How Manipur churches are trying to curb vaccine hesitancy as ‘satanic’ rumours fly thick & fast

 Manipur has a population of 27.2 lakh (2011 Census), of which only 2.4% was fully vaccinated as of Friday, with 19.3% having taken the first dose.  

From the plains to the hills, anti-vaccine propaganda flows freely from the phones of nearly every person in Manipur. 

In one video, a young man conducting a Facebook Live tells the world, in Manipuri, “There still isn’t a cure for cancer, so how can they make a vaccine so quickly? Just exercise and stay positive. There’s no need for a vaccine.”

Another message claims the vaccine will lead to death within two years of taking the shot. Others say the vaccine will weaken the body’s immune response to other pathogens, or that it will cause metallic objects to stick to the site of the injection (a rumour that also caught on in some western nations).   

A church in Tamenglong, Manipur | Simrin Sirur | ThePrint

This misinformation has left the state government battling widespread vaccine hesitancy that seems to have taken a toll on its immunisation drive.

Manipur has a population of 27.2 lakh (2011 Census), of which only 2.4 per cent was fully vaccinated as of Friday, with 19.3 per cent having taken the first dose.  

“Manipur is a small state. When a rumour goes around, everyone catches on to it and it’s hard to shake,” said an official with the health department who did not wish to be named. 

While the government has had some success administering the vaccines in the plains, misinformation appears to have taken deeper root in the state’s hill districts — rural areas dominated by followers of Christianity. This has added to other factors — the rugged terrain of the hill districts, the difficulty one faces reaching and travelling through them, and a critical lack of infrastructure, including fewer vaccination centres — to result in much lower vaccination numbers than those of the plains. 

In the hills, for example, the district of Noney has administered 8,511 first doses (as of Friday), followed by Pherzawl with 6,635 doses, Kamjong with 4,833, and Tamenglong with 10,294. In contrast, in the plains, Imphal East has administered 1,35,249 first doses, Imphal West 1,64,005, Bishnupur 49,165, and Churachandpur 56,749. 

“There is a lot of hesitancy within the community (Christians). There are all kinds of rumours on YouTube and messages on WhatsApp, but it’s also their own interpretation of the religious texts,” Reverend S. Prim Vaiphei, president of the All Manipur Christian Organisation (AMCO), told ThePrint. 

“There is an idea that the vaccine is related to Satan, or that it will lead to death.”

The church associations of Manipur, many of which are headquartered in Imphal, are making an effort to mobilise the Christian community and encourage members to come forward and get vaccinated. That means addressing the hesitation of church leaders in remote areas, too, they say. 

“Even our leaders have some misconceptions (about the vaccine). We have suggested to the government to have some kind of sensitisation programme so everyone’s doubts can be cleared. They have agreed to do this with us. 

After that, we will use our networks to disseminate the information,” said Reverend T. Karang Maram, publicity secretary of the AMCO and Director, Peace & Development of the Manipur Baptist Convention.

Manipur’s powerful churches

The Christian community, which forms about 40 per cent of the state’s population, closely behind Hindus at 41 per cent, commands an intricate network of churches across the state. 

Manipur’s history is rife with conflict between its various ethnic and tribal groups. Its landscape is dominated by the Meiteis, most of whom are Hindu and live in the plains, and the Kuki-Chin and Naga tribes that predominantly occupy the hills (the former closer to the Mizo border and the latter closer to the Nagaland border). 

The All Manipur Christian Organisation — an association of all denominations across ethnicities formed in 1987 — comes forward in times of crisis to advocate, lobby, and assist the government. 

Each denomination of Christianity, such as the Baptists, Catholics, and Presbyterians, have their own associations with hundreds — sometimes thousands — of churches under them. This network stretches far and wide across the state. 

“In the recent past, churches in Manipur have felt the need to voice together their stand and their concerns in times of political turmoil and crisis in the state,” theological scholar L.H. Nimreila Siang wrote in an essay on church unity, published by the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies in 2016. 

“Churches have played important roles in negotiating peace in society. For instance, in the Kuki-Naga conflict (1992-95), the church negotiated with both parties to stop the killings and the burning down of houses. The churches also organised a pulpit exchange service programme so that church members would forget the trauma created by the conflict,” she wrote. 

The fear about vaccines gripping Christians in the hill districts is another opportunity for the churches to step in and help, several leaders told ThePrint, especially because some of the fear comes from misconceptions related to the Bible.

A common belief is that the vaccine is the “mark of the Beast”, or Satan, brandished upon unbelievers. 

This line of thinking is ascribed by proponents to the Book of Revelations, chapter 13:17, which says, “so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name”. 

“We have been praying for a solution and now that we have a vaccine, people are sceptical and think it is the mark of the beast. Our pastors have been telling them it simply isn’t true,” said Pastor L. Thangkolet with the Kuki Christian Church. 

The Archdiocese of Imphal has set up a Covid-19 task force at all its 52 schools and parishes across the state. 

