As the entire country was preparing to battle the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, a Kuki village in Manipur was undergoing an ordeal of a different sort.
On March 15, Chassad village’s jhum fields, which were a source of livelihood for many villagers, were reduced to ashes. It was alleged that the culprits were from the neighbouring Sampui village – inhabited by Tangkhul Nagas – who had burnt the fields owing to the history of land-feuds between the two tribal communities of the north-eastern border state.
The villages of Chassad and Sampui are located in the Kamjong district of Manipur. According to locals, after villagers from Chassad went to the nearest police station to file an FIR, a police team visited the site but did not take any effective action. Enraged by the arson and the indifference of the state police to their plight, the villagers decided to protest, and declared a blockade and a bandh.
On March 16, armed with stones, firewoods, catapult, knife and pointed spears, a large group of men from the Kamjong village attacked the villagers from Chassad, according to eyewitnesses. They threatened the villagers, ransacked and looted 60 houses before finally burning about 140 houses in the village.
Thanggin Haokip, a Chassad villager, told The Wire, “Many of us fled to the forest, while some of us took shelter in the 42nd Assam Rifles camp. Though the Assam Rifles Personnel forestalled the perpetrators, neither they nor the Manipur State Police, stopped the looting, ransacking, burning or the trucks that ferried away household goods, such as bags of rice, clothes, money, utensils, televisions, etc.”
On March 24, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a nationwide lockdown, the villagers of Chassad had no houses left to lock themselves in.
An inter-village land feud
Though it had never escalated to this level, the villages of Chassad and Sampui have been at loggerheads with each other due to overlapping claims over land rights for decades. An open forest between the two villages has been a bone of contention for more than 70 years as is evident from official documents.
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A case, filed by the headman Rithale of Sampui village against Tongkhothang, the chief of the Chassad village in British India, was decided in favour of the latter. The order, dated June 6, 1945, issued by the then Sub Divisional Officer, R.H. Shaw, stated: “I cannot recognise Sampui’s claim to the land which had previously been recognised as Chassad land”.
One can also get an idea of how Sampui and Chassad villagers came to live together from
The same order also offers a glimpse into how the villagers of Sampui and Chassad came to live together. The order stated that Sampui had only three houses at the inception of the village and the colonial administration felt that they needed the protection of a larger village like Chassad.
Chassad is a village of historic importance that played a critical role during the Anglo-Kuki War of 1917-1919, which resulted in the arrest of its chief Pache. The Sampuis were allowed to settle in the Chassad region temporarily until the reinstatement of Chassad village.
However, the litigation didn’t end there as the same land was contested over and over again. Applications for an appeal to evict the Chassad villagers was made by the Sampui villagers, in 1952 and 1954 as well. The judgement passed in the court of the Revenue Tribunal Manipur, C.C. Hill Civil Revision No. 1 of 1954, in both the cases, dismissed the claims of the Sampui residents. R.P. Bhargava, the then chief commissioner of Manipur, found that the judgement of R.H. Shaw on the case was still binding.
However, in recent times, the Government of People’s Republic of Nagalim (GPRN), a non-state organisation supporting the Naga political movement, came to be involved in the dispute on behalf of the villagers of Sampui. On January 24, 2019, a directive was issued by the ‘Central Administrative Officer’ of the Wung Tangkhul Region of GPRN through which the chief of Chassad was ordered to stop ‘encroaching’ the land of Sampui for slash and burn purpose.
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The Kuki Inpi Manipur (KIM), the apex body of the Kuki customary law, have alleged that the burning down of houses this past March was done in the hope that these legal documents of land ownership issued by British colonial rulers would be burned away. As per information shared by the villagers, the Chassad village chief’s wife, Lamneihoi, carried the legal documents with her when she ran to the army camp nearby to take shelter during the attack.
Involvement of NSCN-IM?
Various Kuki and Zo organisations, notably the Mizo Zirlai Pawl (MZP) and Zo Re-Unification Organisation (ZORO), have alleged the involvement of NSCN-IM cadres in the Chassad incident.
The indictment, though bereft of direct evidence, has situational and historical explanations. It addresses both the current altercation between the two communities, Kukis and Tangkhul (Nagas), in Kamjong district, while also situating the conflict in the Kuki-Naga inter-ethnic clash over land in the 1990s, in which thousands of civilians were killed.
It was prompted by overlapping and contesting claims to the territory of the Kukis and Greater Nagaland or Nagalim, envisioned by the NSCN (IM) in the Manipur hills. Though registered as a village, Chassad is similar to a small town and is the largest Kuki village in the Tangkhul Naga dominated Kamjong district, carved out of Ukhrul in 2016.
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The NSCN-IM issued a press release on March 19, denying any involvement in the attack on Chassad village. The president of Tangkhul Naga Long (TNL) Hopingson A. Shimray said, “I want to clarify this incident for all that it was caused by a mob of Kamjong village and not a single NSCN-IM cadre was involved”.
The NSCN-IM in its statement defended the action of the Tangkhuls in Sampui and Kamjong village, reiterating that the Kukis of Chassad had provoked them into burning down their village because they organised roadblocks and burnt down a truck and a petrol pump that belonged to the Tangkhuls.
Rebuilding houses, rebuilding lives
T construction of prefabricated houses has now begun for Chassad villagers; food, clothes, temporary makeshift tents have been arranged for the displaced villagers. The Manipur government has assured monetary assistance between Rs one lakh and three lakh to the victims, depending on the extent of the damage.
The burning down of the school, Lhingkim Memorial Academy, is a big loss not just to the villagers of Chassad but also to the nearby villages. According to the school principal Lalboi Haokip, “File records of students, teachers’ documents, text books, important files related to the school’s registrations and administration have all been burnt.”
A female villager asked, “whether the government was going to also provide replace her brothers’ school uniforms, textbooks and note books.” since her parents would not be able to afford to buy them again. A village youth who completed his B.Ed. after his college degree, encountered another predicament. “All my certificates were reduced to ashes in the fire, and I am now left with only farming as an option for sustenance,” he said.
Justice for Chassad
Besides monetary assistance, it is also pertinent for the state administration to conduct an enquiry as promised and to take to task those who had been involved in carrying out the atrocities. This is vital as the delay in delivery of justice has emboldened the offenders. On March 30, the Sampui village authority wrote a letter to the chief minister’s office demanding that the resettlement of Chassad village should not begin without its consent.
The Tangkhul Naga Zingsho Longphang (TNZL), the sub-zonal customary body of the Tangkhul community, demanded that the ownership of Chassad territory first be conferred to Sampui village; Chassad village should be given only temporary settlement, and must be made to pay a tribute to acknowledge the land ownership of the Sampui villagers.
Given the history of conflict between the two communities, and the geopolitical location of Chassad village, it is pertinent that the inter-village feud is resolved legally without allowing it to flare up into another communal conflict.
Hoineilhing Sitlhou and Zamminlien belong to the Kuki community of Manipur. Hoineilhing Sitlhou is an assistant professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Hyderabad. Zamminlien is a doctoral candidate at the Department of Communication, University of Hyderabad and was the editor of Laizon Digest, a magazine based in Manipur.