Majority Hindu Tribe in India’s Manipur Blockades Christian Tribes to Starve Them Out

The Times of India (TOI) reported on Monday that a blockade on food and medical supplies by the valley-dwelling Hindu majority of the Manipur province is starving the hill-dwelling Kuki Christian tribes, thousands of whom have been displaced from their homes into refugee camps.

Manipur has been torn by violent ethnic conflict since May when the Meitei launched a petition to acquire the same preferences in employment and land ownership that are extended to the Kuki and other minority groups in the province. This enraged the tribal residents as the Meitei are much larger and better off than other ethnic groups, and they occupy most of the good lowlands in Manipur.

Ethnic grievances erupted into violent assault and vandalism, and Manipur became a hot topic in Indian politics as opposition leaders accused the ruling BJP party of not doing enough to restore peace, perhaps because BJP has a Hindu nationalist platform and favors the Meitei villagers.

The Kukis and Meiteis both created highway blockades to deprive each other of resources, a tactic that has been used in previous ethnic clashes because there are few good roads leading into the rough terrain of Manipur. Blockades during a Kuki-Meitei struggle in 2011 effectively cut the entire state off from the rest of India for over three months. On that occasion, the Kukis were demanding independence from the rest of the state.

Kuki protesters cut off the central Churachandpur district in April with a blockade that lasted two days. After initially calling for an even larger blockade, the Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum (ITLF) of Manipur decided to suspend protests and remove all roadblocks while negotiating with the Indian central government. The ITLF said it had “lost hope in the present government” of Manipur and would negotiate only with the national government.

Both the Kukis and the Meitei set up more blockades last month, with the Kukis shutting down National Highway 2, the main route into the Imphal valley, while the Meitei blocked roads into Churachandpur, the largest district in Manipur. Churachandpur has a sizable number of both Kuki residents and displaced refugees, with an estimated 10,000 people currently living in its relief camps.

The Kukis removed their blockades from National Highway 2 at the request of the Indian central government, but according to TOI, the Meitei have “steadfastly maintained their blockade” — bringing shortages of doctors and medicine for everything from kidney dialysis to cancer treatment to “critical levels.”

A Churachandpur hospital superintendent pleaded for “more senior doctors, senior surgeons,” and specialists like a cardiologist to deal with chronically ill patients and “bullet injuries” sustained during the ethnic clashes. He said his hospital has handled 288 gunshot wounds since fighting broke out in May, but the machine employed to locate and extract bullets has broken down.

The central government sent six teams of doctors to Manipur in May, but local health officials said they were not enough, especially since the teams did not include specialists.

“Our hospital has run out of medicines. Forget about specialists, even doctors for viral fever are not available. Prices of everything have more than doubled. Even if we want to pay higher prices for the sake of our children, several items are not available at the market,” said Chong Haokip, president of the Women Human Rights Group in the Manipur town of Moreh.

Meitei villages lodged similar complaints about doctor shortages, although they said they have been able to receive shipments of basic supplies under armed protection. Those shipments are not large, however, so food prices have more than doubled in Churachandpur.

A venerable paramilitary organization called the Assam Rifles, essentially a heavily-armed police force that reports to both the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Home Affairs, has been shepherding supplies into Manipur. The Meitei accused the Assam Rifles of not doing enough to protect them from Kuki attacks, but the Indian Express reported that groups of Meitei women in several villages have been blocking paramilitary units and supply trains from reaching Kuki areas in Churachandpur.

“The moment residents of a village see the movement of trucks of the Assam Rifles, they begin to bang on electric poles. This is relayed to another village and then another. In 15-20 minutes, there is a gathering of women blocking the road, no matter what route we take,” a paramilitary officer complained.

TOI feared the Kukis might restore their own road blockades if the Meitei continue to prevent supplies from reaching Churachandpur and its refugee camps. The central government is reluctant to intervene more forcefully because Manipur has a huge number of tribes with a history of fighting each other, making the state a powder keg.

The Indian government has imposed a blockade of its own, as Internet access by Manipur has been shut down for over a month, to the great alarm of people living abroad who have family in the turbulent state.

Two members of an opposition-sponsored “fact-finding committee” faced prosecution on Monday for saying the violence in Manipur is “state-sponsored.” The legal complaint filed against them said they made the accusation “without evidence” as part of a scheme to “overthrow a democratically elected government by instigating people to wage war against the government.”

The Manipur state government is also requesting “firm action” against a group called the Zomi Students’ Federation for publishing a book in May that accused the central government of perpetrating “state-sponsored ethnic cleansing” against the Kukis.

The UK Guardian on Sunday interviewed a 29-year-old Kuki woman who said her husband was “lynched” and beaten with iron rods, even after he was dead, by a Meitei mob after they fled the Meitei-controlled capital of Imphal and tried to reach a Kuki refugee camp.

The woman said that when she threw herself at the gates of an army camp and pleaded for help, the soldiers chased her away. She was eventually caught by the mob and beaten unconscious, surviving only after multiple surgical procedures on her head.

“Curfews and restrictions remain in large parts of the state and the internet has repeatedly been shut down. Thousands of additional army and paramilitary personnel have been deployed, while both sides have formed their own vigilante armed groups. This week, eight more have died in clashes,” the Guardian wrote.

Barricaded roads have become no-man’s land between defensive fortifications filled with vigilante gunmen. The Guardian found Meitei villages grimly patrolling through hastily-dug trenches with rifles and bandoliers of ammunition, while their Kuki opposite numbers hunkered down behind sandbags — all nervously anticipating a full-scale civil war to break out, possibly spreading to adjacent Indian states and even across the border into Myanmar.

“They call us foreigners on our own land. We are facing an existential threat. We have faced systemic injustices over the years at the hands of the majority community. How can we live with them?” a Kuki militiaman asked.

“People are building bunkers on both sides, they are positioning guns. New Delhi should understand that this is preparation for war,” another Kuki warned.