Patriots' Day 2026: Revisiting the war that cost Manipur its sovereignty

Manipur is shut down today for Patriots' Day, observed in memory of five men executed by the British at the close of the Anglo-Manipur War of 1891. Schools and colleges are closed, wreaths are being laid at Bir Tikendrajit Park in Imphal, and the state is pausing to mark 135 years since their deaths.

The war that led to those hangings began with a succession fight. Maharaja Chandrakirti Singh of Manipur died in 1886, and the scramble over who would replace him gave the British an opening. By early 1891, colonial officials wanted a more pliable ruler on the throne and moved to arrest Yuvraj Bir Tikendrajit Singh, who effectively ran the kingdom at the time. The arrest attempt set off fighting in Imphal on March 24, 1891, in which several British officers died, including Chief Commissioner James Quinton, who had gone to negotiate.

The British government in Calcutta declared war, and three columns marched into Manipur: one from Kohima under Major General H Collett, one from Silchar under Colonel R H F Rennick, and one from Tamu in Burma under Brigadier General T Graham. The Tamu column ran into the toughest fight at Khongjom, where Manipuri troops under Major Paona Brajabashi held out against a far better-armed force. They lost, but the stand is remembered separately every April 23 as Khongjom Day.

British forces took Imphal on April 27, 1891, and raised their flag over the royal palace. Tikendrajit was arrested on May 23. On August 13, he and Thangal General were hanged before a crowd at Pheidabung, now Bir Tikendrajit Park. Three more men - Niranjan Subedar, Pukhramba Kajao and Chirai Naga were hanged the same day inside Manipur jail. Maharaja Kulachandra Singh and 21 noblemen lost their titles and land and were exiled for life to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The British then installed a five-year-old boy from a side branch of the royal family on the throne as a figurehead.

Manipur has marked August 13 as Patriots' Day every year since, a way of keeping those executions in public memory. State leaders return to the same framing each year: a small kingdom lost the war, but it fought.

This year's observance falls at a hard moment. Ethnic violence between the Meitei and Kuki-Zo communities has run since May 2023, with official figures putting the death toll above 217 and more than 58,800 people still displaced. Two days before Patriots' Day, armed men allegedly burned around nine houses and a church at Tokpa Naga village in Kangpokpi district on the night of August 11, a day after three houses were torched at nearby Kailenjang.

President's Rule, imposed in February 2025, ended in February this year when Yumnam Khemchand Singh took over as chief minister. But the situation on the ground remains fragile, with fresh incidents of violence continuing to be reported. 135 years after Manipur lost a war for its sovereignty, the wounds it carries today are of a different kind, but no less real.