Demonstrators react as smoke billows from a tear gas shell fired by police during a protest march to demand an end to ethnic violence in India’s Manipur state. © Reuters
IMPHAL, India — Indian army soldier Thanglenlal Lhungdim had insisted that his parents flee their village in violence-wracked Manipur and stay with him nearly 1,500 kilometers away in bustling Kolkata.
But the couple returned home in a fateful decision that cost Lhungdim’s 46-year-old mother her life in this remote northeastern pocket of the country torn apart by bloody ethnic conflict.
Months later, Lhungdim travelled a grueling 80 hours to reach his mother’s funeral in Manipur, a state on the border with Myanmar.
“I am the eldest, I cannot break down. You’ve no idea what is going through my head,” the 30-year-old told Nikkei Asia, laying flowers by a portrait of his beloved mother at her grave. “As an army man, I’ve been protecting my country, but I couldn’t protect my own mother.”
His mother Nengjakhol — shot dead by insurgents this month in a fresh spasm of violence — is buried at a graveyard filled with victims of a conflict that has dragged on for more than a year and killed about 230 people, with tens of thousands more displaced by the fighting.
Indian army soldier Thanglenlal Lhungdim at the grave of his mother who was killed during a firefight in the strife-torn state of Manipur. (Photo by Greeshma Kuthar)Manipur’s violence stems from conflict between the region’s Hindu majority Meitei people and the minority Christian Kuki-Zo, with the two communities divided by a buffer zone patrolled by federal security forces. The Kuki-Zo control hills surrounding the Meitei-controlled Imphal Valley.
The state capital Imphal has witnessed brutal scenes including public lynchings, sexual assault and widespread arson of property, including churches.
The state government, controlled by lawmakers in India’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, has been accused of siding with the majority Meitei, while Meitei-aligned militias have faced claims of committing extra-judicial killings.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has yet to visit the strife-torn region since fresh conflict broke out in May last year.
The U.S. State Department’s annual human rights report this year pointed to “significant” rights abuses in Manipur, a study rejected by India’s foreign ministry as “deeply biased.”
In mid-September, India’s government said it was pushing to resolve the conflict while internet and mobile data services were restored after a brief shutdown.
“We hope that we will be able to bring the situation (in Manipur) under control,” Home Minister Amit Shah told reporters. But “if both (ethnic groups) do not come to an understanding, there won’t be a resolution to the matter.”
Damage from a bomb that killed a priest at a residential compound owned by the great-grandson of Manipur’s first chief minister. (Photo by Greeshma Kuthar)Longstanding tensions between the groups over land claims and job opportunities soared when a court recommended that the majority Meitei, who make up over half the population, be granted status rights like those given to Kuki-Zo, a group accounting for less than 20% of Manipur’s people.
The intense fighting has severed easy travel for Kuki-Zo living in Imphal, forcing them to take circuitous routes to reach their hillside villages — a challenge that slowed Thanglenlal’s trip to attend his mother’s funeral this month.
About 30 Meitei insurgents had surrounded the family’s village, launching a bomb-and-gunfire attack, according to authorities. Security personnel guarding the village of 80 residents returned fire but it took four hours to drive away the men who had set fire to whatever they could.
Nengjakhol’s husband noticed his wife was missing and a search operation was launched. He later found her face down dead with bullet and shrapnel wounds.
When Nikkei Asia visited the remote village inaccessible by vehicle, all of the Kuki-Zo residents had fled.
The fresh violence began at the start of September, with the killing of 31-year-old N. Surbala in the Meitei village of Koutruk, a scene of frequent gun battles. The woman’s daughter and seven other residents were injured in the attack by Kuki-Zo insurgents.
In Moirang, a small Meitei town about 45 km outside Imphal, a homemade bomb killed a 70-year-old priest this month when it crashed into a compound that is home to Mairembam Kelvin, the great-grandson of Manipur’s first chief minister.
While Modi’s government has said it’s making strides in reducing violence, Kelvin has no trust in the state or central governments’ ability to end the civil war.
“Are we being ignored because we are a small state in the northeast?” he asked. “Don’t our fellow Indians care about us?”
source : asia.nikkei