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Opinion Manipur crisis: What N Biren Singh’s resignation could mean for the state’s future

Any hope of bringing normalcy back to Manipur now rests on the ability of authorities to expeditiously investigate and bring to book the perpetrators of violence. Bringing closure to the people who have suffered is the bare minimum before warring parties can be brought to the negotiating table.

N Biren Singh resigned as the Chief Minister of Manipur on February 9. (PTI Photo via X/@NBirenSingh)

Sanjiv Krishan Sood

February 11, 2025 11:47 AM IST First published on: Feb 9, 2025 at 10:07 PM IST

There’s a saying in Hindi — “Der aaye durust aaye” (roughly translated, better late than never). The resignation of Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh today was long overdue. It should have come immediately after violence began on May 2023 or at least when the reprehensible rapes of Kuki women came to light a couple of months into the violence. That it took 20 months, the killing of over 250 people from across communities and the internal displacement of over 75,000 people before this happened is a sad reflection of the priority accorded by the powers-that-be to this very important and sensitive region of the country.

To the Kuki tribals especially, and to many others, Singh was the villain who allowed violence to carry on at such a large scale and was the cause of so much suffering. Singh appeared to them and to many independent observers partial to his own Meitei community through many acts of omission and commission. These included Suspension of Operations agreement only with Kuki insurgent groups while excluding the Meitei groups who had a free run in the state to the extent that Arambai Tenggol had the temerity to force all elected Meitei legislators to attend a meeting called by them in January last year. He also proactively opposed the extension of Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) to the Valley area dominated by Meiteis. It is because of his ineffective handling of the situation that the peace committees have not been able to even start their work, besides there having been very limited action on the over 10,000 FIRs registered.

That something was on the table was apparent after Ajay Kumar Bhalla, the former Home Secretary, was appointed as the Governor of Manipur. As the seniormost advisor to the Government of India, who was also from the Assam Meghalaya cadre of the IAS, Bhalla was expected to have insights about people and problems of the Northeast that would help resolve the problem.

The suddenness of the resignation could be attributed to the lack of confidence shown by the ruling party MLAs in Singh’s leadership and the possible no-confidence motion from the Opposition which was likely to be tabled in the Legislative Assembly being convened from February 10. It is also worth pondering whether the resignation has anything to do with the impending meeting of the PM with President Donald Trump.

This resignation is the first proactive action that the Centre appears to have taken to resolve the festering problem. It is likely to be received favourably by all groups including the Meitei ones. Singh’s removal is the first step towards bringing normalcy to the state.

The Centre should take the reins of the state in its own hand by promulgating President’s Rule. The AFSPA should be uniformly imposed in the entire state to enable Central forces to operate proactively and launch a drive to recover the large quantity of arms and ammunition “looted” by anti-national elements in the early days of the violence. The next step in the normalisation process should be to begin demobilisation of existing insurgent groups like the Arambai Tenggol, the Meitei Leepun, as well as the Kuki groups. These groups must be disarmed immediately to prevent further violence.

Finally, any hope of bringing normalcy back to Manipur rests on the ability of authorities to expeditiously investigate and bring to book the perpetrators of violence. Bringing closure to the people who have suffered is the bare minimum before the warring parties can be brought to the negotiating table. For that it is essential to identify individuals and organisations who are independent and impartial.

The writer is a retired additional director general (ADG) of the Border Security Force.