Manipur: Torn Between Two Worlds

KaustubhaReflections

Aug 20—2025

“History is written by the victors,” they say. But sometimes, it is merely ignored by the indifferent.

A few months ago, while hunting for an old British census map of Assam in the attic (don’t ask why), I came across a note I had scribbled nearly a decade ago. It read:
“Manipur—fire in the hills, silence in the plains.”

Bhola, dusting a pile of files nearby, grunted.
“Sir, is that about the time you tried climbing Kangla Fort and sprained your back?”

“No, Bhola,” I said, folding the note carefully. “That was just altitude. This is about amnesia.”

I. A Land Folded in Layers

Manipur isn’t just a northeastern state—it’s a historical crucible, a cultural mosaic, and, sadly, a conflict zone that India seems to misplace between cricket scores and Cabinet reshuffles.

The Meitei, mostly Hindu (with a rising Christian minority), speak Manipuri and have historically dominated the valley’s political and cultural landscape. The Kukis and Nagas, primarily Christian, speak Tibeto-Burman languages and live in forested highlands with strong clan-based loyalties and tribal councils.

The Meitei trace their lineage back to the 1st century CE kingdom of Kangleipak. Their court records—the Cheitharol Kumbaba—are as detailed and dramatic as any Mughal chronicle, replete with omens, ignored prophecies, divine dreams, and treacherous ministers.

Meanwhile, the hill districts preserve their past not in parchment, but in rhythm: war dances, mourning songs, migration chants whispered beside hearth fires. Some mythic, some grounded in lived memory, all vital to identity.

And like all things in history, the trouble began not when they met—but when someone drew a line between them.

Ah yes, the British.

II. Divide and Rule: A Colonial Classic

In 1891, after the Anglo-Manipur War—an episode most textbooks wave past like an inconvenient pothole—the British annexed Manipur into their empire. And in the grand tradition of cartographic gossip (a term I reserve for borders drawn with more ink than insight), they divided the region into valley and hills.

Administrative separation. But also, a seed.

The Meitei were governed under one set of laws, the hill tribes under another. As Imphal grew into the political and economic center, valley communities gained better access to education, infrastructure, and state institutions. This gave Meiteis an edge in securing government jobs, shaping policy, and dominating legislative discourse. For the tribes, this wasn’t just imbalance—it was exclusion.

Then came 1949.

The king of Manipur was flown to Shillong and signed the merger agreement under circumstances still debated in the valley—some call it diplomacy, others a velvet annexation. Either way, the colonial lines were replaced not with healing, but with hesitation.

Manipur became a Part C state in 1950, a Union Territory in 1956, and was granted full statehood in 1972.

III. This Is Not the First Fire

To the outsider, the violence of 2023 may seem sudden. But history has been murmuring warnings for decades.

From whispered insurgencies in the 1960s to full-blown underground movements in the 1980s, Manipur has long simmered while the mainland blinked. Demands for statehood, autonomy, and recognition were often answered with boots and bureaucracy.

Even the law, it seems, carries different weight in the hills. AFSPA—the Armed Forces Special Powers Act—was enforced here with such permanence that the acronym itself became a noun. A presence. A threat. A ghost.

One local once told me, “The hills have eyes, sir. And they’ve seen too much.”

IV. The Fire This Time

In 2023, ethnic clashes between the Meitei and the Kuki-Zo tribes erupted with ferocity—deadly, displacing, disorienting.

The spark, many say, was lit when the Manipur High Court directed the state government to consider granting Scheduled Tribe (ST) status to the Meitei community—something they had long demanded as a protective measure. For the hill tribes, it felt like a potential land grab. Around the same time, an eviction drive—ostensibly targeting illegal forest encroachments—displaced hundreds of Kuki families. In a land where memory is already soaked in suspicion, the timing was gasoline.

Churches burned. Villages emptied. Entire families fled into forests, some surviving on wild yams and whispers. Mobile internet was cut off—because in the age of mass disinformation, silence seems safer than speech.

Rumors flew faster than truth could walk—spurred by doctored videos, incendiary WhatsApp forwards, and a digital fog that made neighbor doubt neighbor.

These aren’t just mobs—they are militias, many organized along ethnic lines, armed with looted police rifles, country-made weapons, and decades of resentment. Some factions trace their roots to disbanded insurgent groups; others are entirely new, formed on Facebook and fear. In many places, villages have turned into fortresses.

The army was deployed to contain the violence—but accusations abound: selective enforcement, delayed response, even quiet complicity. In some districts, people say they saw soldiers standing by as homes burned. In others, they accuse the forces of excess.

Bhola, watching me scroll grim headlines one evening, muttered, “Is this like when you said Rome fell quietly?”

“Worse,” I replied. “Rome at least had historians.”

V. Memory, Maps, and Manipulations

The current conflict is not merely about land or identity—it’s about historical imagination. Every community in Manipur sees a different map of belonging.

