The ink has barely dried on the renegotiated Suspension of Operations (SoO) agreement between the Government of India, the Government of Manipur, and two major Kuki-Zo militant groups — the Kuki National Organisation (KNO) and United People’s Front (UPF) — and already the façade of peace has begun to crack. What was touted as a breakthrough for restoring normalcy in Manipur has instead turned into a fresh episode of deception, one that lays bare the duplicity of New Delhi and its willingness to sacrifice the truth for political expediency.
The Government of India projected the reopening of National Highway-2 (NH-2) as a triumph of the peace process. This highway is not just a road — it is the economic lifeline of Manipur, linking the state with the rest of the country. For months, its disruption strangled the flow of goods and medicines, punishing ordinary citizens in ways too cruel to describe. When the SoO was extended, Delhi allowed the impression to spread that the highway would be fully functional, safe, and open to all communities. People dared to hope.
But that hope was swiftly crushed. The KNO and UPF, in their so-called “clarification,” have bluntly declared that while the highway may be reopened, buffer zones remain untouchable. They insist that the reopening “must not be misinterpreted as unrestricted movement between Meitei and Kuki-Zo areas.” This amounts to nothing less than territorial apartheid — a declaration that the citizens of Manipur are to remain segregated, their rights to free passage curtailed by diktats from armed groups who claim legitimacy under the very agreement Delhi endorsed.
Here lies the core of the betrayal: if the Government of India knew that buffer zones would remain, then it lied to the people of Manipur by presenting a half-truth. If it did not know, then its silence now — in the face of such blatant defiance of the spirit of the SoO — exposes sheer incompetence and a cowardly refusal to assert the authority of the state. In either case, the people of Manipur have been deceived.
This silence is not benign; it is complicity. By failing to immediately rebuke or act against the KNO and UPF, the Centre effectively legitimizes their conditional reopening of NH-2. It tells Manipuris that the free movement of citizens within their own land is negotiable, subject to the whims of militant groups. It reduces the sovereign authority of the Indian state to the role of a timid bystander, too afraid to confront outfits that openly undermine the Constitution while simultaneously demanding political concessions like a separate Union Territory.
The irony is glaring. The agreement signed on September 4 reaffirmed commitment to the “territorial integrity of Manipur.” Yet, by allowing buffer zones to continue, Delhi has endorsed invisible borders that carve the state into enclaves of distrust and hostility. What integrity remains when highways — arteries of national unity — are reduced to bargaining chips in the hands of militias? What credibility does the Government of India retain when it celebrates peace on paper but watches mutely as the same groups enforce division on the ground?
The cost of this betrayal is not abstract. It is borne by the common people of Manipur — the traders who cannot move goods, the patients who cannot reach hospitals in time, the students who cannot travel safely for education, the daily wage earners who are cut off from work. For them, Delhi’s silence is not diplomacy; it is cruelty.
There is only one conclusion left to draw: the Government of India values its political theatre of peace over the lived reality of Manipuris. It is more interested in signing agreements to showcase “dialogue and progress” than in enforcing those agreements with honesty and resolve. And in doing so, it has forfeited the trust of the people.
If the Centre truly believes in peace, it must act — decisively and without equivocation. It must dismantle artificial buffer zones, guarantee unrestricted movement on NH-2 and other national highways, and hold KNO–UPF accountable for violating the spirit of the SoO. Anything less would be proof that Delhi has chosen deception over duty.
Manipur has endured enough of this duplicity. The people do not need hollow promises or carefully worded agreements that mask the truth. They need the assurance that the rule of law still exists, that highways in India are open to every Indian, and that their lives are not pawns in a dangerous game of political bargaining. Until then, every day that New Delhi remains silent will echo as complicity — a betrayal that will not be forgotten.