press releases. It becomes real only when people act together and recognise themselves in a shared political space. The September 4 announcement risks becoming a moment staged as consensus but lacking the collective will to sustain it beyond the headline.

The gulf between the government’s formulation, “KZC decides to open NH-02”, and the council’s assertion that the road was never shut is not pedantry. It is a struggle over the factual ground on which any political life must stand. When facts fracture, trust becomes impossible. Precision in language is not cosmetic; it is the first brick in rebuilding a common world in which adversaries can argue, bargain, and act together.

Even so, the September 4 package contains tools that matter. Camp relocation, weapons under neutral custody, and physical verification of cadres are concrete steps. Done swiftly and in public view, they shrink the latitude of rogue militias and signal that authority over the state’s arteries lies with the state itself, not with checkpoint guards or armed volunteers. But without consent over key issues, any chance of a reset fails.

Representation is the next fault line. The Centre may find it convenient to treat the KZC as the primary interlocutor; the responses from the VVCC and student bodies show that the community is not speaking with one voice. Agreements quietly minted in Delhi may not have the legitimacy required to achieve meaningful progress. The task is to widen the table and draw dissenting actors into a public space where commitments bind because they are made openly and owned across factions.

Which brings us to the proposed prime ministerial visit. For 28 months, the Prime Minister turned away from the suffering in Manipur, leaving the state abandoned in its grief. It must not be repurposed into political choreography and projecting strength for the cameras. If the Prime Minister’s visit is to carry weight, it must be anchored in an enforceable framework of commitments. That means announcing public, time-bound solutions: When relief camps will be dismantled, when internally displaced families will return home safely, and how mechanisms for justice will be made accessible and independently verifiable.

Equally essential is creating a formal political forum with clear representation, defined agendas, and scheduled sessions to address autonomy, policing, and restitution. Without such binding mechanisms and transparent reporting, the visit risks becoming mere theatre where optics stand in for governance and accountability is once again deferred.

One contradiction still sits at the Centre. The SoO ground rules underline Manipur’s territorial integrity; the Kuki-Zo Council’s demand remains for separate administration. Security can cool tempers, but cannot force reconciliation. The state must, therefore, say plainly what it is prepared to negotiate. Clarity will not erase dissent but will prevent the disillusionment bred by strategic vagueness.

For now, trucks may roll, and the ceasefire may fill the vacuum that empowers spoilers. But stability should not be mistaken for settlement. The measure of this reset lies not in the claim that a highway is “open”, but in whether facts once again become common and whether adversaries can share the same political space. That is the Manipur test.

The writer is a researcher and writer based in Manipur