The imposition of president’s rule in troubled Manipur — yet another such occasion in the history of the state — should not have come as a surprise. The signs had been evident. After the resignation of the former chief minister, N. Biren Singh — Manipur had been in flames under his watch for 21 months — the governor had decided to scrap his own order concerning the summoning of the assembly; security, too, had been tightened in Imphal. What may have compelled the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Central government to impose president’s rule in the state was the BJP’s failure to find a consensual candidate to replace Mr Singh as the chief minister in spite of hectic parleys involving a Central commissary and party representatives from the state. This goes to show that for all its talk of being a party with a difference and despite its regimented structure, the BJP is not quite immune to contestations that are an outcome of personal ambition and inner feuding. The responses of the two warring communities, Meiteis and Kukis, to president’s rule have also been predictable. A conglomerate of Metei civil society organisations has described the measure as “undemocratic”; the Kuki Inpi Manipur, the apex body of Kuki tribes, on the other hand, has welcomed this Central intervention while repeating its demand for a separate administration.

This contrasting response from the two communities, a manifestation of the deep fault lines, in fact, underlines the challenge that the Centre has before it now. President’s rule should be an occasion to bridge the trust deficit with the help of steps that must be representative in nature. Mr Singh’s government had been markedly laconic in this regard and the Centre has no reasons to emulate that legacy. The other task concerns the demilitarisation of civil society. It is encouraging that security forces are now cracking down on extortion and kidnapping by militants and criminals but these operations must be widened to recover looted arms. It has been estimated that over 5,000 arms and 6 lakh ammunition had been looted from police armouries during the unrest that persists sporadically: only about 2,300 weapons have been recovered so far. President’s rule, however, cannot be a feasible solution to the crisis; there can be no substitute for the resurrection of the political process in the long run. The interregnum must be wisely used to normalise the law and order situation and bring the combative ethnic groups to the negotiation table.