Opinion Express View on Biren Singh’s apology: Sorry isn’t enough

This entire year has been very unfortunate. I feel regret and I want to say sorry to the people of the state for what’s happening till today since last May 3.” On the eve of 2025, Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh’s admission of responsibility for the unabated violence on his watch in the state at a press conference in Imphal is that rare — and long overdue — thing in politics and government: An effort at honesty, a stab at introspection and accountability. Unfortunately, it has come far too late. It is prompted, possibly, by political exigency and the growing crescendo of protests not just from the strife-torn people but his own legislators and coalition partners. Allies of the NDA, from the Mizo National Front to the National People’s Party, have called for a change of guard in Manipur because of the government’s persistent failure in curbing the violence that has held the state hostage since May 2023. Singh’s proximity to armed insurgency groups such as the Arambai Tenggol, too, has drawn increasing scrutiny, with a section of his MLAs joining the chorus against him.

Notably, Singh’s admission coincides with another rare and overdue acknowledgement of the turmoil in Manipur, this time from the Centre, that has maintained a studied distance from the crisis, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi not visiting the state even once through this period. In its annual report released on December 30, the Ministry of Home Affairs has attributed the rise in insurgency in the Northeast to the 20-month-long ethnic strife in Manipur: “The State accounted for about 77 per cent of the total violent incidents in NER (North-East Region) in 2023 (Manipur: 187, entire NEL 243)…” This story of escalation is a reflection of the many ways in which Manipur has been failed by governments at the Centre and in the state, its ethnic vulnerabilities stoked by a lack of developmental opportunities, partisanship and a tone-deaf insistence on framing it as an insider-outsider issue, to be tamed by force rather than dialogue.

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And yet, through the course of his own political rise, first with the Democratic Revolutionary Peoples Party, and then with the Congress, and finally with the BJP since 2016, if there’s one thing that Singh benefited from, it was his ability to have an ear to the ground and to listen to people across board. In his earlier terms, Singh, a Meitei, was embraced by both Nagas and Kuki-Zoms. With flagship outreach programmes such as “Go To Hills” aimed at integrating the hill tribes into his developmental vision, he was seen as the people’s chief minister who could repair the fragile bonds between communities. The fact that that tie has frayed, and that the Lok Sabha elections saw the BJP lose to the Congress in the state should have been enough of a signal for the CM to course correct. Now, with the trust deficit widening, the work of reparation, long delayed, must urgently be taken forward.