Discuss how President's Rule under Article 356 has been used to manage ethnic conflicts in Manipur. Evaluate its effectiveness in restoring political normalcy.

Article 356 allows the Union to assume a State's executive functions when its government cannot be carried on in accordance with the Constitution. In Manipur, where Meitei–Kuki-Zo violence since May 2023 paralysed elected authority, it was deployed as a conflict-management device — one that restored order and institutions, but only partially restored political normalcy.

How Article 356 was used

• Imposed on 13 February 2025, after the Chief Minister's resignation left no viable ministry amid continuing ethnic violence [1].
• The Assembly was kept under suspended animation, not dissolved — treating the proclamation as a pause in representative politics rather than its termination [1].
• It centralised security management under the Union, removing a state government widely seen by one community as partisan.
• Central rule was paired with Centre-led negotiation: MHA talks produced a renegotiated one-year tripartite Suspension of Operations (SoO) agreement and the Kuki-Zo Council's decision to reopen National Highway-02 for commuters and essential goods [2].
• It was buttressed by border measures — scrapping the India–Myanmar Free Movement Regime citing internal security and demographic concerns [3].
• Revoked on 4 February 2026, with a deliberately multi-ethnic ministry: a Meitei Chief Minister and Kuki-Zo and Naga Deputy Chief Ministers [1].

Evaluation of effectiveness

• Successes: a neutral central authority lowered the charge of state partisanship, sustained dialogue with armed and civil society groups [2], and allowed an elected government to return without fresh elections [1].
• Limits: it delivered order without settlement. Core questions — land, hill–valley autonomy and the demand for separate administration — remain untouched, and fresh Naga–Kuki-Zo violence in the hill districts emerged even before revocation.
• Relief camps and displacement persist, while apex Kuki-Zo bodies' continued distrust shows legislative representation has not converted into community consent.

Article 356 repaired Manipur's constitutional machinery but could not repair its social fabric. Lasting normalcy needs what emergency rule cannot supply: a sustained, even-handed political dialogue covering all three communities, humanitarian rehabilitation of camp residents, and a durable ceasefire architecture [2] — restoring not merely a government, but the cooperative federal trust the Constitution presumes.