More than Two Years of Displacement and the Constitutional Betrayal of Return:

The Illegality of Restricting Meitei IDPs from Resettling in Their Own Burnt Homes

Abstract

For more than 936 days, internally displaced Meitei residents of Churachandpur, Kangpokpi, Moreh and adjoining regions have been prevented from returning to their homes burnt during ethnic violence in Manipur. The State, having failed to protect their lives and property since 3^rd May 2023, now restrains their return through police and central forces.

This article questions whether such a restraint can be justified as a “reasonable restriction” under Article 19(5) of the Constitution, when it violates fundamental guarantees under Articles 19(1)(d), 19(1)(e), 14, 21 and 300A. It concludes that prolonged force-backed exclusion of displaced citizens constitutes unconstitutional extinguishment of their birth right to residence. It further examines the duty of judicial intervention, and argues that judicial silence in the face of displacement becomes dormant complicity in structural injustice, thereby threatening the constitutional role of the judiciary as sentinel on the qui vive.

I. Introduction: From Displacement to Constitutional Injury

The burning of homes during ethnic violence in Manipur did not destroy only property; it fractured citizenship. When the State fails to prevent violence on 3^rd May 2023 and thereon, it violates Article 21 and 300A. But when the same State uses force to block citizens from returning for more than 936 days, the injury deepens into a second constitutional wrong: violation of Articles 19 and 14.

The issue, therefore, is not only humanitarian or administrative. It is constitutional betrayal.

At stake is a question that tests the foundation of India’s democratic identity:

Can a welfare State displace citizens through failure, and then discipline them through force for wanting to return?

II. Constitutional Framework of the Right to Return

1. Core Rights under Articles 19(1)(d) and 19(1)(e)

-- Art. 19(1)(d) guarantees the right to move freely.

-- Art. 19(1)(e) guarantees the right to reside and settle anywhere in India.

These are not abstract liberties. For IDPs, they are rights to reclaim their birthplace and identity. The freedom to return home is the substance, not the margin, of Article 19.

2. Article 19(5): Strict Limits on State Restriction

Under Article 19(5), restrictions must be:

-- In the interest of the general public or

-- For the protection of Scheduled Tribes, and must be reasonable.

After Maneka Gandhi vs Union of India (1978), reasonableness must also satisfy:

-- Article 21 ? Just, fair, non-arbitrary procedure.

-- Article 14 ? Equality and non-arbitrariness.

Thus, any restriction on return engages the golden triangle: Articles 14–19–21.
If it fails one, it fails all.

III. Constitutional Analysis: The Right to Demand Return and the Illegality of Suppression

Internally displaced persons (IDPs) who attempt to return home after 2½ years of forced absence are not asking for any special concession from the State. They are simply reclaiming what the Constitution already guarantees—the right to reside and move freely under Articles 19(1)(d) and 19(1)(e).

When a citizen exercises a fundamental right, the State cannot treat it as a threat.

Any voice raised against the State’s failure to protect citizens’ rights cannot be suppressed under Article 19(2)–19(6). The permissible grounds of restriction—public order, security of the State, or morality—cannot be invoked to silence displaced citizens demanding the restoration of their constitutional rights. When the State itself is unable to protect its people, it cannot further curtail their liberties, nor can it violate the right to life under Article 21 by continuing to restrain citizens from returning to their homes. A State that fails in its protective function cannot convert its own inaction into a justification for stifling constitutional rights.

However, in the Manipur context:

-- peaceful attempts to return home, and

-- democratic expressions demanding return

have been suppressed using police and central force, including rubber bullets and tear gas.

This introduces a deeper constitutional question:

Can the State silence demands for the exercise of a fundamental right by pretending that such demands fall under Article 19(2)–19(6)?

Article 19(2)–19(6) and Why They Do NOT Apply

Articles 19(2) to 19(6) permit reasonable restrictions only when opposition to State action:

-- threatens public order,

-- endangers the security of the State,

-- incites crime or violence,

-- undermines sovereignty, morality, or decency,

-- or interferes with protection of Scheduled Tribes (Art. 19(5)).

Here, IDPs:

-- do not incite violence,

-- do not threaten public order,

-- do not disturb security,

-- do not diminish the rights of Scheduled Tribes,

-- and demand only what is already theirs.

Thus, no constitutional ground exists to suppress their voice or prevent return.