“We’ve submitted a list of 100 nurses and doctors associated with our churches, so that the state government can contact them when they go for vaccination drives. We’ve sent a circular to all our churches and parishes to encourage people to get vaccinated,” said Reverend Father Biju Lakose, head of the archdiocese’s Covid task force. 

The Manipur Baptist Association — the largest Christian association in terms of membership — will be holding an orientation session with the state government on 3 July to address any misconceptions within its own leadership. This information will then be passed on to members of each church.

The larger church associations also blame “independent” preachers, who do not follow any denomination, for spreading misleading information about the vaccines. Videos and articles dismissing the shots, by some American preachers, are also doing the rounds.

Two independent churches ThePrint reached said they neither endorsed nor renounced the vaccine. 

“North East India Baptist Missions does not have a position relating to Covid-19 vaccination. We believe this to be a matter of personal choice, and neither advise people to accept the vaccination, nor decline the vaccination,” Jim Colyn, an American who serves as director of the independent mission, wrote to ThePrint over email. Their church, Colyn said, has a following of 5,000 online. 

Pastor Mano Oinam, who runs the “International Ministry of Reconciliation Church” with over 2,000 YouTube subscribers and an average of 200 views per video, said, “When people come to me with doubts about the vaccine, I don’t tell them what to do, but tell them to pray and believe till they find clarity themselves.”

The state government’s intervention

Chief Minister N. Biren Singh has repeatedly expressed dismay over the low rates of vaccination in the state. On 2 June, he held a meeting with government officials and religious leaders to discuss ways to improve the Covid-19 situation. The religious leaders subsequently vowed to hold mass prayers, and spread awareness about Covid-19 among tribal residents of the hills.

“We held several meetings with Christian and Muslim leaders separately, who were initially difficult to convince. It has taken a long time, but the Christian community appears to be responding now,” Dr N. Shyamjai Singh, director of the National Health Mission in Manipur told ThePrint. 

“We will orient them on the present situation, warn them about the dangers of the Delta variant, and correct any misconceptions they have on the vaccine’s efficacy.”

Since Monday, Manipur’s total vaccinations have jumped from an average of 5,000 to 6,000 doses to nearly 15,000. A source in the health department said this jump happened after the chief minister “put pressure” on the department in a meeting on 25 June. District magistrates were given targets and asked to submit daily vaccination coverage figures.

Even so, this rise in vaccinations has been largely on account of the plains districts, which were already performing well. For example, according to CoWin data updated Friday, Imphal East (with 26 vaccination sites) administered 4,703 doses in a day, while the number was 7,249 for Imphal West (37), 2,809 for Bishnupur (10) and 1,226 for Churachandpur (9).  

Meanwhile, two doses were given out in Kamjong (1), 246 in Tamenglong (4), 57 in Pherzawl (2), and 285 in Noney (4), on the same day.

While the hill districts are lagging, Dr Shyamjai is confident the gap will be filled in the coming weeks. 

“Apart from getting in touch with the churches, MLAs have been asked to conduct vaccination drives in their own assembly constituencies. District magistrates in the hilly areas, where people cannot always access the healthcare centres, have started a mobile vaccination service which will target a few villages a day,” he told ThePrint.

(Source: The Print)

After six decades, Manipur’s Burmese Tamils get a glimpse of their ancestral places in Myanmar

Opening of the land border last year has enabled Moreh’s Tamils, who were forced to flee Burma in the early 1960s, to connect with their roots.

Since he was a little boy, M Mohan had “only two aims” in life: to go to London and to visit his “father and mother’s houses in Burma”. On December 23, he fulfilled one of those dreams. He finally tracked down the house where his mother grew up, in Bago, a town around 100 km to the northeast of Yangon. “It was the most sentimental day of my life,” recalled Mohan, now 40. “I took a selfie with the house in the background and updated my Facebook status.”

Mohan, a Tamil who can speak five languages fluently, was born and brought up in Moreh, a dusty, one-street town in Manipur on the Indo-Myanmar border where idli dosa shops jostle for space with Manipuri rice hotels, and local brews share the shelf with Chinese lagers in paan shops owned by Biharis.

Moreh's Tamils celebrate the Pongal festival in January.

His parents trace their roots to Myanmar, where the family had lived and worked for decades before fleeing in 1962 after a military junta took over. In spite of living a few hundred metres from Myanmar all his life, Mohan’s expedition took many years because land travel to the country through Moreh was strictly regulated. Indians required a special permit from the Myanmar government, in addition to a visa.

This meant flying to Yangon was, for all practical purposes, the only way to enter the country for Indian passport holders. “I have to go to Kolkata, and then from there to Yangon. How can a simple man like me afford all that?” asked Mohan, who exports utensils manufactured in Tamil Nadu to Myanmar.

