Discuss the constitutional and administrative challenges in negotiating political settlements with insurgent groups in India's North-East, with reference to the Manipur SoO framework.

The Suspension of Operations (SoO) pact — a tripartite ceasefire among the Centre, the State and Kuki-Zo umbrella bodies KNO and UPF, first signed in 2008 — is a holding arrangement, not a political accord. Manipur shows that its constitutional ambiguity and administrative fragility together stall durable settlement.

Constitutional challenges

• Scope of the demand: the Kuki-Zo ask shifted from autonomy with executive, financial and judicial powers to separate administration/Union Territory with legislature [3]. This invokes Article 3 reorganisation and collides with Manipur's territorial integrity, which the revised 2025 ground rules expressly reiterate [1].
• Federal legitimacy deficit: the fresh tripartite SoO was signed on 4 September 2025, while the State was under President's Rule (Article 356), approved through statutory resolutions in both Houses [1][2]. With no elected government in Imphal, the "State" signature was effectively the Centre's — weakening the pact's binding force on a future elected regime.
• Absence of statutory anchor: SoO rests on executive discretion. Parliament debated who governs Manipur [2], but the pact's terms were never laid before it, leaving no parliamentary oversight of the peace process.

Administrative challenges

• Mismatch of timelines: the pact runs only to 3 September 2026 [1], while constitutional change needs years — the ceasefire is repurchased annually, the dispute never closed.
• Unsettled basics: even in 2025, ground rules had to fix camp relocation (7 designated camps) and arms custody with the nearest CRPF/BSF camp [1] — first-order issues reopened 17 years on.
• Opaque negotiation: as claimed by the UPF, a settlement was near-final on 2 May 2023 under a "conclude or terminate SoO" ultimatum, a day before violence erupted [3]. Unminuted talks cannot be audited or resumed.
• Comparative warning: the Naga process — ceasefire 1997, Framework Agreement 2015 — remains unconcluded [4].

Ceasefires buy quiet; only time-bound, documented and Parliament-informed negotiation with an elected State government as signatory can convert that quiet into peace, securing both Manipur's integrity and tribal aspirations within the constitutional fold.