By Patricia Mukhim
A visit to Kangpokpi district of Manipur, one of the worst affected by the recent violence that started on May 3 this year is heartbreaking. There are 57 relief camps across the district and distraught families whose homes have been burnt down have spent the last six months in these camps with the bare minimum needs met. The Shillong-based Martin Luther Christian University which has a good number of Kuki-Zo students on its roll has been extending relief assistance to meet the immediate needs of the inmates in relief camps. It was a rare blessing to be able to accompany the University Chancellor, Dr Glen Kharkongor and Dr Rennie Lakadong, Dean of Educational Outreach on this visit to better understand the situation on the ground, much of which remains unreported.
Once the violence abates, it is normal for the media to focus its eyeballs on another theatre of action where the current Israel versus Palestine conflict is raging. Manipur is too distant to matter for those ruling this country. It is our own barefaced idealism that makes us turn to Delhi to resolve our problems big and small as if we have lost the capacity to think for ourselves. Let’s accept the fact that Delhi doesn’t care if we disappear from the face of this earth. This region is just a hotbed of problems that takes up a lot of the Delhi Durbar’s precious time when they have better things to attend to such as the upcoming state elections. But let me not digress.
The first relief camp we visited was called Mandap Relief Camp housed inside a community hall. There were over 280 inmates of which 60 are children. The camp has disabled persons and some who are mentally ill. The inmates that were ailing were allowed to stay in rooms that were meant to be used for other purposes during peace times. Three women had given birth to babies in the last six months. Only a woman can understand the pain and agony of not having the basic medical care needed at this crucial time or the privacy, the silence and the sleep needed to recover from the trauma of childbirth at a time when their lives have been completely disrupted and the only home they have known has gone up in flames. Over and above all the trauma that has visited them is the spectre of uncertainty that haunts these families because they have to start life afresh. And they don’t know when and how! The very thought makes one’s heart bleed. We will never really fathom the depths of despair; the wretchedness and sense of utter helplessness of people whose lives are wrecked forever.
The mobile phone which otherwise is an instrument of distraction has unwittingly become a blessing in disguise as little children spend their time playing video games and perhaps some children’s films. Without that temporary distraction it would have been difficult for parents to keep their sanity in these crowded, enclosed spaces where families spread their bedding on the floor of the large hall in the evening and fold up these makeshift beddings in the daytime. Now that winter is approaching, families are already worried about how to keep themselves warm.
After Covid struck in 2020 and there were two solid years of loss of normal schooling for kids, no one thought that a similar yet more cruel disruption would up-end lives like this. Rev K Sithlou, the Spokesperson, Committee on Tribal Unity (CoTU) an organisation formed after the conflict broke out on May 3, last narrated the tales of woe faced by the Kuki-Zo community in accessing basic necessities. The Government of Manipur seems to have abandoned the people in the hills. The Chief Minister has not visited a single relief camp even as a gesture of humanity. In his interview to a section of the media the Chief Minister says he has not visited the relief camps in the hills because he has also not visited those in Imphal.
In the five relief camps visited, one of which is in the Industrial Training Institute (ITI) we witnessed a community kitchen where the only food available is rice, dal (which looks watery) and fried potatoes. What nutrition will this food provide especially to children in their growing up years? On rare occasions some do-gooders send money and then eggs are purchased and served to the inmates. It’s unimaginable that India with its rich resources and the tribal fraternity across the region that should have bonded at this moment of crisis to extend help to the 40,000 plus people in different relief camps has been found wanting. Clearly, we seem to have lost our humanity.
When I asked the people of Kangpokpi where the classes for the ITI students are being held temporarily while the main building is used as a relief camp, they said the Institution was barely functioning. There were neither teachers nor the necessary equipment needed for an ITI. A general sense of futility is what one senses on seeing the governance vacuum in this hill district and the others inhabited by the Kuki-Zo people.
Listening to the academicians and officers who are now displaced from their positions at Manipur University and at the Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) and how they managed to escape by a hair’s breadth sends shivers up the spine. They were hunted down and got away through sheer luck, by hiding in drains and the thick bushes around the University campus and thankfully under cover of darkness. They left behind all their belongings and just ran for their lives. That’s how the targeted attacks on the Kuki-Zo people in Imphal happened. Even in a war there is enough warning given to civilians by security forces to flee to safety but in this case no such warning was sounded. The Kuki-Zo people were caught unawares.
On our visit to what is called the “frontline” which is the area demarcating the boundary between Kangpokpi and Imphal a huge contingent of CRPF personnel were guarding a place called Gamgiphai in what looked like a border between two countries with bunkers all around as a self-defence mechanism. Further away in the forest around the Nepali village and Liangmei Naga villages were young Kuki-Zo volunteers dressed in battle fatigues and carrying guns. These young men, nay boys who should be attending schools and colleges but are now duty bound to stand guard round the clock lest there are attacks or attempts to set houses on fire by miscreants coming from beyond the well-set boundaries. These young men do shift duties and follow a strict regimen of exercise and football to keep fit. There are families that volunteer to cook their food for them. It’s an existential crisis of unprecedented proportions.
What is most distressing about the Manipur situation is the complete breakdown of governance and civilians being armed to the teeth – the valley extremists – in the main using weapons stolen from police armoury. Till date 200 Kuki villages were burnt down which include 7000 plus homes and about 360 churches and a death toll of 143. Clearly the aggressors were prepared and the victims caught by surprise. There is uncertainty and a sense of futility writ large on parents’ eyes when their children ask them when they will return home to prepare for Christmas. How do parents give false hopes to their children? And who will mend the damage to young minds that are disturbed beyond measure. In Kangpokpi there is a ramshackle Mission Hospital where doctors displaced from Imphal are rendering yeomen’s service. But they admit that the Hospital is deficient on so many counts.
We speak of the need to nurture hope just to survive the daily ordeal. Right now that hope is like a candle in the wind… flickering to remain alive…