In August 2018, though, things changed. Myanmar opened its land boundary with India in August and made Moreh a legitimate “port of entry”. Most major towns in Myanmar were now only an affordable bus ride away. “It was a momentous occasion for all of us Tamils in Moreh,” exclaimed Mohan. “All of us had harboured this dream of going to Burma at least once in our lifetime to see how our ancestors lived, and it was finally going to come true.”

For the Tamils of Moreh, the opening of the new road meant a chance to connect with a past they could never quite let go of. Almost all of them, like Mohan’s family, had lived in Burma for decades before abruptly leaving in the 1960s.

M Mohan fulfilled his childhood dream of going to Myanmar
in December. Photo credit: Arunabh Saikia

Tracing their roots
Indians started flooding into Myanmar after it fell to the British Raj in the 19th century, filling government posts, manning its ports. By 1931, there were over a million Indians in the country. Then, in December 1941, at the height of the Second World War, the Japanese bombed Rangoon. As British troops retreated from the country, thousands of scared Indians trekked down from Myanmar to India via Manipur. The Long March, as it is called, was the first wave of forced migration of Indians from Burma.

The war ended and Myanmar gained freedom in 1948, but the Indian community remained in a perilous position. Burmese administrators systemically persecuted Indians, denying them citizenship on racial grounds and forcing thousands to return to their country of origin.

When the dictator Ne Win grabbed power in the early 1960s, he actively pursued an anti-minority agenda, nationalising all their businesses and properties. It triggered a mass expulsion of Indians, till then a significant population group. Between 1962 and 1964, more than three lakh Indians were forced out of Myanmar.

The Indo-Myanmar Friendship Gate separates Moreh and the market township
of Namphalong in Burma. Movement is free between 7 am and
4 pm. Photo credit: Arunabh Saikia

Khwaja Moinuddin’s family fled in a ship sent by the Indian government to retrieve Indians expelled by the Burmese military. The ship took them to Tamil Nadu, where they stayed for a few years in a refugee camp in Tiruchirappalli. “But my grandfather and others could not adjust – the food, the way of life, it was all very different from Burma,” Moinuddin said. “So, they decided to try and go back, this time via road, but were stopped at Moreh by the Burmese Army.” The family has lived in Moreh ever since.

When Moinuddin’s aging parents heard the border where they were stopped 50 years ago had finally been opened, they implored their son to take them to the place they were born. “They are old, they want to see their home, their land one last time,” he said.

To Moreh via Madras
By local estimates, there are around 3,000 Tamils, Hindu and Muslim, in Moreh, a town of less than 20,000 people belonging to at least a dozen distinct communities, including the Kukis and the Manipuri Meiteis. While Meitei is the lingua franca, the town’s pluralistic character means most people speak at least three languages – it is common for people in Moreh to switch languages mid-conversation.

The Namphalong market is awash with Chinese goods and alcohol.
Photo credit: Arunabh Saikia

The Tamils are in a minority now but they were the largest group until as recently as the mid-1990s, said the residents. Almost of them share a similar backstory: expelled from Myanmar, ill at ease in their new homes in Tamil Nadu, and marooned in Moreh since. “Our people came to Moreh because they wanted to go back to Burma,” explained Mohan. “They couldn’t, yet they stayed back. But people started to leave in the 90s as Moreh has few opportunities for higher education and employment.” Most left for Tamil Nadu, he said.

‘The king of Moreh’
In spite of their dwindling numbers, Moreh’s Tamils continue to be influential in the town. They dominate the trade, which is entirely informal but amounts to over Rs 50 crore annually, as per estimates of the town’s chamber of commerce. The community also controls the big-ticket furniture business, which thrives on the popular Burmese teak brought in from across the border.

It is not surprising then that the town’s most powerful trade body, the Border Trade and Chamber of Commerce, is populated almost entirely by the Tamils. Heading the association is V Shekhar, who enjoys a singular position in Moreh’s power structure. Shekhar, who is also president of the local branch of the Tamil Sangam, no longer lives in Moreh and visits only occasionally. Yet, his legend endures. As Abdul Gaffar, who deals in Burmese teak furniture, put it: “In Moreh, there’s no one above Shekhar anna.”

A hoarding in Moreh depicts the leaders of the town's four major
communities. Photo credit: Arunabh Saikia

The testament to Shekhar’s authority in Moreh lies in his steadfast control over the local businesses even while ethnic militias warred over the years to take control of the border town, and the lucrative contraband trade route it sits on. His patronage, local community leaders claimed, is required for all significant cross-border trade. “Without the support and approval of Shekhar, you cannot do any big business in Moreh,” said a Kuki community leader who asked not to be identified.

In the 1990s, Tangkhul Nagas, organised under the banner of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muviah), tried to wrest control of the town from the Kukis and the Meiteis. A long bloody fight ensued, at the end of which the Kukis prevailed. Leading the Kuki charge was the Kuki National Organisation and its armed wing, the Kuki National Army. Ever since, the town of Moreh has been under the control of the Kukis, although Meitei nationalist groups continue to exert influence from their camps across the border. Yet, Shekhar never lost his control on the town’s trade.

