Karan Thapar 
A former IAS officer, with extensive experience in handling communal crises in different parts of India, who has just returned after four “harrowing” days in Manipur, says, “The Indian state has gone into hiding in Manipur”.
Harsh Mander was talking about the almost complete absence of any provisioning, care, or outreach by the Indian state in the relief camps he visited both on the Kuki and Meitei sides. Mander says the church is providing care and support to Kuki relief camps whilst Meitei civil society organisations are providing care and support to Meitei camps. He adds that conditions in the camps are desperate and hopeless. The dominant emotion of the people there is one of anger and a realisation that there is not much to hope for.
In a 40-minute interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, Harsh Mander also said there was one “sign of hope, of peace and healing” which is the stories he heard in the relief camps of both communities of how they had been helped by the “other” community. Unfortunately, outside the camps, there’s a complete demographic and geographical separation between the Kukis and the Meiteis and the narratives they have to tell are of deep-seated dislike and animosity for each other.
Harsh Mander called Manipur “a war zone”. He said: “On both sides, entire villages have been razed to ashes.” In pockets, these destroyed villages resemble images from Oppenheimer.
As a former IAS officer, Mander said the first and most immediate task is for the Indian state to begin to function and for civil servants to perform and fulfill their constitutional duties of reaching out and helping people in camps, providing facilities, food, etc. He said these are tasks at which the Indian state is well accomplished and has great experience. In Manipur it is simply not performing them. Out of both incompetence but also deep-seated prejudice. This is why he believes the Indian state has gone into hiding.
If you want to understand the conditions which the people of Manipur, both Kuki and Meitei, are experiencing in relief camps, how they are helped by the church and civil society organisations but virtually ignored by the state and, beyond that, if you want to understand their mood, how they view each other and how they view the state and central government then this interview with Harsh Mander will give you the details and information you need.
So far we have not, either on television or in newspapers, been given a full account of the conditions in the camps where up to 60,000 people have sought shelter. Harsh Mander is the first to do so.