Manipur, Where Forest Covers 75 Per Cent of the State, Holds the Last Natural Home of the Sangai Deer on the Floating Meadows of Loktak Lake and Has a Hill Areas Committee Provided for in the Constitution

The Wildlife Institute of India calls Keibul Lamjao National Park, which sits on the floating meadows of Loktak Lake in Manipur, the last natural home of the sangai, a brow-antlered deer. The Forest Survey of India’s 2019 report measures forest cover at 75.46 per cent of the state’s 22,327 square kilometres. The 2011 Census counted 28.56 lakh people, and the census figures below come from that count because the next one is under way. Manipur sends 2 members to the Lok Sabha and 1 to the Rajya Sabha.

How a kingdom became a state on 21 January 1972

On 21 September 1949 the Maharajah, Bodh Chandra Singh, and V. P. Menon, signing for the Governor-General, put their names to a merger agreement. The Maharajah ceded “full and exclusive authority, jurisdiction and powers” from 15 October 1949, and received a privy purse (a tax-free yearly allowance) of Rs 3 lakh for life. The Government of India’s records treat this as a merger by agreement, writes Dr Atom Sunil Singh in EastMojo. Critics in Manipur say the Maharajah was pressed to sign without consulting the elected assembly. The author’s own view is that the document looks valid on the official record while the allegations of pressure keep the question open. His article also records that no court has ruled the agreement involuntary.

The Constitution’s First Schedule describes the territory as one that was being run “as if it were a Chief Commissioner’s Province” before 26 January 1950. Its footnotes show Manipur on the list of Union Territories until the North-Eastern Areas (Reorganisation) Act, 1971 (Act 81 of 1971) removed it with effect from 21 January 1972, the day it became a state. The Gauhati High Court’s Imphal Bench began sitting that same day, the Supreme Court’s e-Committee records.

Our piece on the Indian National Army follows its 1944 campaign into the state, which reached Moirang.

How the state is governed

Article 168 lists the states whose legislatures have two Houses, and Manipur is not among them, so the Legislative Assembly is the whole legislature. It has 60 seats, 1 reserved for Scheduled Castes and 19 for Scheduled Tribes, the Election Commission’s press note for the 2022 elections says. The roll behind that election listed 20,56,901 electors, including service voters, and 2,959 polling stations. The Assembly chosen in 2022 was put in suspended animation in February 2025, Eastern Mirror reported, and its term runs until 2027.

The Election Commission’s Manipur office lists the two Lok Sabha seats as Inner Manipur, a general seat, and Outer Manipur, reserved for Scheduled Tribes. The Fourth Schedule gives the state 1 Rajya Sabha seat. An Assembly order of 2021 describes the constituencies by reference to the 1976 Delimitation Order, and our explainer on how Lok Sabha seats are shared describes how those boundaries are redrawn.

The State Level Bankers’ Committee’s profile lists 16 districts. The High Court has its principal seat at Imphal from 23 March 2013, and Chief Justice of India Altamas Kabir inaugurated it on 25 March 2013, the e-Committee page says. Manipuri has been in the Eighth Schedule since the Seventy-first Amendment took effect on 31 August 1992.

Article 371C and the Hill Areas Committee

Article 371C, in force from 15 February 1972, lets the President order a committee of Assembly members elected from the “Hill Areas”, a term the President defines. The same order can change the government’s rules of business and give the Governor a special responsibility for the committee’s working. The Governor reports to the President every year on the administration of the hills, and the Union’s executive power extends to directing the state on it. Our explainer on Article 371 sets the Manipur clause beside its siblings.

Under Article 243M(2)(b), the panchayat chapter of the Constitution does not apply to the hill areas that have District Councils.

Who sits on the committee has been tested. The 1972 Presidential Order says it consists of members representing constituencies “situated wholly or partly in the Hill Areas”. In September 2021 an Assembly Secretary’s order added eight MLAs, after they argued that their constituencies include hill areas. Tribal organisations called the order unconstitutional, and the Speaker withdrew it on 8 September 2021, Imphal Review reported. The Chief Minister said that month the proposed autonomous district councils bill had not been tabled for lack of time and was still under discussion.

What the economy earns

PRS Legislative Research estimates that Manipur’s GSDP grew 10.4 per cent in real terms in 2024-25, against 6.5 per cent for India. Agriculture, manufacturing and services made up 19, 10 and 71 per cent of the economy. Per capita GSDP was Rs 1,53,993 in 2024-25 against Rs 2,34,859 for India, so about 34 per cent below the national figure by tuput’s arithmetic.

The budget presented on 9 March 2026 projects GSDP at Rs 68,823 crore for 2026-27, up 18 per cent. Spending excluding debt repayment is Rs 24,528 crore, and the fiscal deficit target is 2.1 per cent of GSDP, down from a revised 5.5 per cent in 2025-26. Of Rs 23,102 crore in revenue receipts, Rs 2,887 crore (12 per cent) is the state’s own and Rs 20,215 crore (88 per cent) comes from the Centre, as its share of central taxes and grants. A special central grant of Rs 2,198 crore in 2025-26 was meant for costs such as rehabilitating displaced people. PRS also records 52,290 of 1.19 lakh sanctioned posts vacant on 6 March 2026, 44 per cent.

What sets Manipur apart

Loktak is the largest freshwater lake in eastern India, the Forest Survey says, and a Ramsar site. The Wildlife Institute says the sangai (Rucervus eldii eldii) lives only in the 40-square-kilometre park on the lake’s phumdi, floating islands of vegetation, and that the deer is listed Endangered by the IUCN. The Survey adds that 53 of India’s 126 bamboo species grow in Manipur. The Ithai barrage, finished in 1983 with the 105 MW Loktak hydropower project, keeps water high enough that phumdi cannot ground and renew in the dry season, ORF’s issue brief says. The state government asked the Centre in August 2017 to review the project and remove the barrage, and the brief’s author urges that any decision rest on scientific evidence.

The All Manipur Polo Association says Sagol Kangjei, the Manipuri game that became modern polo, was played at Mapal Kangjeibung beside the royal palace and the British Political Agency, and dates regular play to 33 AD. It says British officers watched it there, and that an exhibition match took place at Silchar in 1859 and another in Kolkata in 1863. The association is the only source for those dates.

Women led the Nupi Lan (women’s war) in 1904 and again in 1939, Sahapedia reports. In 1904 about 5,000 of them gathered at Khwairamband Bazar on 5 October against a revived order for unpaid male labour, and after the 1939 protest the bazaar stayed shut for almost a year.

In sport, Mirabai Chanu won silver in the women’s 49 kg weightlifting at Tokyo on 24 July 2021 with a total of 202 kg, India’s first medal of those Games, Scroll reported.

What comes next

Violence between communities began in the state on 3 May 2023, ETV Bharat reported, and more than 200 people have been killed by its count. The President proclaimed President’s Rule on 13 February 2025 and revoked it with effect from 4 February 2026, Eastern Mirror reported, and our explainer on Article 356 covers the law. On 13 February 2026 the Supreme Court asked the Centre and the state to act on the recommendations of its committee of three former judges, led by Justice Gita Mittal, and told the CBI to file a status report on 11 FIRs. Counsel for a Kuki tribal body told the court that rehabilitation and prosecutions were very low, and the Solicitor General said the situation was now peaceful.

The Assembly’s term ends in 2027, and the count now under way will replace the 2011 figure of 28.56 lakh people.