“Naga integration movement, manipur territorial integrity, and the naga-meitei ethnic relations in north east India”

The quest for integrating bifurcated territories into an integral whole is the underlying principle of the Naga integration movement-a movement for the integration of all Naga areas living in the trans-borderlands of India's northeast and Myanmar's northwest. Manipur territorial integrity is predominantly a movement of the state valley areas that opposed any form of “disintegration” of its territory. With territory as a kernel of the demand for Naga integration and Manipur integrity, both Naga and Meitei ethnic groups parochially advanced their claims and counterclaims. This article locates the efforts of Nagas in Manipur to historically imprint themselves in the overall Naga integration movement; also looks at the trending events of territorial consciousness among the Meiteis, and how territorial integrity has become one preferent shibboleth of the state government and the valley-based civil societies in Manipur. It examines how the furtherance of the demands for the Naga integration and Manipur territorial integrity has adversely impacted Naga-Meitei socio-political relations.