Conflict, State Capacity and Human Security: Insurgency, Civil-Liberty Constraints and the Drug–Violence Nexus in Manipur, India

Manipur, located along India's international border with Myanmar, presents a complex security environment in which protracted insurgency, ethnic conflict, contested state authority, restrictions on civil liberties, transnational narcotics trafficking, and institutional weaknesses intersect. This article examines the relationship between conflict, state capacity, and human security in Manipur, with particular attention to the interaction among insurgency, extraordinary security legislation, civil-liberty constraints, and the drug–violence nexus. Drawing upon the human security framework, state-capacity and legitimacy perspectives, conflict literature, judicial decisions, government documents, scholarly studies, and reports of international and human-rights organisations, the article argues that security in Manipur cannot be adequately understood through a conventional state-centric lens. The persistence of armed groups and transnational criminal networks represents a challenge to the state's monopoly over legitimate coercion; however, prolonged reliance on militarised responses can simultaneously undermine public trust, political legitimacy, and civil liberties. The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 (AFSPA), while providing an extraordinary legal framework for counterinsurgency, has generated longstanding debates concerning accountability and proportionality. At the same time, Manipur's geographical proximity to Myanmar and the wider Golden Triangle has exposed the state to narcotics trafficking, illicit economies, and possible intersections between criminal and insurgent networks. The article cautions against reducing the drug problem to an ethnic or purely security narrative and instead conceptualises narcotics trafficking as a political-economy and human-security problem. It argues that sustainable peace requires a transition from predominantly coercive security management towards accountable state capacity, inclusive governance, rule of law, cross-border cooperation, livelihood opportunities, public-health interventions, and community-based peacebuilding. The article concludes that strengthening state capacity must mean not merely increasing coercive capacity but enhancing the state's capacity to provide security, justice, rights, welfare, and legitimate governance.

Manipur, human security, state capacity, insurgency, AFSPA, civil liberties, narcotics trafficking, drug–violence nexus, ethnic conflict, Northeast India

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