Members of the Tamil community in Moreh. Photo credit: Arunabh Saikia

A leader of the United Naga Council, which was at the forefront of the Kuki-Naga clashes of the 1990s and is now the apex body of Nagas in Manipur, described Shekhar as “the king of Moreh town”. “He can manage all kinds of armed groups as well as the security forces,” said the Naga leader.

Underneath the apparent chaos of Moreh, a symbiotic system coordinated by Shekhar keeps the town together, said an executive member of the chamber of commerce. “All of us, depending on the size of our businesses, pay a survival tax to the armed groups annually,” he claimed.

The office of the Tamil Sangam in Moreh.
Photo credit: Arunabh Saikia

A second home
This year, Shekhar was the chief guest at the Pongal celebrations held by the Tamil community. Many of Moreh’s Tamils still long for Myanmar, a place they call home. But over the years, they have fashioned a home out of Moreh.

Its youth club is one of the most active in the area, regularly organising sports and cultural programmes. A fire-walking festival organised by the community is one of the biggest events in Moreh’s cultural calendar, with people from all communities thronging it in large numbers.

Sri Angalaparameshwari temple in Moreh. Photo credit: Arunabh Saikia

In the late 2000s, the Tamil Sangam flew in workers from Chennai to build the Sri Angalaparameshwari temple, among the grandest religious structures in the North East. The temple sees devotees not only from elsewhere in India but also Myanmar.

Today, with the border opening up, the Tamils can finally get a glimpse of Burma, a place close to their hearts. As SM Ganeshan, the Tamil Sangam’s education secretary, who recently took the land route to Yangon to see his birthplace, said, “I went there as a tourist only, but it felt really good to meet my relatives there for the first time after I left as a child. Everything is so nice there, surrounded by nature.”

(Source: Scroll)

Over 30 teachers resign to avoid prosecution in Manipur

Following action against some primary schoolteachers, who were themselves enrolled as students in various medical and agriculture colleges and attending classes there, 30 such teachers have resigned in Manipur over the last few weeks.

Their move came after state Education Minister T Radheshyam gave such teachers a fair chance to quit the government job.

Earlier, the government took punitive action against nine teachers on charges of cheating, out of which eight were found to be medical students in two medical colleges in the state, while one was doing post-graduate course in agriculture in Meghalaya.

“The nine primary schoolteachers have to return salaries and allowances they fraudulently took all these years over a period of six months. Formal complaints have been lodged with the police stations concerned. It will be better if the remaining dubious teachers resign of their own volition,” said Radheshyam.

The Minister said that more complaints against such “cheats” were received and all cases would be examined shortly. This triggered the resignation of over 30 teachers.

The modus operandi of these teachers, according to officials, is to engage some local youths to teach the primary school students on payment of a fraction of their salary.

Officials confirmed that at least five head masters had been suspended on the charge of colluding with the absentee teachers and not bringing their long absence to the notice of the higher-ups.

The officials said there could be many more teachers in the medical colleges or gainfully employed in some other government offices as well.

(Source: Northeast Today)

To understand the Naga demand for separation from India, visit the small village of Benreu

Journalist and filmmaker Sanjoy Hazarika draws upon decades of work in India’s North-East for a new book on the region. Below is an excerpt from her book "Strangers No More: New Narratives From India’s NorthEast". Read on: 

The Indian Army came to the village on the high ridge of the Naga Hills after a brief mortar attack. The first mortar shell blew to bits a young mother who was nursing her child. Every man, woman and child, barring one old man, fled into the jungles. The old man stayed behind because in the tradition of the Zeliang tribe, villagers do not return to a settlement that they have abandoned completely. Instead, they set up a new one. The harvest remained uncut for months; the women would stealthily slip down to the stream at night, babies strapped to their backs, to collect water; there would be no fires lit to cook for fear of alerting the soldiers.

The granary bins in every home of Benreu were ransacked. Vegetables, pots and furniture were destroyed by the intruding forces.

Only when the fear had abated after three or four months – nobody is sure exactly how long because it happened a long time ago and those who remember it are old – did the villagers return to their homes. “When the forces came, they would beat and harass anyone, either on suspicion or just like that, it was a time of great fear for everyone,” said one village elder. The humiliations were constant as patrols came, hunting for insurgents and informers.

This was the last village to fall to the Indian Army after AZ Phizo, the charismatic leader of the movement against India, had called upon his people to revolt. Phizo was from the Angami tribe but held the support of other tribal groups – there are sixteen in Nagaland – as he forged an alliance of the Naga National Council and what it called the Federal Government of Nagaland. The fighters had held their ground but retreated in the face of superior forces, armed with better weapons and mortars. The guerrillas faded into the jungle, to ambush and harass the security forces or SFs as the army and paramilitary forces came to be called. To the government, its media as well as the independent press, the guerrillas were simply “hostiles” – an ugly, anachronistic term that conjures up images of a shadowy group of evil intent, bent on bloodshed. By designing and persisting with this caricature of the Naga opponent, the media, both government and independent, and India’s existing and soon to become even larger gargantuan bureaucracy, especially its intelligence and security agencies, pitted India against its tribals, without considering a madhyam, a middle path.

