A recent review meeting chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah has renewed focus on President’s Rule in Manipur, highlighting that such constitutional arrangements often signal political transition rather than inertia.
BY Hen Kuki
January 6, 2026: The recent review meeting chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah with the Governor and
senior officials of Manipur has renewed attention on the future of President’s Rule in the State.
Official statements have stressed security, administrative continuity, and rehabilitation. Yet
constitutional practice suggests that such moments rarely imply political inertia. More often, they
mark transition.
President’s Rule is, by definition, provisional. It centralises administration but does not suspend
politics. In India’s federal experience, it has frequently served as an interlude allowing time for
recalibration, negotiation, and the quiet reordering of legislative alignments. Discussions on its
extension must therefore be read not merely as questions of governance, but as signals within a
broader political process.
It is within this setting that speculation regarding the formation of a popular government has
gained currency. This is neither premature nor exceptional. Where arithmetic permits, politics
resumes. The more consequential question, however, concerns the character of representation
when it does.
In regions shaped by prolonged conflict, political office acquires a meaning distinct from routine
administration. Ministerial presence is not ornamental. It provides access to policy deliberations
before they crystallise, to rehabilitation frameworks while they remain negotiable, and to
administrative and security architectures that shape everyday realities. For populations that have
endured displacement and sustained insecurity, exclusion from executive authority risks
converting marginalisation into permanence.
Equally significant is the manner in which representation is constituted. Participation perceived as
distant from the lived experience of those most affected may satisfy procedural requirements, yet
lack the internal coherence necessary for effective political engagement. In fragile contexts,
cohesion is not a rhetorical ideal but a strategic necessity.
This distinction becomes particularly salient during periods of transition. Representation
emerging from leadership structures that command broad internal accountability even when
contested tends to consolidate collective positions. Engagement routed through figures lacking
such anchorage risks generating internal disquiet, fragmenting political capacity at precisely the
moment when unity constitutes leverage. Movements weakened from within are easier to manage
from without.
READ: Kuki-Zo Council Reiterates Demand for UT, Not to Take part in Manipur Govt
It is often argued that participation under unresolved conditions risks conferring premature
legitimacy on an unsettled status quo. This concern is not without substance. Yet abstention does
not arrest institutional processes. Decisions concerning security, relief, and governance continue
regardless, often consolidating in the absence of those most affected. The choice, therefore, is not
between engagement and principle, but between structured participation and unmanaged
exclusion.
The wider political context cannot be ignored. The Bharatiya Janata Party, like any party in
power, operates within a calculus of stability, legislative arithmetic, and political optics.
President’s Rule may persist as a constitutional arrangement, but political negotiations seldom
await formal conclusions.
For Manipur, the transition whenever it occurs will shape not only governance but the contours of
post-conflict recovery. In such moments, distance from power rarely ensures safety. Presence
within institutions functions less as endorsement than as leverage.
President’s Rule may continue in name. Politics, meanwhile, moves steadily ahead.
(The writer is a Research scholar from Kuki-Zo community)
