Violence Beyond The Physical: Multifaceted Manipur Tragedy

By – Amar Yumnam
In what has been happening in Manipur during the last three years, we need to be very clear of two things. First, are violence and sustenance of violence, as have been happening, something which can happen without an enabling agent? Second, is physical violence the only dimension of violence? Clarity on these would enable us to digest the general cross responses and the contents of the driving spirit.
At the individual level, the elders are the agents which triggered and enhanced the capability of child to stand and walk. At the collective level, a Club forms a team and enables it to participate in soccer tournaments. In the same way, a group whose social formation is still incomplete indulges in violence and displays their capability to indulge in it as when and where they feel; what is happening now of attacks on villages in the Ukhrul District proves their freedom to cause any harm any time whether there is dialogue or not with the state. All the kind of violence Manipur has been witnessing for the last three years invariably implies that there is an enabling factor behind them. It is in this context that the protection of poppy and the group by the security forces of the country becomes necessarily the enabling factor to be seriously suspicious about. This enabling of indulgence in violence is a violence in itself in a non-physical form. Another non-physical form is the destructive element being injected into the evolution of a population group. This is an invisible violence to permanently suppress the group and can by no means be a support for betterment of the group itself. This implies the lack of concern for responsibility – social, legal and psychological – of the state for a region in a critical border. By the way the ASEAN Summit was finished in the Philippines only on 10 May 2026 wherein the perspectives were so wonderfully put by the Leaders of Member countries in a way we have not heard from Indian leaders for quite some time. This absence of a perspective with responsibility in the Manipur context is itself a violence to kill policy forever. Hobbes definitely comes to mind as he had specified the atmosphere where Authoritarian Democracy would emerge when he emphasized that without political norms “there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no nurture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious buildings …; no knowledge … no arts; no letters … and what is worse of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death.”
When I mention Authoritarian Democracy, the incident that instantly proves this is the forceful restriction of a Member of Parliament to cross a so-called line within the country as non-physical violence of the highest order. There has recently been violence of restriction on Manipur Dance in Delhi with CM’s violence of non-reaction on it.  There is now a complete unclear mixture of Reason and Unreason inflicted upon Manipur. This is also a serious non-physical violence on the socio-politico-economic body of Manipur; this is a new form of geo-political violence happening first time globally here.
The continued obstructions on using the NATIONAL HIGHWAYS are pure cases of the physical violence being coupled by the violence of irresponsibility of governance. The population of the people in the valley have had a longer historical experience of social interactions, tolerations of differences and conversion of the interplays into positive directions. Despite the widespread violence, the competitive performance by the school students in the valley is laudable. There are of course the issues of children of displaced families and the higher education scenario. When DM University can never be expected to become the institution for State because of leadership at both the provincial and the institutional aspects, it remains to be seen how the direction of Manipur University be like sooner. Overall, the population in the valley have already focused their attention towards non-physical articulations on the conflicting issues and ensure an advancement of the social capabilities with a better understanding of the global geo-political issues. The people know pretty well how lies are being told to them by the government covering up their lack of responsibility and application of mind to resolve the crises like “democratic governments lying to their public” as mentioned by Cox, Levine and Goldsmith in their book – Politics Most Unusual: Violence, Sovereignty and Democracy in the ‘War on Terror’. Manipur should not be an extreme violent form of this.