It is a crisis when Manipur waits and India races ahead

Dr Raj Singh
When I heard the news last week that global technology giants like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google had pledged a massive investment of $67.5 billion to shape India’s digital future, much of it anchored in artificial intelligence, my first reaction was awe. My second was unease. Amid this excitement, a quiet question surfaced in my mind: Does this story include Manipur at all? As Prime Minister Modi noted after meeting Microsoft’s CEO, India’s youth will leverage AI “to innovate and create a better planet.” India is projected to have 57.5 million developers by 2030, making it the largest developer base in the world. Meanwhile, the nation’s economy is expanding at breakneck speed – GDP growth hit 8.2% last quarter, putting India on track to remain the world’s fastest-growing major economy. The tech gold rush and economic boom are fueling unprecedented opportunities for India’s young population.
Yet, when this national optimism reaches Manipur, it seems to lose momentum. When India woke up to the thunder of global confidence and historic bets on its future, the cinematic moment failed to stir one corner of the country. In Manipur, the future feels precarious, balanced on a cliff edge. As the rest of India rides the AI wave, Manipur remains weighed down by an education system struggling to stay afloat, chronic joblessness, entrenched corruption, and a devastating ethnic conflict that has torn through society. The disconnect between Manipur and the national growth story is no longer subtle. It raises an unsettling question: will Manipur miss the bus while India forges ahead?
Across India, a new optimism buzzes. But in Manipur, where many young people look for opportunities that never arrive, the future feels suspended - like a story paused mid-sentence. It is not just economic lag; it is an emotional and psychological rupture, one that has deepened over decades. This article is not about numbers; it is about the losing moments we are living through.
It is about a people who deserve better, yet find themselves drifting to the fringes of a country that is accelerating without them.
Alienation in a Fast-Moving Nation
Sociologists often speak of alienation - when individuals or groups feel detached from the systems that shape their lives. What Manipuris feel today is a complex mix of alienation from the Indian mainstream and alienation from one another.
India’s technological rise appears almost surreal when viewed from a state struggling with interrupted schooling, stalled dreams, and a lingering sense that the world outside is racing ahead. Young Manipuris do not just lack opportunities - they experience what Merton’s strain theory describes as an “emotional conflict” between their aspirations and the limited means available to achieve them. This strain pushes many into frustration, cynicism, or even radical pathways.
Worse, the conflict of recent years has created a tearing of the social fabric. Entire communities feel pushed into imagined corners, “us” versus “them” - a textbook case of Fanon’s marginalization, where groups internalize the belief that they are excluded, unheard, and undervalued.
But the tragedy is deeper: Manipur has begun to alienate itself from its own future. The Emotional Cost of a Society Stuck in Survival Mode While India speaks of coding boot camps, AI innovation labs, and global talent pipelines, Manipuri parents are worrying about school closures, displacement, safety, and whether their children will ever feel joy or normalcy again.
A young graduate once said, “I don’t dream big anymore; I dream small - just peace, just one job, just a normal life.” That shrinking of dreams is the real crisis. It is what Durkheim called “anomie,” a condition where societal norms break down, leaving individuals directionless and demoralized.
When a generation loses its dreams, a society loses its momentum. This is why Manipur’s problem is not just developmental - it is psychological. A society caught in conflict mode cannot be in growth mode. A society preoccupied with survival cannot plan for prosperity.
When Communities Fight Over Chaff, They Miss the Granary
Manipur today resembles what social theorists describe as a “peripheral society” in Wallerstein’s world-system model, losing energy on internal fractures while the core world powers ahead.
The harsh truth is this: We are fighting over diminishing resources, mistrusting one another, and locking ourselves out of the opportunities India is unlocking.
Instead of pooling talent, we have split it.
Instead of nurturing youth, we have traumatized them.
Instead of competing with the rest of India, we are inadvertently competing among ourselves.
And the greatest loss is not money or infrastructure - it is time.
Years lost to fear, to displacement, to suspicion, to hatred.
These are moments we cannot recover.
What Must Change: A Path Out of the Psychological Trap
1. From Suspicion to Solidarity
No society grows when its groups view each other as existential threats. Healing must begin with dialogue, shared mourning, and shared rebuilding. Peace treaties alone do not heal hearts; people do.
2. Education Must Become Sacred Again
Not the perfunctory kind, but education that makes a child feel their future matters. Without restoring schools, trust in teachers, and ambition in students, no economic framework will succeed.
3. Growth Must Replace Grievance
Conflict has given us a language of grievance; development requires the language of growth. We must start thinking like builders, not battalions. India is moving into a knowledge economy. Manipur cannot remain caught in survival-era thinking.
4. Manipur Must Re-enter India’s Imagination
But Manipuris too must re-enter the national imagination with confidence - not as victims, not as outliers, but as contributors. Our artists, sportspersons, intellectuals, and entrepreneurs must be empowered to carry our stories and talent outward.
A Reminder to Ourselves: What We Lose If We Don’t Change
We lose a decade.
We lose a generation.
We lose the habit of dreaming.
We lose the belief that tomorrow can be better than today.
The emotional erosion is real.
The psychological exhaustion is real.
The drifting apart - between communities, between state and nation, between youth and their potential - is real.
But alienation is not destiny.
Conflict is not identity.
And falling behind is not inevitable.
The rest of India is building boldly, rapidly, restlessly.
Manipur must not become the forgotten room in a house that is being renovated beautifully.
The question before us is simple: Will we continue fighting over the chaff while the rest of India gathers grain? Or will we lift our gaze, mend our relationships, and take our rightful seat in the nation’s future?
Manipur has talent.
Manipur has a culture.
Manipur has resilience.
What it needs now is clarity - a collective decision to prioritize growth over grievance, future over fear, and unity over fragmentation.
This is the moment.
The train has not left yet.
But it will - not because India wants to abandon Manipur, but because India is moving, and we must choose to move with it.