The “for us or against us” ideology, so simplistic, patronising and nationalistic, immediately strengthened the resistance to the “idea of India”. For if as Gandhi said, India was a garden with many flowers, then were the tribals, because they thought and lived differently, thorns to be plucked out?

Benreu, like many parts of the Naga Hills, had little contact with the rest of Assam and the plains, let alone the Indian mainland. Like other upland groups in South and Southeast Asia, spanning the entire Himalayan range and the fingers of ranges that radiated southeastward from India’s east, from Afghanistan to Vietnam, they had rarely been conquered but sometimes defeated. They were brutally oppressed by Siu-Ka-Pha, the first Ahom king, who mercilessly tortured his captives as a lesson to other Nagas when he crossed the Patkai and ran into resistance. That treatment silenced them, historians say, for over 150 years although they began raids afterwards. They held ownership and control of the salt mines near Namrup, which they traded with the Ahoms. There was a time when various Ahom monarchs, irked by the harassment, led punitive expeditions against the hill groups but to little avail, for their adversaries vanished, as did the ones at Benreu and elsewhere in the twentieth century, into the forests. Atanu Buragohain, the premier of one Ahom king, counselled the ruler against such campaigns, comparing the effort to that of an “elephant entering a rat hole”. So the Ahoms settled for a patchy peace with the hill tribes, giving them a pusa or tax to keep away from their territories. There are also references in historical accounts to social relations between the Ahoms and other Assamese groups and the hill tribes. One example that is frequently cited to underscore the good relations between the two is that of the fugitive Ahom king Godapani, who was protected by the Nagas in the seventeenth century when he was briefly overthrown. Godapani, while in exile, is said to have married a Naga woman.

So, given the long history of non-relations between India and the Nagas, it was hardly surprising that army soldiers were the first “Indians” that the Zeliangs of Benreu were to encounter. This unfortunate chain of events set a counter-image in their minds – as across the Naga Hills – that the “armies” as the security forces are referred to in conversations in villages, were representative both of Indians and their country. Just as the word “hostile” imprinted a stereotype on the Indian psyche, among the Nagas and other hill groups, a different and equally powerful stereotype of India emerged.

Benreu, like many other Naga villages, hugs an escarpment and commands the strategic heights on four sides.

Even today, thick green jungle, washed by spring rains, covers the plunging hillsides and a journey from Kohima, barely 100-km away, can take six to eight hours because of the slush on roads and frequent landslides which block travel.

There was one saving grace, in the form of a Captain Dorairaj of the Garhwal Rifles, who reached Benreu before three other army units – the Manipur Rifles, the Rajputana Rifles and the Sikh Light Infantry – which rushed the heights from other sides. No one could tell me Dorairaj’s initials or first name. He was just “Captain Dorairaj” and they respected him because, to his lasting credit, he refused to allow soldiers to burn the village, as had many others in the Naga Hills. That was, if not a tradition, a practice followed by the army at the time.

That was fifty-four years ago and it was the Indian Army that went in to control the first armed revolt against the “idea of India” in the hills of Assam. Of course, it’s not as simple as it sounds. It wasn’t just an occupation. It was a military response to the holding of Benreu by the Naga fighters, members of the Naga National Council of AZ Phizo, who headed the Federal Government of Nagaland, fired by the vision of an independent homeland where they could live free of the institutions and power brokers of a foreign land. In the words of a teacher from these parts: “This was the last village held by the Naga fighters to fall in this district.”

Benreu was lucky: many other villages were razed, residents killed and women raped. It’s a long painful history of which we should be ashamed – and for those who dispute this, it’s well documented. Nari Rustomji, who served in Bhutan and later became chief secretary of the state of Meghalaya, described that time as “a dark and senseless” period.

Conditions are now better, there is no harassment; electricity and mobile phone connectivity have reached this remote outpost of the Indian nation. Yet the nightmare and horror of those days still haunt the people of Benreu.

For our elegant young researcher, Lungshang, who looks more like a college student than a mother of two and a teacher at Nagaland University, it was a traumatic return to her roots. She discovered that the woman who had been blown apart by the first mortar shell lobbed into Benreu was her aunt, and the child she had been feeding, her cousin. For many years, this information had been held from her by the woman’s brother, Lungshang’s father, concerned about the impact it would have on her. Her father had been a member of the Naga underground, who to this day, no matter which faction they belong to, are called national workers.

Lungshang cried that day, as she listened to this story and other stories of beatings and harassment, in the hearth of a village home, in pain and deep abiding grief for two lives she had never known, for the hurt of not knowing, of that knowledge being kept from her. “I’m sorry,” she kept saying as she wept, “I don’t know, I did not know, I can’t help myself.”

