Chief Minister Yumnam Khemchand Singh’s visit to Churachandpur on Saturday to attend the funeral of late BJP MLA Vungzagin Valte was more than a ceremonial engagement. It was a politically and symbolically significant moment. For the first time since the outbreak of ethnic violence in May 2023, a sitting Chief Minister entered the Kuki-majority district, despite boycott calls, protests and a complete shutdown enforced by several Kuki-Zo civil society organisations.
The visit, however brief, should not be viewed merely through the lens of security arrangements or political protocol. It exposed the depth of Manipur’s continuing crisis. A Chief Minister travelling to a district within his own State under extraordinary security, by helicopter, amid calls declaring him “not welcome”, is not a picture of normal governance. It is a reminder of how deeply fractured Manipur has become.
The response to the visit is equally revealing. While the government viewed the Chief Minister’s presence as an act of paying respect to a slain legislator and an opportunity to reiterate that dialogue remains the only path to peace, many Kuki-Zo organisations saw the visit through an entirely different prism. Their boycott was not directed simply at an individual. It reflected a continuing political distrust of the State government and a belief that fundamental issues remain unresolved.
The visit itself should not be dismissed because it did not immediately produce reconciliation. Symbolic gestures alone cannot heal a conflict of this magnitude. Yet symbols matter in politics. They communicate intent. After three years of physical and psychological separation, the Chief Minister’s presence in Churachandpur demonstrated that complete disengagement cannot become official policy. Governance cannot function indefinitely if parts of the State become politically or psychologically inaccessible.
At the same time, the protests cannot simply be ignored or reduced to political theatre. Whether one agrees with them or not, they reflect a level of distrust that has become deeply embedded. Trust cannot be restored merely through official visits. It must be earned through consistent engagement, impartial governance, transparent investigations into past violence, justice for victims across communities, and credible political dialogue.
This is precisely why the greatest danger facing Manipur is no longer only violence. It is the gradual normalisation of division.
When a Chief Minister’s visit to one district becomes an extraordinary event rather than a routine administrative exercise, society has already crossed a dangerous threshold. When communities begin to accept that certain areas belong exclusively to one group or another, the idea of a shared State begins to weaken. If such realities continue unchallenged, they eventually become accepted as permanent.
History repeatedly warns against such complacency. Societies rarely collapse overnight. They decline when temporary arrangements become permanent habits. Segregated neighbourhoods become ordinary. Restricted movement becomes accepted. Political discourse revolves exclusively around competing identities. People gradually stop expecting reconciliation because division itself begins to feel normal.
That process is far more dangerous than any single incident of violence.
Chief Minister Khemchand Singh’s visit therefore should neither be celebrated as a breakthrough nor dismissed as insignificant. It should instead serve as a reminder of how much remains to be done. The real measure of success will not be whether one visit took place, but whether such visits eventually become unremarkable—whether elected representatives, officials and ordinary citizens can once again travel across every part of Manipur without extraordinary security or political controversy.
Peace cannot be measured by the absence of gunfire alone. A society cannot claim normalcy while its political leadership requires exceptional arrangements simply to attend the funeral of a colleague. Nor can reconciliation succeed if dialogue remains confined to public statements while mistrust continues to deepen on the ground.
Manipur’s future depends not merely on restoring law and order, but on restoring confidence that every citizen belongs equally to every part of the State. Until that confidence returns, every symbolic breakthrough will remain fragile.
The greatest danger is therefore not that Manipur is divided today. The greater danger is that both its institutions and its people gradually become accustomed to that division, treating it not as a crisis to overcome but as the permanent reality of life.
