Waterways vs Wounds – Modi government’s grand vision and Manipur’s ground realities

The announcement by Union Minister Sarbananda Sonowal of a Rs. 5,000-crore boost for waterway development in Northeast India, centred around the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project (KMTTP), reflects the Modi government’s ambitious strategic and economic roadmap for the region. Framed as a keystone of the Act East policy, the Kaladan project is projected to transform the Northeast into a regional trade hub by 2027. While this vision paints a future of connectivity, trade, and prosperity, it rings hollow against the backdrop of the prolonged humanitarian and political crisis engulfing Manipur since May 2023.
The irony is stark. On one hand, the central government is unveiling grand infrastructure plans with regional implications and transnational linkages, promising job creation, skill development, and increased exports. On the other hand, Manipur—one of the region’s most volatile and strategically sensitive states—remains fractured by ethnic violence, internal displacement, and the erosion of public trust in governance. The contrast between the government’s promises of progress and the lived reality of chaos and suffering in Manipur exposes a fundamental disconnect in policy priorities.
Over 50,000 people remain displaced in Manipur, with lives torn apart, homes reduced to ashes, and communities divided by mistrust. Relief camps continue to operate in uncertain conditions, with displaced populations surviving on subsistence aid. The central leadership’s inability—or unwillingness—to engage directly and decisively with the crisis has only widened the trust deficit. Prime Minister Modi has remained conspicuously silent on the matter, offering no visit, no comprehensive peace plan, and no genuine public outreach to heal the wounds of the people.
Against this backdrop, the Kaladan project appears both tone-deaf and politically opportunistic. Strategic corridors and economic corridors cannot be built upon social fault lines. Investing billions in ports, barges, and dredgers while failing to address the foundational issue of peace and reconciliation in a conflict-ridden state is not development—it is delusion.
Moreover, the government’s claim of inclusive growth through regional empowerment falls flat in Manipur, where inclusivity is in crisis. Community relations are fractured, administrative neutrality is questioned, and the very idea of co-existence is under siege. No amount of maritime training or cargo infrastructure can compensate for the lack of basic human security, justice, and dignity.
This is not to dismiss the value of the Kaladan project or the broader vision of integrating the Northeast with Southeast Asia. Infrastructure development, especially in under-connected regions, is essential. But development cannot—and must not—ignore the human cost of conflict. The Centre’s emphasis on international trade corridors while evading accountability for domestic turmoil raises troubling questions about whose interests these projects truly serve.
For the people of Manipur, peace is the most urgent infrastructure. Roads and waterways cannot carry the weight of economic growth if they bypass the tears, blood, and trauma of communities in distress. Until the central government demonstrates genuine political will to restore peace, ensure justice, and rehabilitate the displaced in Manipur, projects like Kaladan risk being remembered not as milestones of progress, but as symbols of indifference.
The Modi government must be reminded that no policy, however visionary, can succeed when it ignores the cries from within. The time to act in Manipur is long overdue. If ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’ is to mean anything in the Northeast, it must start by acknowledging and addressing the suffering in its most broken state.