It’s not easy to get to Benreu – it took us over six hours from near the capital of Kohima. Scattered showers welcomed us on our journey through hill and plains, including a decapitated forest that was now a rice bowl. At one point, the Bolero in which we were riding got stuck in slush caused by incessant rain and a landslide on a narrow, bumpy, winding road through thick forests and a spectacular view of the hill ranges that stretch across Nagaland and sweep into northern Manipur.

We tossed twigs, branches and stones in the creased muddy lane to help the tyres get a grip. After much sliding and complaining, the jeep got onto firmer earth and with the car and our shoes caked in mud, we bumped our way into Benreu’s little square. Below the square stood a great traditional thatch home, not less than 75 feet long, smoke rising peacefully from the hearth, as villagers waited on the veranda of the village council building, protected from the gusting cold wind and rain showers.

To understand why the idea of separation from India remains so attractive for so many in Nagaland and other parts of the Northeast, it is important to listen to their stories of grief, their songs of sorrow and to realize with horror that for decades here and in countless villages of this state, of Assam, Mizoram and Manipur where the conflict has been sharpest, few have come from anywhere in India to listen; there has been no counselling to enable them to cope with their trauma and the nightmares which haunt their waking and sleeping hours.

In fifty-four years, we were the first independent group to come to Benreu.

(Source: Scroll)

If you believe these 10 things about North East Indians, you're not only racist but also very ignorant

The thing with racism is it comes with very little shame associated with it. If you are at the receiving end of a racist attack, you are urged by people around you to laugh along because, 'joke hai yaar'.

Allow me to explain. I am from Assam and have been living in Delhi for the past ten years. A couple of days ago, I was visiting a friend. Upon finding that I was from Assam one of the people present in the gathering said, "Can I tell you something? Don't be offended." Now, I have come across enough people with no filter to realise where it was going, but even I wasn't prepared for this. "I have heard that you guys eat dog meat. Also that Assamese women are very good archers and that...uh... Assamese women pee standing," said the enlightened man.

While, thankfully, there we enraged gasps, I thanked by stars that I was at a place surrounded by friends. Usually, such comments get laughed off and if you are annoyed, you'd be asked to grow a sense of humour.

So I asked fellow Northeast Indian people the racist comments that they had to bear the brunt of. And most of these were masked as 'curiosity' or 'jokes'.

1. Trisha Bhuyan, 27, Assam: This was when I was interning with a reputed newspaper around 5 years back. The other intern and I were generally chatting, when I told her that I did my schooling in Assam. She said, "Assam?...er...there are schools there? Isn't it all jhopar pattis?"

2. Priyanjana Roy Das, 25, Assam: I was in Bengaluru a couple of years ago. Upon hearing that I am from a place called Guwahati, a very perplexed friend asked if it was in Kerala. But leave that, I have been asked if a passport is required to go to the Northeast. Till this day, I hope that she was actually talking about a permit and not a passport.

"Have you ever tried human meat?" I mean why, just because I am a Naga?

3. Precious Kamei, 30, Manipur: I am a Naga, from Manipur so I have heard a lot of ignorant remarks. I still get asked, "Have you ever tried human meat?" I mean why, just because I am a Naga? "Ise gussa mat dila, sab kuch khati hain...insaan ko bhi khati hain" (don't make her angry, she eats everything...even humans) -- this was supposed to be a joke. Our ancestors might have been head hunters, but mixing this up with cannibalism is just plain mean. I grew up knowing that I am an Indian. It was only after coming to Delhi that I was made aware that I am a Northeastern.

4. Abhilasha M*, 28, Meghalaya: I am an Assamese who have been brought up in Shillong. Although my Hindi has always been a butt of jokes, it is my looks that catches everyone's attention. "But you don't look Northeastern," I have been told over and over again, even a couple of days ago.

He then said that I don't look like I am from Northeast because apparently Northeastern people are supposed to be fair and I am dusky.

5. Richivandana Gogoi, 27, Assam: I was at my gym a couple of days ago, when the instructor decided to start chatting with me. "Aap kahaan se ho? Northeast? West Bengal? Kyunki aapke face se pata nahin chal raha," he said. (Where are you from? Northeast? West Bengal? Because I can't make out from your face) I replied I am from Assam. He then said that I don't look like I am from Northeast because apparently Northeastern people are supposed to be fair and I am dusky. He also said that the Northeast is a very dangerous place, which is why he has never been there.

6. Annie L, 33, Nagaland: This was last year in Bengaluru. I was mansplained that Northeast was inherently wild, until someone civilised came and turned it better. What does that even mean?

7. Richa Barman, 39, Assam: This was during my college days, so it has been a while. I was asked if I was a member of the extremist outfit, ULFA or if any of my relatives were.

