Riots had actually been in decline before Manipur's May violence

State joined the northeast in reporting a fall in the number of terrorism cases, too

Manipur is battling unrest after logging a decline in violence since 2016, when on average there was a riot in the state almost every three days.

Manipur registered 119 cases of rioting in 2016, shows an analysis of data from the central government’s National Crime Records Bureau. The number fell to 60 in 2021, the latest year for which data is available. This is not just because of the pandemic: riot cases had dropped to 69 even by 2019. To be sure, riots are not unique to the state. Goa in the west had a similar number of riot cases registered (117) in 2016. But data shows rioting and terrorism cases in northeastern states have declined in recent years.

The violence last week began in Manipur over the issue of reservations for the majority Meitei community. The Manipur High Court last month asked the state government to consider granting them scheduled tribe status. Reservations would provide the community a larger fixed share in state-run educational institutions, government jobs and elected seats. Other tribal groups have protested the move. As many as 60 people have died in the riots and around 20,000 people have been evacuated to shelters.

There were 1,899 cases of rioting registered during 2016 in the eight northeast states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, and Tripura. Assam once accounted for more than eight out of every 10 riot cases registered in the region, but the numbers have now halved. Cases fell from 1,671 in 2016 to 780 in 2021 (see chart 1).

Insurgency and terrorism cases have declined in the region. 

The South Asia Terrorism Portal has recorded terrorism incidents in the region in all states excluding Sikkim. There has been a significant decline in terrorism incidents in the last ten years. The number of such cases declined from 1,769 in 2012 to 639 in 2019. There were 331 instances as of 2022. Manipur has seen terrorism incidents drop from 860 in 2012 to 250 in 2019 and 165 in 2022 (see chart 2).

Violence in Manipur affected the districts of Churachandpur, Imphal East, Imphal West, Bishnupur, Tengnoupal, and Kangpokpi over the past one week, said Rajeev Singh, director general of Indian Chamber of Commerce. He said more than 700 vehicles coming from Assam were stranded on the Imphal-Dimapur highway (NH-2) and Imphal-Jiribam highway (NH-39), which connects Manipur with the rest of the country via Nagaland.

Singh said the formal trade was worth Rs 25 crore a day. The state government is likely to lose Rs 2-2.5 crore a day due to the disturbance caused by the violence, according to Singh.

“The economic activity has gone down by one-third of normal business. As the government has allowed the trade of the essential commodities, there is high business activity at medical shops , LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) stations and gas stations,” he said.

Work at the Moreh Integrated Check Post, through which international trade between India and Myanmar takes place, came to a standstill during the violence, he said.