The dispute over the timing of the Census has intensified in Manipur, with the Campaign for Just and Fair Delimitation (JFD) beginning a boycott of state and Central government institutions from Thursday, August 20, after a 48-hour shutdown disrupted normal life across several valley districts.
JFD secretary Longjam Ratankumar Singh said the organisation would boycott government offices while exempting essential services and educational institutions, and would hold daytime sit-ins and night-time torch rallies.
The campaign’s central demand is that the National Register of Citizens (NRC) be updated before Census 2027, with JFD and other Meitei-led civil society groups arguing that an NRC based on 1951 records is needed to identify alleged undocumented migrants, particularly those who they claim entered Manipur from neighbouring Myanmar, before population figures are recorded.
The agitation has already affected government attendance, markets and public transport in Imphal West, Imphal East, Kakching, Thoubal and Bishnupur, while confrontations between protesters and security personnel have been reported at places including Lamlong and Kwakeithel. The Manipur government has separately ordered all educational institutions to remain closed from August 20 to 23 because of the law-and-order situation.
The government has also indicated that it wants to take the issue up with the Centre: state spokesperson Sapam Ranjan said a team was preparing to travel to Delhi to press for postponement of the Census until the NRC question is addressed.
The demand has legislative backing, with the Manipur Assembly unanimously resolving in 2022 to establish a Population Commission and introduce an NRC, and reaffirming the demand in 2024. However, the NRC demand remains deeply contested.
Kuki organisations have argued that portraying migration through an ethnic lens risks branding the wider Kuki-Zo community as undocumented, and have maintained that any individual found to be an illegal migrant should be dealt with under existing law rather than through a process that could collectively target a community.
With Census preparations already under way, the confrontation now raises a larger question: can the Centre and state government address legitimate concerns over demographic data without allowing the process to deepen Manipur’s already fragile ethnic divisions?
Boycott Deepens The Standoff
The latest escalation follows weeks of mobilisation by the JFD and allied civil society organisations over the Census schedule. The organisation has consistently maintained that Manipur should not proceed with the population exercise until an NRC is updated, with 1951 repeatedly proposed as the base year.
In early August, JFD leaders warned that they would intensify protests if the government proceeded with Census operations without addressing the demand. JFD convenor Jeetendra Ningomba said the organisation was prepared to oppose the exercise if the government ignored its deadline for announcing steps towards an NRC.
The campaign has since moved from public meetings and human chains to direct disruption of Census preparations. On August 14, JFD’s student wing entered Moirang College in Bishnupur, where census personnel were due to undergo training, and protesters forced the trainees to leave, officials told media.
Police were subsequently deployed to restore order. Earlier, students had formed human chains in Imphal demanding “No NRC, No Census” and “No IDP Settlement, No Census”, linking the Census dispute with the unresolved rehabilitation of people displaced by the ethnic conflict.
The latest 48-hour shutdown has taken that campaign further. According to reports, attendance at government offices fell sharply, while commercial activity and public transport were affected in five valley districts. At Lamlong market in Imphal East and Kwakeithel in Imphal West, tensions rose as protesters blocked roads and security forces intervened.
The government’s decision to close educational institutions from August 20 to 23 adds to the disruption, although it is important to distinguish this order from the JFD’s boycott: the organisation itself had said educational institutions would be exempt.
For the protesters, however, the immediate issue is not simply whether the Census should happen but whether population data collected now could have consequences for Manipur’s future political representation. Their concern is tied to delimitation, which uses population data to determine representation, and they fear that people they regard as undocumented could be reflected in future demographic calculations.
Fourteen civil society organisations had already taken the issue to Delhi in July, meeting Central officials and arguing that conducting a Census amid displacement and demographic uncertainty could distort the state’s data. The JFD has therefore framed the present agitation as a campaign to protect the credibility of the state’s demographic record rather than simply an opposition to the Census itself.
NRC Demand Has A Longer History
The current confrontation has its roots in a demand that predates the latest Census preparations. The Manipur Legislative Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution in August 2022 calling for the establishment of a State Population Commission and the introduction and enforcement of an NRC.
The Assembly reaffirmed the demand in March 2024, giving civil society groups a political reference point as they renewed their campaign this year. The issue gained fresh momentum in June, when 14 civil society organisations organised a major rally in Imphal demanding that the NRC be updated using 1951 as the base year before the Census.
Supporters say an NRC is necessary to distinguish Indian citizens from people who entered Manipur illegally from neighbouring countries and to protect the rights of indigenous communities. They also argue that the exercise must precede Census and delimitation so that population figures are not used to determine political representation before citizenship-related concerns are addressed.
The demand has found support beyond Meitei organisations too. The Naga People’s Union, Imphal, recently backed the JFD’s “No NRC, No Census” campaign, saying the government had not provided concrete assurances on identifying undocumented migrants before the Census. The North Indigenous Women’s Organisation has also held a sit-in at Sekmai demanding implementation of the NRC.
At the same time, there are significant questions surrounding the practical and legal challenges of conducting such an exercise. A demographic expert, Prof RK Narendra, recently pointed out that a Census and an NRC are fundamentally different exercises: a Census establishes information about residents, whereas an NRC requires individual details to be collected and verified.
He argued that an expert committee would be necessary to determine how an NRC could actually be updated in Manipur. The Assam experience is frequently cited by supporters, but it also shows how complicated citizenship verification can become. Assam’s NRC was updated using March 24, 1971 as the key cut-off date, rather than 1951, and its final list was published in 2019.
Manipur’s proposed 1951 reference point is therefore not simply a replication of Assam’s model. The dispute is also unfolding against the backdrop of the ethnic conflict that began in May 2023, which displaced tens of thousands of people and left many still living away from their homes.
Critics of the current Census process argue that counting residents while people remain displaced creates another practical problem: thousands may not be present in their original homes when house-listing takes place.
For Kuki-Zo organisations, however, the NRC demand presents a different danger. Kuki leaders have argued that Meitei groups are attempting to portray the broader Kuki population as undocumented migrants.
As one Kuki leader told Deccan Herald, if there are individual illegal migrants, the government should act against them under existing laws rather than use an NRC as a tool to target an entire community.
This competing interpretation is central to the controversy: what one side describes as a citizenship-verification mechanism, another sees as a potential instrument of ethnic exclusion.
The Logical Indian’s Perspective
The Census is ultimately meant to produce reliable information about the people living in India information that influences public policy, welfare planning, infrastructure and, eventually, political representation. In Manipur, however, the exercise has become entangled with questions of citizenship, migration, ethnicity, displacement and the unresolved trauma of a conflict that has already divided communities deeply. The concerns raised by indigenous groups about demographic change and the credibility of population data deserve to be heard through a transparent, lawful and evidence-based process.
Equally, allegations that an entire ethnic community is made up of undocumented migrants cannot be treated as established fact without individual verification and due process. An NRC, if the government decides to undertake one, must have a clear legal framework, transparent criteria, independent safeguards and meaningful protection against discrimination. It must not become a mechanism for collective suspicion or ethnic labelling.