8. R. Konyak*, 30, Nagaland: Once a college friend asked me if my house in Nagaland is made of bamboos. I was patient and replied that we don't live in tree houses. She took a couple of minutes to take this new bit of information in and said, "But I thought you all live in bamboo houses."

"Oh you are from Nagaland? I thought you are from India".

9. E. Kharraswai*, 33, Meghalaya: For starters, I don't think people from the "mainland" can differentiate between a Manipuri or a Naga or a Mizo. They believe that all the tribes are same and that we are all Nagas. So, naturally, there have been a number of times I have heard ignorant stuff but there is this incident that I thought was the epitome of all things ignorant. A junior from college and I were sharing a rickshaw to college, when she asked me where I was from. I said Meghalaya. She replied, "Oh, that is in which state?"

10. N. Tzudir, 20, Nagaland: When I moved to Delhi for my undergraduate programme, in my first week at my hostel a girl said, "Oh you are from Nagaland? I thought you are from India". When I gave her a piece of my mind, she clarified, "I meant from Delhi, Punjab, MP, you know."

*: name changed as requested

(Source: HuffPo)

From Manipur to Kodai, with love: Irom Sharmila files marriage application at hill town

“My search for peace has ended in Kodaikanal,” she said.

Manipur’s famous human rights activist Irom Sharmila, known for her 16-year-long fast against AFSPA, arrived in Kodaikanal on Wednesday to file an application to marry her long-time partner Desmond Coutinho.

“My search for peace has ended in Kodaikanal,” she said as she came to the sub-registrar office with her partner, who is a British citizen. She added that she wants to lead the normal life of a normal woman now, reported The Times of India.

The sub-registrar Rajesh said that he could not grant permission for their request as per the Hindu Marriage Act, but under the Special Marriages Act. And as per the act, they would need a 30-day notice period. Both Irom and Coutinho spent about two hours in the registrar office to kick-off the process.

However, the central agencies and the police have asked the sub-registrar office to inform them in advance before they are given registration date. It is said that both the central agencies and police are keeping a close watch on her, reported The Hindu.

According to the court marriage procedures, TOI reports, the marriage officer of the officer where the event would be held has to be informed of the intention at least 30 days before the wedding, and one of them should have stayed in the place for 30 days.

When Irom Sharmila was asked if she will take up activism, she said that everyone in ‘free India’ had the right to fight for their rights and if there is a need, she will take up activism.

Considered as Manipur's "Iron Lady", Sharmila had continued her fast-unto-death for 16 years, being force-fed and put on a liquid diet in hospital, to press her demand for repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in the state.

She ended her indefinite hunger strike in August last year and launched People’s Resurgence and Justice Alliance (PRJA) in October. She contested the Manipur elections from Thoubal assembly constituency against three-time chief minister Okram Ibobi Singh and lost, receiving only 90 votes. After the defeat, she had decided to quit politics.

(Source: TNM)

‘We are notorious women. We have a lot of stories to tell’: Tales from the mothers of Manipur

The new book -- The Mothers of Manipur: Twelve Women Who Made History -- by Teresa Rehman, profiles the 12 women who took part in the ‘nude protest’ against the sexual assault and murder of Thangjam Manorama. Read the excerpts published on Scroll: 

“What was it about that protest which took place in 2004 that continues to resonate to this day, not just in the region where it played out but in the entire country and beyond? The images of Meira Paibis (women torch bearers of Manipur), some of them over 60 years of age, stripping outside the headquarters of the Assam Rifles at the Kangla Fort in Imphal, holds a significant place in the crowded annals of contemporary India.”

— Pamela Philipose

Hidden somewhere between the gory and bloody stories and headlines of Manipur are stories like that of Lin Laishram. Lin admits that she owes her exhilarating journey to her supportive Ima, who gave her the freedom to try new things in life.

Her affirmative story transports me to the life of another happy woman, Ima Angom Jibanmala in Imphal.

At 55, Jibanmala is a cheerful woman. Married to a hard-working man who owns a stationery shop, a fairly successful business, they live in a two-storeyed house at a locality called Uripok Sinam Leikai in Imphal. “We saved every paisa to build this house,” she says with a sense of pride.

I perch myself on a plastic chair in the long winding verandah on the ground floor of their house. My somewhat sudden visit has upset her plans – she is impatient, as she is dressed and ready to go out. But she entertains me – to start with, she calls up someone on her mobile phone asking for glasses of juice for us.

I am amused at the ways people use technology – she used her phone to speak to someone in the same house, I find out as I see her daughter, Juliet, walk down the stairs with a tray with glasses of pineapple juice. Jibonmala smiles, “She works as a nurse in a private hospital. She doesn’t talk much. I have to get her married now.”

Jibonmala loves talking about her family.
She feels that of her children her younger son is the more responsible one. He runs a grocery shop, is married and with two children. But her eldest, who is an actor, is a bit of a worry. He plays the role of a villain in Manipuri films. He is still struggling and is yet to get married.

