Examine the causes behind the proliferation of ethnic fault lines (Meitei-Kuki-Zo, Naga-Kuki-Zo) in Manipur since 2023. What administrative and political measures can ensure even-handed conflict resolution?

President's Rule, imposed in Manipur on 13 February 2025 under Article 356, was revoked on 4 February 2026 with a multi-ethnic ministry taking office [1]. Yet the crisis has multiplied rather than closed: the original Meitei–Kuki-Zo conflict now sits alongside a fresh Naga–Kuki-Zo fault line in the hills.

Causes of proliferation

• Overlapping homeland claims: the Kuki-Zo demand for a separate administration, which would require reorganisation under Article 3, seeks territory that Naga organisations also claim. A Meitei–Kuki settlement can therefore generate a Naga–Kuki dispute.
• Unsettled land question: hill land rests on customary chiefly tenure with no authoritative record, so village-level boundary and road disputes escalate into ethnic clashes — as they did in the Naga–Kuki violence of the 1990s, which was paused by ceasefires but never resolved territorially.
• Bilateral peace architecture: the tripartite Suspension of Operations (SoO) pact runs between the Centre, the State and Kuki groups, and is renewed only one year at a time [2]; parallel Naga talks are separate. No forum binds the two communities to each other.
• Institutional trust deficit: the hill–valley divide over ST status and the prolonged Kuki-Zo Assembly boycott left the State seen as partisan.
• Border stress: scrapping the Free Movement Regime [3] and fencing the entire 1,643 km Myanmar border [4], amid Myanmar's civil war, divides kin communities and pushes them toward ethnic bodies.

Measures for even-handed resolution

• Treat relief camps as a health emergency — deaths there from inadequate healthcare and nutrition are preventable without any political settlement.
• Convert SoO into a longer fixed-term pact with published compliance on ground rules, ending its use as a bargaining threat [2].
• Reciprocate de-escalation: the Kuki-Zo Council's reopening of NH-02 [2] should be answered with restored schools, healthcare and neutral force deployment.
• Politically, pair the three-community ministry [1] with a trilateral Naga–Kuki–Meitei dialogue, strengthened hill autonomous councils, and border passes for divided kin.

Representation at the top must be matched by control on the ground. A calibrated sequence — humanitarian relief first, institutionalised ceasefires next, territorial dialogue last — can restore constitutional trust while the newer fault line is still at the stage where it is cheapest to stop.