Lingneifel Vaiphei fell to the floor in agony after seeing her son’s lifeless body lying on a cold steel stretcher in a morgue in Chennai, the capital of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
Steven’s body was tightly wrapped in a striped woolen shawl, traditionally worn by the Kuki-Zo tribe in the northeastern state of Manipur. His face turned blue. He was just six months old.
Crying profusely, the 20-year-old mother continued kissing her son’s face as she carried his body to an ambulance, with her husband Kennedy Vaiphei walking alongside her. Amid sobs and silent anger, the family drove to a cemetery, about 7 km away, and laid their only son to rest. Nine months after Lingneifel and Kennedy moved to Chennai in search of a fresh start away from violence, a nightmare they never imagined visited them.
Less than 24 hours earlier, on the evening of April 25, the couple rushed Steven to Kilpauk Medical Hospital in Chennai after his week-old fever refused to subside and continued to worsen.
But the baby died on the way, in his mother’s arms – before the family could even get to the hospital.
A year of deadly violence
Steven was born last winter in Chennai, nearly 3,200 kilometers (1,988 miles) away from the place his parents call home in Manipur, which is in the grip of deadly ethnic conflicts between the predominantly Hindu Meitei tribes and the Kuki- Zo, predominantly Christian, for a long time. a year now.
The Meiteis – about 60% of Manipur’s 2.9 million people – are concentrated in the more prosperous areas of the valleys around the state capital, Imphal. The Kuki-Zo and the Nagas, another prominent tribal group, live mainly in scattered settlements in the hills surrounding the valley. The tribes constitute about 40% of the population of the Himalayan state.
The Meiteis are politically dominant. The state government is led by Chief Minister N Biren Singh, a Meitei and member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In the 60-member Manipur legislative assembly, 40 are Meitei.
The Kuki-Zo and Nagas are protected by the Scheduled Tribe (ST) status granted by the Indian constitution, making them eligible for several state-run affirmative action programs. The statute provides them with shares in state educational institutions and in government jobs – a provision that, for decades, caused tensions between the tribes and the Meities.
These tensions came to a head in March last year, when a local court recommended that ST quotas also be extended to Meiteis. The court order angered the Kuki-Zo and Naga groups, who, fearing a takeover of their rights by the Meitei majority, held protest marches mainly in mountainous districts, demanding the withdrawal of the court order. The protests led to threats of reaction from Meitei.
During a Kuki-Zo rally on May 3, 2023, in the hilly Churachandpur district, a centuries-old gate built to commemorate the tribe’s 1917-1919 rebellion against British colonials was set on fire, reportedly by a Meitei mob. The incident immediately triggered deadly clashes between the two communities across the state.
Among the murders, mutilations and lynchings, there were also multiple allegations of sexual assault against Kuki-Zo women and the burning of dozens of their villages and churches. The internet remained suspended for months across the state and the army was called in to contain the bloodshed.
However, a year later, the violence has not abated – making it one of India’s longest-running civil wars, which has claimed more than 200 lives and displaced tens of thousands of people, mainly Kuki-Zo people.
Among those displaced were Lingneifel and Kennedy, who moved to Tamil Nadu in July last year after their villages were burned in the first week of the fighting. As they rebuilt their lives in a new city, despite language and cultural barriers, the struggle for subsistence outweighed their concerns about violence in their country.
Lingneifel, who works at a restaurant in Chennai serving local cuisine, had to return to work just days after Steven’s death, fearing she would be fired for being absent. Kennedy still hasn’t found work.
“When we arrived in Tamil Nadu, we didn’t know anyone here. We weren’t even sure what to do when our baby got sick,” she told Al Jazeera, lamenting that she could barely find time for her son due to long hours working at the restaurant.
However, a larger support network for the displaced Kuki-Zo is slowly emerging. Made up of professionals from the community, the network is now installed in the cities of Chennai, New Delhi and Bengaluru, helping them find accommodation and work.
Haoneithang Kipgen, 26, is a member of the network. He arrived in Chennai last June.
Days before the violence began, Haoneithang borrowed 300,000 rupees ($3,600) from a local moneylender to open a customer support business in his village of K Phaizawl in Manipur’s Kangpokpi district. But his shop was burned down, along with the rest of the village.
The debt, however, had to be repaid, forcing Haoneithang to migrate to Chennai, where his small rented apartment doubles as a transit home for other Kuki-Zo displaced by the violence.
