India’s Forgotten Citizens – The Plight of Manipur’s Internally Displaced Persons

Nearly a year into the conflict, thousands of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Manipur continue to live in deplorable conditions, abandoned by the very government sworn to protect their fundamental rights. Despite being citizens of India, these individuals remain deprived of basic dignity, shelter, and security, highlighting a grave failure of the state and the Centre to uphold the rights enshrined in the Constitution of India.
Article 21 of the Constitution guarantees the right to life and personal liberty. Yet, the IDPs of Manipur are forced to live in makeshift camps under tarpaulin sheets, facing chronic shortages of food, water, healthcare, and education. Their suffering is a daily reminder of a constitutional promise unfulfilled. It is a matter of shame that even after repeated appeals, the government has failed to implement meaningful rehabilitation measures or offer justice to those who have lost everything.
At the heart of the current unrest is the disturbing question of why sophisticated weaponry is permitted to be held by Kuki militants under the Suspension of Operations (SoO) agreement. While the government claims that the SoO was intended to foster peace, in reality, it has served as a shield for heavily armed groups to consolidate power and destabilize the region. Despite numerous credible reports of SoO ground violations — including attacks, land seizures, and intimidation — no serious review or corrective action has been taken. How does a ceasefire retain legitimacy when one party, the Government of Manipur, has officially withdrawn? Can a tripartite agreement survive in spirit or law when one of the three pillars has collapsed?
The SoO today stands as a hollow, dangerous arrangement — a legal fiction that enables insurgents to operate freely while the common people suffer. If the government continues to justify this with silence and inaction, one must ask: has India, in effect, failed Manipur?
This painful reality forces a deeper question: is there such a thing as a “good terrorist” and a “bad terrorist”? When women and minors are kidnapped and killed by armed militants in Jiribam, the silence from the national media and the political establishment is deafening. Why is this heinous crime not treated with the same urgency, horror, and condemnation as the recent terrorist attacks in Pahalgam? Is the murder of Manipuri citizens somehow less grave, less newsworthy, less “Indian”?
Manipur is not a foreign country. It is a state of the Indian Union, bound by the same Constitution, deserving of the same protections, and worthy of the same outrage when its citizens bleed. The selective application of justice, the muted response to terror in Manipur, and the naked negligence towards the IDPs amount to a betrayal of the Indian ideal of unity and equality.
It is time for the Government of India to decide: Will it continue to neglect the suffering of Manipur, or will it rise to protect the rights, dignity, and security of all its citizens — regardless of geography, ethnicity, or political expediency?
Justice delayed in Manipur is justice denied for India itself.