General Dhiraj Seth placed a COAS Manipur security review at the centre of his visit to Spear Corps, where the Army Chief was briefed on the prevailing situation across the state. The visit was still ongoing when the Army's public information wing put out its account on Tuesday.

Gen Dhiraj Seth, who days earlier had paid homage at the Kargil War Memorial in Dras, took the briefing at the corps responsible for much of the Northeast.

What the COAS Manipur security review covered

The Chief was first briefed on the prevailing security situation in Manipur. He was then taken through the operational preparedness of Inspector General Assam Rifles (South), Inspector General Assam Rifles (East) and the Red Shield Division, the three formations that carry the bulk of the Army and Assam Rifles task in the state and along its approaches.

That is a wide front. Assam Rifles (South) works the Imphal valley and its rim, while the Red Shield Division, an Army mountain formation, has long been the fighting division answerable for Manipur. Reviewing their readiness together is how a corps shows a visiting Chief that its command chain is holding.

Spear Corps and the formations under review

Spear Corps is the Indian Army's III Corps, the operational headquarters for a large slice of the Northeast. Its writ runs across Manipur and Nagaland and up to the border with Myanmar, ground it shares with the Assam Rifles.

The Assam Rifles occupy an unusual place in the Indian security structure. Administered by the Ministry of Home Affairs, the force is under the operational control of the Indian Army, which is why its readiness is reported up the same chain that briefed the Chief. The same corps recently had Army instructors run a two-week security course for the CISF contingent at Agartala, one more line in the capacity-building work these formations carry alongside their operational duties.

A demanding operational backdrop

The security situation behind this COAS Manipur security review is no abstraction. Manipur has seen ethnic conflict since May 2023, and the Army and Assam Rifles have stayed deployed in strength through it, working with the state police and the central armed police forces to hold the peripheral areas and the highways. That work has been steady, and at times dangerous.

The nation-building brief

Gen Dhiraj Seth also reviewed the nation-building initiatives being run by the formations and by the Directorate General of Assam Rifles to promote peace, stability and development across the region. This is the other half of the Assam Rifles mandate: the community outreach, the school and youth engagement, the coordination with civil society that runs in parallel with the patrols and the posts. That work goes on beside the disaster relief the Army mounts across the Northeast, as in the recent flood rescue effort in upper Assam.

For a force that calls itself the sentinel of the Northeast, that second role carries its own demands.

The Chief's message to the troops

Gen Dhiraj Seth interacted with the troops and told them to remain vigilant, operationally agile and future-ready, so that they can meet the evolving security challenges while contributing to lasting peace in the region. It is the standard charge a Chief leaves behind. In Manipur it carries more weight than most.

Photographs released with the account showed the Chief in a briefing room with the corps leadership, among soldiers at a unit interaction, and in a group photograph before the banner of Headquarters Inspector General Assam Rifles (South).