The recent outcry of Kuki Inpi Ukhrul District and Kuki-Zo Council against the visit of Meitei MLA Yumnam Khemchand Singh to Litan Sareikhong indicates that there is an uncomfortable fact: elements within the Kuki leadership do not want peace to return to Manipur. Their objections are not rooted in humanitarian concern or protocol; rather, they have deeper roots in political insecurity-an insecurity that dreads any gesture capable of bridging ethnic divides.
MLA Yumnam Khemchand’s visit, the first by a Meitei political leader to a Kuki area since the May 2023 violence, should have been received as a small yet significant step towards reconciliation. Instead, KIU and KZC responded in hostility, branding the visit “uninvited”, “unauthorised” and “insensitive”. This language reveals nothing except unease with any initiative which threatens the permanent separation between communities.
What the KIU has termed “intrusion” is known to the rest of Manipur as courageous outreach. For almost two years, the political class has largely remained confined within ethnic silos, avoiding the physical spaces of the “other”. To break that pattern—and to do so peacefully—requires conviction, not political calculation.
Khemchand did precisely that.
He visited the displaced villagers, listened to their fears, prayed for peace, and reminded all that long-term reconciliation demands coming out of comfort zones and meeting face to face. There is no peace process in the world which begins with permission slips. It begins with initiative.
Yet KIU and KZC criticized this same initiative, and their arguments do not stand up to scrutiny.
First, they claim that the visit caused “distress”. But the MLA met 173 displaced villagers and no independent record shows any panic, resistance or disruption. Distress was manufactured in the press rooms, not experienced on the ground.
Equally, KIU castigates Khemchand’s silence during the crisis. But that is revisionist rhetoric. Everyone was silent-across communities, across leaderships-because the violence was unprecedented, complex and unfolding at a rapid pace. To selectively cite silence now while ignoring the complete absence of Kuki leaders’ engagement with Meitei victims of arson, killing and displacement only serves to expose selective outrage.
Third, KIU and KZC claim Meitei movement into Ukhrul is allowed only “out of respect” for Tangkhul peace efforts. This is a careful evasion of the fact of Kuki-Zo armed groups forcibly displacing thousands of valley civilians, burning villages, and blocking roads. If mutual respect is to be the argument here, then Kuki bodies need to explain why Meiteis displaced from Moreh and Kangpokpi have not been allowed to return home for nearly two years.
Their attempt at painting the MLA’s visit as a breach of protocol is equally hollow. The same organisations claiming to represent a displaced and suffering population are now opposing a leader visiting IDPs. How can anyone pretend to be advocates of IDPs while obstructing elected representatives from meeting them? It is a contradiction that cannot be rationalised.
If anything, the KZC’s complaint that the MLA posted photos on social media weakens their case. Since May 2023, every relief visit—whether by ministers, MLAs, tribal bodies, church organisations, and student groups—has been done openly and in front of the camera. Transparency is not a crime.
The only ones who fear transparency are those fearing what genuine dialogue may achieve.
But behind the angry statements, there is a darker subtext: some groups benefit politically and strategically from keeping communities apart. Reconciliation would threaten that influence. Peace would threaten their narrative. And unity threatens the very structure of polarisation built up over the last two years.
This is why MLA Khemchand’s visit is important. It breaks a barrier which many assumed would remain untouchable. It sends a message that Manipur’s conflict cannot be resolved by remaining confined to one’s side of the barricade. It shows that healing begins with stepping into difficult spaces, not with issuing press releases from a distance.
More importantly, it communicates to the displaced families—both in the hills and the valley—that they are not forgotten and that elected representatives must, and will, reach out to them regardless of threats, disapproval or intimidation.
If unity is indeed the goal, then KIU and KZC should be facilitating such visits, not trying to sabotage them. Legislator Yumnam Khemchand’s visit was no political gimmickry. It was a necessary and meaningful gesture at a time when Manipur desperately needs leaders who will cross boundaries-literal and emotional-to restore trust.