On an incremental basis, friction between Manipur’s many ethnic communities is taking a new visage. At the moment, this is centred around the contentious exclusive rather than inclusive administrative demarcation between its hill and valley. This is especially so in the foothills, which during the British days had come to be designated as the Sadar Hills, affiliating its administration to neither the hills or the valley fully. Indeed, much of Manipur’s land administration mechanism is a legacy from the British days.
While similar frictions over the idea of land and land ownership among indigenous communities is common throughout the Northeast, arguably none is more complex and sensitive than in Manipur. The state’s peculiar geography and history predicate this. It is a small state of 22,327 sq. km, mostly mountains except for a central fertile valley of 1,864 sq. km.