Haoneithang said many of his tribe also send part of their salaries to a fund to support volunteers in their home countries who protect Kuki-Zo villages after government forces withdrew from many areas of a buffer zone between the hills and the valley. These areas have been the most vulnerable in the conflict.
But Haoneithang also emphasized that he cannot regard all Meitei people as his enemy.
“During my first restaurant job, my roommate was Meitei. We were far from our state, from our communities at war, but we weren’t,” he told Al Jazeera. “Many of them are my friends, how can I? My problem is with [Chief Minister] Biren Singh and the government of Manipur.”
Singh’s government has been accused of enabling violence for political gain – a charge the chief minister and the BJP have denied.
Most of the displaced Kuki-Zo across India share a similar sentiment. “We don’t want to go back now, violence only increases and the government does nothing,” said Kennedy.
Thanggoulen Kipgen, professor of sociology at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in Chennai, said the violence set Manipur back by decades.
Referring to both the collapse of the economy and distrust between communities, Thanggoulen saw migration as the only option for people affected by war and seeking survival.
“The Meitei are also fleeing the state to protect their families from being sucked into the violence. The Kuki-Zo have no choice but to migrate and work to support their families in their home country,” Thanggoulen told Al Jazeera.
Deciding BJP’s ‘denial’
The scale of death and displacement faced by Manipuris on both sides of the ethnic divide, BJP critics say, has been largely absent from the prime minister’s narrative.
In an April 8 interview with a newspaper in the neighboring state of Assam, Modi said that “timely intervention” by the federal and state governments had resulted in a “marked improvement in the situation.”
“We have dedicated our best resources and administrative machinery to resolve the conflict,” said the prime minister. “The corrective measures taken include a financial package for the relief and rehabilitation of people living in shelter camps in the state.”
However, less than a week after Modi’s statement, videos showing the mutilated bodies of two Kuki-Zo men went viral on social media. And on April 27, a military post in Bishnupur district was shelled by unidentified men, killing two paramilitary personnel and injuring two others.
The violence forced authorities to hold the ongoing general elections in the two Manipur seats in two phases – April 19 and 26. However, despite massive security, several incidents of violence and alleged voter fraud were reported thereafter, forcing authorities to carry out re-voting at several of the dozen or so voting booths.
Many in Manipur accuse Arambai Tenggol, an armed militia allegedly backed by the ruling BJP, of violence and electoral fraud. The opposition Indian National Congress, at a press conference on April 19, complained of “unprecedented mass violence and capture of cabins in the valley region by armed groups”.
At least three witnesses Al Jazeera spoke to said they saw Arambai Tenggol members forcing voters to vote for the BJP in districts across the valley. The group and the BJP denied the allegations. BJP state vice-president Chidananda Singh told Al Jazeera that the party “always stands for free and fair elections”.
But Congress politician in Manipur, Kh Debabrata, said the crisis has only worsened under the BJP.
“There is a total collapse of the economy and a complete militarization of society, with armed groups in power everywhere. This is well beyond the control of the BJP government,” he said, demanding the dismissal of the state’s chief minister and the imposition of President’s Rule – an administrative arrangement that places a state under the direct control of New Delhi during a political crisis. or security. .
“If we have to resolve this division between hill and valley, CM [chief minister] have to go. There is no other option,” said the Congress politician.
Chidananda Singh of the BJP rejected the charge, blaming the Congress for being unaware of the realities in Manipur. “It is their policy to blame only us,” he told Al Jazeera.
However, many in Manipur, including among the Meiteis, accuse the BJP of militarizing their community through groups like Arambai Tenggol.
Disillusioned with the violence, Amar L* left his home in Imphal and settled in New Delhi to pursue a degree in history, as “remaining in Imphal would have hindered my education”.
“The way Arambai Tenggol is welcoming so many young people is frightening. Our aspirations for Manipur were and are different,” the 20-year-old told Al Jazeera.
Patricia Mukhim, editor of The Shillong Times, said continued political incompetence has failed to curb violence in Manipur.
“The nature of politics is to thrive on division and the propagation of fear,” she said, calling on communities in conflict to discuss their issues “without placing too much trust in the government or armed groups.”
“There is no alternative to peace,” she said.
*Name changed to protect individual’s identity due to fear of backlash.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
