Manipur’s crisis is often characterised by ethnic or political factors. However, at its core, it is a constitutional issue that has remained unimplemented for over five decades
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Manipur’s crisis is often characterised by ethnic or political factors. However, at its core, it is a constitutional issue that has remained unimplemented for over five decades.
The central question is whether Manipur will honour the constitutional autonomy promised to its hill areas by allowing them to have separate laws or continue to govern them through a legal system designed for the valley.
Land and the Power of Law
Across India, dispossession has rarely occurred through violence alone. It has often happened through law. Tribal communities have lost land not because they lacked history but because they lacked legal documents. Customary rights were subordinated to statutory law, oral traditions to written records, and community ownership to state-controlled frameworks. Manipur’s hill tribes face a similar vulnerability today.
Article 371-C: A Constitutional Settlement
When Manipur attained statehood in 1972, Article 371-C was incorporated into the Constitution as part of a political settlement with the hill tribes. Pursuant to this provision, the President issued the Hill Areas Committee Order on 20 June 1972. The Second Schedule of this Order identified subjects over which the Hill Areas Committee (HAC) was to exercise legislative influence for the enactment of separate laws for hill areas in partnership with the state government for land, forests, water, customary law, social institutions, and local governance. In constitutional design, the HAC was intended to be a substantive institution, not a ceremonial body. However, in practice, its role has remained marginal, and this has contributed to the distrust and bias that keeps the two communities apart.
The Problem of Centralisation
For decades, successive state governments dominated by the valley majority have resisted the operationalisation of Article 371-C. Instead of enabling the HAC to shape separate laws affecting the hill areas, there has been persistent pressure to extend the Manipur Land Revenue and Land Reforms Act into the hills. This approach contradicts the constitutional logic of asymmetrical federalism that underpins India’s treatment of tribal regions. The only way to breach the wall of distrust is to facilitate the hill areas to have their own land laws and other traditional laws permitted by the Constitution, which could provide the key for coexistence.
Elsewhere in the Northeast, constitutional autonomy has been meaningfully institutionalised: Nagaland under Article 371-A, Mizoram under Article 371-G, and Sixth Schedule regions under Articles 244(2) and 244-A. Manipur’s hill areas remain an anomaly—recognised in the Constitution, but constrained in practice.
The ST Debate and the Fear of Land Alienation
The demand by the valley majority for Scheduled Tribe status must be understood in this context. If the majority community attains ST status, it will legally acquire access to tribal land in the hills. However, having a robust separate land law for hill areas under Article 371-C could fundamentally alter the land regime of the hill areas and promote the idea of coexistence. For the hill tribes, therefore, the issue of having their own land law and other customary laws is not merely identity politics, but constitutional security.
A Promise to Extract before Government Formation
Manipur is once again witnessing attempts to form a state government. This political moment carries constitutional significance. Before any new government is constituted, legislators from both the hills and the valley have an opportunity—and a responsibility—to address the unresolved constitutional question.
They must publicly commit to:
1. Enacting separate laws for the hill areas under Article 371-C.
2. Empowering the Hill Areas Committee (HAC) to exercise its right of legislation in partnership with the state government.
3. Facilitating the enactment of laws recommended by HAC on land and other subjects listed in the Second Schedule of the Presidential Order of 20 June 1972 before the next general elections.
Such a commitment would not weaken Manipur. It would restore trust and reaffirm the constitutional compact between hills and valleys.
The Impact of Ignoring Implementation of Article 371-C
If the paralysis of Article 371-C persists, hill tribes will inevitably explore alternative constitutional pathways.
Two options remain:
First, demand for Sixth Schedule autonomy under Article 244-A, which would grant Autonomous District Councils legislative authority over land and local governance without dependence on the state legislature.
Secondly, demand for separate statehood, if meaningful autonomy within Manipur remains unattainable. These are not radical impulses; they are constitutional consequences of prolonged denial.
Land, Development and Dignity
Beyond politics, land is the foundation of economic dignity. Without legally recognised land regimes, tribal communities cannot leverage land for credit, entrepreneurship, or development. Youth in the hill areas remain economically constrained not because of lack of ambition, but because of lack of legal documents for monetisation of land to source bank loans. Implementing Article 371-C is therefore not merely a legal requirement; it is a developmental necessity for hill areas.
The Question before Manipur’s Political Class
After more than fifty years, Manipur’s political leadership must confront a question it has consistently postponed:
Is Article 371-C a living constitutional provision or a decorative clause?
If it is allowed to function, Manipur can move towards a negotiated coexistence between hills and valleys. If it continues to be neutralised, the constitutional logic of autonomy will assert itself through Sixth Schedule demands or statehood movements.
Constitutions endure not only through text but also through trust. Manipur’s future depends on whether its leaders are willing to honour a promise made in 1972 or continue to defer it until it becomes impossible to redeem. New Delhi should consider the implementation of Article 371-C as a task to be performed by the incoming popular state government before the next general elections. This singular action could perhaps bridge the trust deficit.
Ngaranmi Shimray
New Delhi