“He was in a rock band earlier. Some film producers noticed him. He enjoys acting. But I wish he would settle down. And I don’t like him being a villain. One day, I want him to play the hero’s role as the sympathy always lies with the hero,” she laughs.

So how does she see the armed forces – as heroes or villains? “Oh, they are worse than villains,” she says. For the past six months now, she has been staying at the Planning and Development Agency (PDA) complex and participating in the relay hunger strike titled Save Sharmila. “I envy the indomitable spirit of Sharmila and her strong will. She is like an incarnation of god and not another human being like us,” she says.

She recalls a hilarious incident when a group of commandos and a plainclothes man came near the tent where they were sitting on hunger strike. One of these women saw them at a distance. They were whispering, almost conspiring among themselves. The man in plainclothes started running and the commandos ran after him pretending that they were chasing a militant and would shoot him.

The women kept looking and laughing at them, knowing very well that it was just a ploy to make them come out of the tent so that the security forces could dismantle it. “We are smarter than them. We fooled them by sitting inside the tent and laughing at them,” she says, laughing at the memory.

The solidarity of these women is admirable.
Once during a storm at night the asbestos sheet blew off but they sat huddled together, even though it rained all night. She points out how some security men are scared of them. “One day we had a candlelight vigil in front of Sharmila’s photo. A convoy of three vehicles stopped there and the men got out and bowed their heads. Maybe they thought it was a temple,” she laughs again.

But she agrees that all the commandos are young kids with no respect for anyone. They have to pay a heavy bribe when they are inducted into the forces. She is happy that none of her sons wants to join the security forces or the underground groups.

With the mobile phone hung around her neck, a bag on her shoulder, she is all set to go to the spot where the other women are waiting for her. In a shopping bag, she has a change of clothes. She is wearing rubber shoes to beat the rain. She need not worry about her house as her daughter-in-law and daughter are there to take care of it. “My husband is very cooperative and understands that I have to keep myself busy. We do have fights occasionally like any normal married couple,” she smiles. Earlier, Jibonmala used to do embroidery to help her husband. “Now I find it difficult due to old age. I have no time to help him in his shop either,” she says.

Activism is almost like a post-retirement vocation for her – retirement from her household chores and day-to-day responsibilities.
For her, the trigger point was the way Manorama was killed, which she feels is an affront to the dignity of women.

“I saw the dead body of Manorama. I was very disturbed. It was terrible. We are all Manorama’s mothers,” she says. Her friends, who were with her at the time, were hysterical. “We wanted to do something that would shake the establishment. We signed a pact to disrobe ourselves. After I saw the body, it was not all that difficult for me to strip. I was agonised: how could someone be brutalised so much,” she says.

After the iconic protest, she did not faint. A journalist dropped her home in a car with another protestor, Momon, who stays in the same locality. “All of us were crying. I felt embarrassed about coming back.” But nobody in her family talked about it. Sometimes she hears people sniggering behind her back. “When newspapers flashed our photo, I felt violated. But I felt it was also important to highlight our cause in the media,” she says.

Fortunately, nobody in her family has been tortured or killed. But she has always been active in social causes – especially the drive against alcoholism. “So many things keep happening in Manipur that I could not stay silent or away from it,” she says.

She recalls other similar incidents. Sanamacha, a school student was taken by the army for questioning but never came back. “As a mother, at times I feel life is not worth it. I feel that there is a need to respond to the current situation,” she says.

She studied up to class X but she makes it a point to read the local language newspaper every day. She also watches television news, both local and national, to keep herself abreast of what’s happening.

But does she have the same anger against the UGs? She responds wisely, “Now it’s come to a point that we are sandwiched. Once, the UGs killed a woman called Menaka. The outfit declared that she was an army informer. That is why she was killed. But if we protest against them, we get warnings. We, the Meira Paibis, are here to protect the people. We are stuck in between. We are not here to take sides,” she says.

She was disturbed by reports of recruitment of child soldiers by the UGs. “I believe it’s wrong to train children. If somebody has attained maturity, it’s not possible to stop them. We issued press releases on this,” she says.

But like any mother, she is concerned about her family, especially her sons.
She wishes her sons would get into government service but she feels that she won’t be able to afford to buy the jobs by paying bribes. For now she enjoys watching her son’s films. He is quite popular and his name is James Angom. “He looks so real as a villain that I want to bash him. Come to think of it, he is such a gentle soul otherwise. He does not raise his voice nor does he smoke or drink,” she says.

She adds that he looks perfectly normal without the garish make-up and eyebrows. Her only hope is that he brings a bride on his own. “I don’t have time to look for one. If the bride’s father asks, I will have to tell them that he is a villain,” she laughs. But she will make it a point to tell the bride’s family that this villain’s mother is also a bold Meira Paibi.

She looks up as the pigeons start their soft throaty cooing. The pigeons have made their nest on the tree in her courtyard. I smile as she tells me, “The story of Manipur is too long to end in one conversation. We are notorious women. We have a lot of stories to tell.”