Each side remembers differently. One sees itself as marginalized custodians of an ancient plain. The other as betrayed guardians of fragile hills. Between them lies not just terrain, but parallel histories.

The Meitei argue that they are hemmed in—unable to purchase land in the hills, losing cultural ground to illegal migration from across the border, and increasingly outnumbered in their own state. They view ST status not as a privilege, but as a survival tool.

The Kuki-Zo tribes, on the other hand, see the same move as an existential threat. ST status would allow the valley population to legally claim hill lands—undermining decades of tribal protections. Many also believe the government’s forest eviction drives are veiled attempts at demographic engineering.

One fears being drowned. The other, being erased.

The British may have drawn the first lines, but it is we—with our selective attention and half-baked narratives—who keep deepening them.

VI. A Hill Remembers What the Nation Forgets

One of the more poignant oral histories I encountered came from a tribal elder in Churachandpur. Through a translator, he said:

“Our hills carry names of every raid, every betrayal, every burial. Delhi forgets. The hills remember.”

To some, these are just folk utterances. But to the people of the hills, they are historical record—passed not through paper, but fire and funeral.

It reminded me of a Khasi saying:
“Ka tyrut ka shong ha ka dieng kaba khyllem, hynrei ka pyrkhat ka sah ha ka rnga.”
(The bird may rest on the fallen branch, but the memory lives in the root.)

In Manipur, the roots go deep. And they’re tangled with loss.

VII. The Problem with Peripheral Vision

India’s northeast is often treated as an appendage—beautiful in brochures, burdensome in policy. We remember it during sporting triumphs or insurgent attacks, but rarely for the lived complexity of its people.

Manipur is a perfect example. It’s not just a “conflict zone.” It’s also the land of Ras Lila, of the ancient Lai Haraoba festival, of bamboo flutes and iron lungs. It’s where women have historically taken charge—the Meira Paibis (Women Torchbearers) once stood barehanded against armed soldiers and made even the military pause.

And they still walk today—carrying torches not just for protest, but for justice, memory, and community defense.

The state government, led by a valley-dominated political bloc, has been accused of siding openly with one group. Central authorities, meanwhile, have made high-level visits, held reviews, and issued statements—but stopped short of enforcing constitutional remedies. There has been no national address, no emergency legislation, no all-party consensus.

In school textbooks, the Northeast is often a comma—added to maps, but absent from memory. We know its silks, not its sorrows.

Why the silence? Perhaps it’s geography. Perhaps it’s fatigue.

But the silence runs deeper than disinterest. Addressing Manipur would mean confronting uncomfortable constitutional questions: land rights, tribal autonomy, and the limits of federalism. It would mean taking a side in a deeply fractured conflict—risking votes, headlines, and the already brittle peace in the Northeast. Delhi avoids it not because it can’t act, but because action would cost more than apathy.

And we scroll past because there are no viral videos with celebrity hashtags. No Delhi Gate protests. No simplified villain. Just a long-burning fire in a distant corner most Indians can’t place on a map.

VIII. What Do We Owe the Forgotten?

Bhola once asked me, “Sir, why do you keep telling stories no one remembers?”

I told him: “Because someone must.”

If we forget Manipur’s pain, we lose more than compassion—we lose clarity. We begin to think that silence equals peace, that unreported equals resolved.

But history doesn’t work that way.

It waits. In hills and homes. In songs and scars.

IX. What Next?

To begin, we must unlearn our assumptions. Manipur is not a monolith. Meitei, Kuki, Naga—all have grievances, yes, but also aspirations, lullabies, epics. Peace cannot come from uniformity—it must come from understanding.

Second, we need honest mediation—not performative visits or aerial surveys, but ground-up dialogue. Trust cannot be airlifted in; it must be grown.

Third, let’s make remembering a national habit. Schools must teach the northeast beyond map-pointing. Media must invest in context, not just coverage. And the rest of us—yes, even Bhola and I—must listen more than we lecture.

X. A Closing Echo

In 2004, after the brutal custodial death of Thangjam Manorama, twelve Meitei women stood naked outside the Assam Rifles headquarters in Imphal, holding a banner that read:

“Indian Army, Rape Us Too.”

Bhola, when I told him that, was silent for a full minute. Then he said quietly, “Sir… that’s not protest. That’s a scream.”

Exactly. And that scream, like so many from Manipur, still echoes—if only we’d tune in.

Epilogue: The Map

I finally found that map, by the way.

Ink faded. Folds torn. The British census boundaries still visible—arbitrary, unfeeling, absolute.

But here’s what struck me: the borders didn’t outline administration.

They outlined assumption. And absence.

Perhaps the real silence isn’t in Delhi. It’s in every file not opened, every visit not made, every protest not acknowledged. In a nation that prides itself on remembering, Manipur is a masterclass in forgetting by design.

🧭 Do you know a tale from the northeast that history forgot? Pass it along. Stories, like justice, travel best when shared.

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