Accordingly:

Peaceful assertion of a fundamental right cannot be treated as a threat requiring restriction.

Any suppression of such assertion is not “regulation” under Article 19; it is violation of Article 19.

Nullus videtur dolo facere qui suo jure utitur

No one is deemed to act wrongfully who exercises his own right.

Demanding return to one’s own home is not agitation; it is constitutional self defense.

Judicial Doctrine of Overbreadth and Suppression

In Maneka Gandhi and subsequent cases, the Supreme Court held that restrictions on rights must be:

-- narrowly tailored

-- necessary, and

-- proportionate.

Here, State action is:

-- total (blanket ban),

-- indefinite (936+ days),

-- violent (force used against peaceful citizens),

-- without individual assessment, and

-- without rehabilitation roadmap.

This is overbroad State suppression, failing the constitutional test of proportionality.

Does Article 19 permit the State to criminalize the exercise of fundamental rights by suppressing peaceful demands for return?

The answer is unequivocally no. The State cannot first fail to protect a citizen’s home and then use force to suppress the citizen’s plea to return to it.

The suppression of peaceful demands by Meitei IDPs to return to their own homes for over 936 days cannot be justified under Article 19(2)–19(6), for it treats the exercise of fundamental rights as a threat, converting constitutional liberty into an administrative offense.

IV. Failure of the 936-Day Block Under the V.G. Row Test

In V.G. Row, the Supreme Court held that:

Restrictions on fundamental rights under Article 19 must be reasonable, and reasonableness must not be abstract but judged by:

-- Duration of the restriction

-- Extent of the restriction

-- Circumstances under which it is imposed

-- Manner of imposition

-- Balance between State necessity and individual freedom

-- Reasonableness cannot be left to legislative or executive discretion; courts must scrutinize it.

The Court emphasized that fundamental rights are core to liberty and must not be overridden by administrative convenience.

In V.G. Row (AIR 1952 SC 196), the Supreme Court laid down that “reasonableness” under Article 19(5) must be examined according to the duration, extent, circumstances, and manner of imposition, ensuring that restrictions do not convert constitutional rights into administrative victims.

Applying the V.G. Row test, the 936+ day armed restriction on Meitei IDPs’ return is not a temporary security measure but a de facto permanent deprivation of residence, making it constitutionally unreasonable.

The emphasis on judicial scrutiny in V.G. Row rejects passive deference to executive discretion. Where the State restrains movement or residence for prolonged and coercive periods, courts must “examine not only the objective but the method, the manner, and the extent,” preventing administrative force from becoming a substitute for constitutional authority.

In V.G. Row (1952), reasonableness requires examining:

V.G. Row Parameter       936-Day Restriction

Duration                          2.5+ years ? not temporary; becomes permanent displacement

Extent                              Total ban on return; militarised neighbourhoods

Circumstances/Manner  Rubber bullets, tear gas, mass prohibition without individual         assessment

Balance                           State convenience over citizens’ constitutional existence

By its own criteria, the block is manifestly unreasonable.

Nullus videtur dolo facere qui suo jure utitur

No one acts wrongfully who exercises his own right. IDPs simply reclaim what the Constitution guarantees—residence.

V. Misuse of “General Public Interest” as Collective Punishment

A State cannot distort “general public interest” to:

-- Permanently freeze a community’s freedom,

-- Excuse failure to provide security,

-- Silence victims while protecting perpetrators.

True public interest must include the displaced public.

Salus populi suprema lex — the welfare of the people is the supreme law.
If “people” excludes IDPs, the State commits constitutional discrimination under Article 14.

VI. Demographic Displacement, Tribal Protection Cannot Justify Ethnic Exclusion

Article 19(5)’s protection of Scheduled Tribes exists to guard tribal identity, not to ethnically purge original inhabitants. Meitei residents did not recently settle; they were historically rooted.

Article 19(5) permits reasonable restrictions on movement and residence in the “interests of the general public” and for the “protection of the interests of any Scheduled Tribe.” This protection clause is designed to safeguard vulnerable tribal communities from exploitation, land alienation, and cultural erosion—not to justify ethnic segregation, territorial partition, or the permanent exclusion of rightful inhabitants. The constitutional purpose is protective, not punitive.

