Blaming the PUCL Tribunal’s report is an exercise in deflection. It is easier to attack a document than to confront the deeper malaise that has reduced Manipur into a land of two separate nations sharing one map
BY Navin Upadhyay
Two years have passed since the violence of May 3, 2023, when Manipur was torn apart by a frenzy of ethnic conflict that claimed more than 260 lives and left behind images that shocked the nation—the most haunting among them, Kuki women paraded naked on the streets. The wounds from that day have not healed. If anything, they have hardened into permanent scars.
Today, the state lives in a climate of hostility and mutual distrust. Sporadic incidents of violence, clashes, and targeted attacks have become part of daily life. The sense of normalcy that governments claim is cosmetic at best. For the communities that matter—the Meiteis in the valley and the Kukis in the hills—there is no return to trust.
The creation of buffer zones, enforced by security forces, was initially presented as a temporary measure to contain bloodshed. Instead, it has cemented the divide, making clear physical boundaries between two peoples who once shared the same state. Meiteis do not dare venture into Kuki areas in the hills, just as Kukis avoid the valley. The forces stationed along these lines of separation ensure that the divide remains in place. The message is unmistakable: the hills belong to one side, the valley to the other.
READ: PUCL Report on Manipur Sparks Meitei Backlash, FIRs Filed
If the physical separation is stark, the virtual separation on social media is even more glaring. Nowhere is the divide more poisonous than online. Facebook pages, WhatsApp groups, and X (Twitter) feeds have become battlegrounds where Meitei and Kuki voices clash daily, often with venomous hatred. Every fresh incident—whether a killing, a protest, or a government order—sparks a flood of inflammatory posts, doctored images, and hate-filled rhetoric.
PUCL Rebuts Bias Claims, Defends Manipur Tribunal Findings https://t.co/pOA61x5qw2 #ManipurConflict #PUCLReport #PeaceWithTruth#JusticeAndAccountability #ReconciliationNotDivision
— POWER CORRIDORS (@power_corridors) August 28, 2025
For many, social media has become a theatre of war, where keyboard warriors on both sides sharpen narratives of grievance and revenge. In this battlefield, there are no peace-makers—only partisans, ready to justify violence and demonise the other. Moderation is drowned out; nuance has no takers. Day after day, this digital crossfire deepens the distrust, ensuring that even the faintest talk of peace or reconciliation finds no audience.
It is in this grim context that the ongoing intense debate around the report of an independent tribunal of the People’s Union of Civil Liberty (PUCL) on Manipur violence takes place. Critics accuse it of fuelling division, while supporters defend it as a necessary truth-telling exercise. But such arguments miss the point. Reports and counter-reports cannot deepen a chasm that is already entrenched in both lived reality and digital discourse. Communities do not need a civil liberties document to remind them of the divide—they live it in their towns and villages, and they re-enact it online every single day.
READ: KNO Leader Questions Manipur MP’s Stand on PUCL Report
Each side clings to its own narrative of victimhood and injustice. Each side finds cause to either hail or condemn the PUCL findings. Yet none of that changes the facts on the ground: the ethnic divide in Manipur is real, enduring, and dangerous. The hostility is not a perception but a lived experience, reinforced by geography, policing, fear, and now the toxic algorithms of social media.
Blaming the PUCL Tribunal’s report is, therefore, an exercise in deflection. It is easier to attack a document than to confront the deeper malaise that has reduced Manipur into a land of two separate nations sharing one map. Until there is an honest recognition of this reality—and the political will to address it—the divide will remain, with or without PUCL
