They are still only teenagers and yet they have taken up arms. In the Indian state of Manipur, these college students have become militiamen, watching the enemy camp from the top of a hill, ready for a long inter-ethnic conflict.
Three months ago, 16-year-old Paominthang, a member of the Kuki tribe, was studying and dreaming of becoming a football star. Today, armed with a gun, the teenager says he is ready to do battle with the Meitei, if necessary.
The Meiteis, a majority and essentially Hindu community, reside mainly in Imphal, the capital of Manipur, and its surroundings. The Kukis, a Christian minority, and other tribes are mainly established in the hills.
Inter-ethnic violence erupted in May between Meiteis and Kukis which authorities say left more than 100 people dead. This toll could be higher, believe many residents.
Paominthang, who identifies with one name fearing reprisals, put his books and notebooks away after his family was attacked by a mob of Meiteis.
“They burned down my house, I had no other choice,” he told AFP. Brandishing his weapon defiantly, he assures that he would have no qualms about using it to defend himself: “I will shoot”.
The upsurge in violence erupted after a protest march against the possibility of the Meiteis being granted the more advantageous “scheduled tribe” status which would guarantee them quotas for public jobs and university admissions.
This hypothesis has also revived old fears of the Kukis that the Meiteis would be allowed to acquire land in areas currently reserved for them and other tribal groups.
According to human rights activists, local leaders have exacerbated ethnic divisions for political purposes. The latter deny it, but several months after the start of the crisis, the fracture is widening.
A vicious circle of revenge crimes, murders, burning of houses, Christian churches and Hindu temples, rages.
Rival parties have formed militias that say they have no intention of laying down their arms.
India’s remote northeastern states, located between Bangladesh, China and Burma, have long experienced inter-ethnic tensions.
In Manipur, the Kukis, who represent about 16% of its 2.8 million inhabitants, according to the last Indian census dating from 2011, are demanding the creation of a separate state. The Meiteis, who represent more than half of the population, fiercely oppose this idea.
Access to “Tiger Camp”, base camp of Paominthang, by a narrow path which climbs along steep and luxuriant hills. Rival forces have also scattered their own camps in the area.
At the start of the May clashes, police stations were attacked and looted. The Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency reported that 3,000 firearms and 600,000 pieces of ammunition were stolen.
In the kuki and meitei militia camps, AFP journalists saw sophisticated weapons circulating, including Kalashnikov assault rifles but also homemade weapons.
“We can’t show them to you, but we have more than two months’ worth of ammunition,” said Phaokosat Hokip, 32, a Kuki fighter who was working for an aid agency in May.
Hokip’s group keep watch from dusk to dawn from their post surrounded by sandbags, staring into the darkness with high-powered binoculars, while other militia members rest in specially designed tents with plastic sheeting secured to bamboo poles.
“If we weren’t here with guns, they would come in their thousands and burn our house down,” Hokip said.
Between fertile farmland, charred houses line the road between the predominantly Meitei district of Bishnupur and the Kuki stronghold of Churachandpur, the unofficial border between the two groups.
Although the Indian army patrols, rival militias continue to exchange fire nearby. On the other side of the demarcation line, in the Meitei camp, some armed men say they fear the Kukis.
“Even the state forces are not able to control the situation,” said KB, a 55-year-old Meitei, speaking on condition of anonymity, “it’s a civil war.”
The Meiteis have long accused the Kukis of supporting undocumented immigrants from Burma and poppy cultivation, which the Kukis deny.
“We were living together though,” adds KB, “Suddenly they attacked us. And now they want a separate administration. That won’t happen.”
Indian Home Minister Amit Shah promised an “impartial investigation” into the violence, saying the government stood “with the people of Manipur”.
But human rights organization Human Rights Watch accuses the Manipur state authorities, led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra and Mr. Shah, of having set up divisive policies that promote Hindu majoritarianism.
For DS Hooda, a retired Indian general who served in Manipur, the government has a duty to tackle the crisis “in a non-partisan way”.
“If civilian self-defense groups take up arms to protect themselves, it’s a sad statement on the authority of the state,” he said.
Hokip, the Kuki has no faith in the local government. According to him, the Chief Minister of Manipur, N. Biren Singh, Meitei himself, despite his denials, is partisan.
“This is a state-sponsored ethnic cleansing against the Kukis,” he says, “the government supports the Meiteis.”
KB, the Meitei, assures that he and his people will not lay down their arms: “As long as we have blood in our body, we will not leave our land. We will not run away”.
29/07/2023 10:46:17 – Churachandpur (Inde) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