In this context, the Meitei IDPs are not recent entrants into the affected regions. They are ancestral residents, living on their traditional homesteads long before the existence of the constitution. By contrast, the other community includes comparatively recent settlers, many with origins across neighbouring international borders, whose demographic influx in recent decades has significantly altered the ethnic composition of these areas. Protection under Article 19(5) cannot be transformed into a mechanism for evicting original inhabitants or legitimizing the territorial claims of more recent settlers.

The constitutional crisis deepens when these new settlers—having displaced or threatened the original inhabitants—now demand separate administration over the same territories. Such demands directly undermine the foundational principle of unity in diversity, which forms the bedrock of India’s pluralistic federalism and is recognized as an inseparable component of the basic structure of the Constitution. No constitutional provision, including Article 19(5), empowers the State to enable or tolerate demographic displacement driven by external migration or to reward such displacement with political or administrative concessions.

Against this backdrop, the continued restraint imposed by the government preventing Meitei IDPs from returning to their damaged homes for more than two and a half years stands as a constitutionally indefensible action. When the State—despite full knowledge of the demographic pressures and externalities—fails to restore the security of displaced citizens, yet simultaneously restricts their right to return, it effectively legitimizes unlawful exclusion and stabilizes a de facto redrawing of internal boundaries. Such a policy cannot qualify as a “reasonable restriction” under Article 19(5).

Instead, it results in the State becoming an inadvertent instrument of inverted discrimination, violating Article 14 (equality), Article 19 (freedom of movement and residence), and ultimately Article 21 (right to life with dignity). More gravely, by allowing demographic displacement to ossify into territorial segregation and by restraining citizens from reclaiming their constitutionally protected homes, the State breaches the basic structure doctrine, which prohibits any measure—legislative, executive, or administrative—that undermines India’s unity, sovereignty, equality, and constitutional morality.

Thus, the restraint on Meitei IDPs returning to their original homesteads cannot be constitutionally justified. It represents not merely administrative inaction but a constitutional betrayal that threatens the very architecture of India’s democratic and pluralistic order.

Nullus commodum capere potest de injuria sua propria

No one may benefit from his own wrong. Violence cannot justify permanent exclusion.

VII. Article 21: Right to Life, Dignity, Shelter, and Return

After Francis Coralie Mullin, Article 21 includes:

-- Dignity, shelter, and life conditions.

-- State duty to protect life and property.

Thus, when the State:

-- Fails to prevent violence, and

-- Uses force to block return, and

-- Provides no rehabilitation roadmap,

It violates Articles 21 + 19 + 14 simultaneously.

This becomes State-manufactured homelessness.

Lex injusta non est lex : An unjust law is no law.

VIII. Birthright, Not Benefaction: Residence as Identity

Meitei IDPs are not seeking charity of resettlement. Their right flows from:

-- ancestral habitation,

-- domicile,

-- historical presence.

Thus, the State does not “grant” residence; it recognizes it. Blocking their return destroys identity itself.

IX. Force Against Peaceful Return: End of the Welfare State

Armed action against peaceful returners—without legal order, review, or rehabilitation policy—constitutes:

-- violation of Articles 14, 19, 21

-- breach of public trust

-- criminalization of citizenship

Ubi jus ibi remedium — Where there is a right, there is a remedy.
Fiat justitia ruat caelum — Let justice be done though the heavens fall.

X. Constitutional Anxiety: When Courts Remain Silent

The judiciary is not merely an interpreter of law but sentinel of liberty (sentinel on the qui vive). If courts fail to examine displacement as a constitutional wrong, their silence:

-- legitimizes oppression,

-- institutionalizes injustice,

-- erodes constitutional morality.

Judicial silence is not neutrality; it becomes passive complicity.
A court that fails to ask why citizens are barred from their birthplace risks becoming an instrument of delay rather than a forum of justice.

When displaced citizens are forced to plead for their birthright, and courts decline meaningful scrutiny, the Constitution becomes defenseless against its own protectors.

Such silence fosters a democratic paradox: citizens must fight the State to enjoy rights the State is bound to protect.

XI. Conclusion

The State’s force-backed ban on the return of Meitei IDPs for more than 936 days:

-- cannot be justified under Article 19(5)

-- violates the golden triangle (Art. 14, 19, 21)

-- extinguishes Article 300A rights

-- weaponizes State failure into State power.

A State may fail to protect, but it cannot punish citizens for trying to rebuild their own lives.

If courts remain silent, then justice is not delayed — it is displaced. The Constitution, then, is not upheld by institutions but reclaimed by the very citizens it sought to protect.