New Delhi, Sept. 25 -- The Centre's decision to extend the "disturbed area" status under the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) across most of Manipur for another six months is an acknowledgement of an uncomfortable reality: normalcy remains elusive. Effective October 1, the declaration covers the entire state except areas under 13 police stations across five districts. The notification follows a review of the law-and-order situation and will remain in force for six months unless withdrawn earlier.
The immediate security argument is difficult to dismiss. Manipur has not emerged from its cycle of violence, and recent developments have made the fragility painfully evident. Violence that began principally between Meitei and Kuki-Zo communities in May 2023 has since acquired additional fault lines. Human Rights Watch reported earlier this month that renewed clashes involving Naga and Kuki-Zo communities had killed at least seven people in late August, while more than 260 people had been killed and over 60,000 displaced since the violence erupted in 2023. Fresh violence has continued this week, including killings near the Myanmar border and the burning of houses in Kangpokpi.
In such circumstances, withdrawing extraordinary security provisions simply to manufacture an appearance of normalcy would be irresponsible. The state must retain the capacity to protect civilians, secure vulnerable areas, recover illegal weapons and prevent armed groups from exploiting administrative weakness. But extending AFSPA cannot itself become a substitute for restoring ordinary governance. An emergency provision may create operational space for security forces; it cannot rebuild trust between communities, return displaced families home or repair the political relationships shattered by more than three years of conflict.
That distinction matters. Six-month extensions risk becoming bureaucratic punctuation marks in an unresolved crisis unless every renewal is accompanied by measurable progress towards making the next one unnecessary. The geographical footprint of AFSPA should therefore remain under rigorous review, with areas removed whenever objective security conditions permit. The Supreme Court has previously required periodic review of "disturbed area" declarations, underscoring that exceptional powers cannot be treated as an ordinary and permanent condition of administration.
Manipur needs something considerably more ambitious than another security timetable. It requires sustained political engagement across communities, credible policing, prosecution of serious crimes, rehabilitation of displaced people, restoration of movement between divided areas and an institutional mechanism capable of addressing competing grievances without allowing violence to become their language. Security operations can suppress immediate threats; only politics can resolve the conditions that continually reproduce them.
The real test for New Delhi, therefore, is not whether it can justify AFSPA for another six months. Given the present security situation, it has stated its grounds for doing so. The harder test is whether these six months will leave Manipur safer, less segregated and closer to ordinary constitutional governance. Extraordinary powers are defensible only as a bridge back to normal law. If every bridge ends at another extension, Manipur will remain trapped in an emergency without an exit.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.