Armed Mobs Instigate Chaos in Indian Villages, Pushing Remote Region to the Brink of Conflict

Zuan Vaiphei is prepared to take a life and sacrifice his own if necessary.

Behind the protective walls of a makeshift bunker, Vaiphei spends his days, his fingers poised on the trigger of a 12-gauge shotgun. Approximately 1,000 yards away lies the enemy, concealed in sandbag fortifications similar to his own, armed and ready.

“Our only concern is whether they will approach and harm us. If they come with weapons, we have no choice but to defend ourselves,” whispers the 32-year-old amidst the deafening drone of cicadas in Kangvai village, nestled in the foothills of Manipur, a remote northeastern state in India.

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Dozens of fortifications, invisible on any map, divide Manipur into two ethnic territories: one occupied by hill tribe people and the other by inhabitants of the plains below. Amidst vast groves of bamboo and oak, young men traverse the landscape with rifles slung over their shoulders.

“Our mothers, our sisters fast and pray for us,” Vaiphei murmurs, his bunker adorned with a Bible.

Merely two months ago, Vaiphei was an economics teacher. However, simmering tensions between the two communities erupted into a brutal bloodshed that has left thousands of Indian troops, deployed to quell the unrest, paralyzed by the magnitude of the violence.

The opposing factions have organized armed militias, revealing the long-standing ethnonationalist divisions that threaten to plunge India’s restless northeastern region into further instability.

Nestled in the border mountains near Myanmar, Manipur was once governed by a patchwork of kings and tribal alliances. It stands apart from the rest of India, its culture heavily influenced by East Asia. Manipur has never fully embraced central rule, with certain guerilla groups still striving for independence from India.

Occasional ethnic clashes have previously erupted in the state, primarily between the minority Christian Kukis and the predominantly Hindu Meiteis, who constitute a narrow majority. However, no one anticipated the scale of the killings, arson, and hate-driven rampage that unfolded in May. The unrest followed demands from the Meiteis for special status, granting them the right to purchase land in the hills inhabited by Kukis and other tribal groups, along with a share of government jobs.

Police armories were looted, and within days, both sides were armed and ready to unleash havoc.

Eyewitnesses interviewed by The Big Big News described how angry mobs and armed gangs swept through villages and towns, setting houses ablaze, massacring civilians, and displacing tens of thousands of people. Over 50,000 individuals sought refuge in overcrowded relief camps. Those who resisted were mercilessly killed, sometimes beaten to death or beheaded, with the injured tossed into raging fires, as attested by witnesses and individuals with firsthand knowledge of the events.

Despite the presence of the military, the deadly clashes persist. Isolated villages continue to face relentless gunfire, while vast areas have transformed into ghost towns, their tin roofs twisted and melted by intense fires. Burnt structures and churches line the narrow dirt roads. In frontline neighborhoods, women join night patrols, wielding flaming torches.

Manipur is an invisible war, seldom depicted on India’s numerous television news channels and newspapers. The conflict remains concealed beneath a blanket internet shutdown imposed by the government, citing the dissemination of disinformation and rumors as fuel for the violence. The internet ban has severed communications in Manipur, impeded media coverage, and left the state’s 3.7 million inhabitants yearning for fragments of information.

Sushant Singh, a senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research in India and an Indian army veteran, describes the situation as “as close to civil war as any state in independent India has ever been.” He emphasizes that the armed civilians do not belong to militant or terrorist organizations; rather, they are “local people, people of one ethnicity, fighting against another ethnicity.”

The conflict has fractured state forces, with numerous members defecting to their respective communities, bringing their weapons and, in some cases, more advanced armaments such as snipers, light machine guns, and mortars. Former army soldiers and policemen have been fatally shot by both factions.

For nearly two months, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose Bharatiya Janata Party governs Manipur, has remained silent in the face of the turmoil. In May, Modi’s influential home minister, Amit Shah, visited the state in an attempt to broker peace between the warring sides. Since then, state lawmakers—many of whom fled after their homes were torched—have gathered in New Delhi in search of a solution.

Despite the government’s assurances that Manipur is gradually returning to normalcy, Chief Minister N. Biren Singh stated on June 25 that violence had been “largely controlled” in the previous week. However, Singh’s recent visit to a frontline location coincided with fresh clashes, resulting in three deaths, according to officials.

In many ways, the bitter conflict between the two factions is fueled by deep-rooted issues that have simmered for years.

Meiteis have long blamed the Kukis, a minority group, for the state’s prevalent drug problems and accused them of harboring migrants from Myanmar. The predominantly Meitei administration has shown a clear bias against the Kukis, with Singh alleging that some involved in the recent clashes were “terrorists.”

However, General Anil Chauhan, India’s top military officer, who visited Manipur in May, holds a different perspective, stating that “this particular situation in Manipur has nothing to do with counter-insurgency and is primarily a clash between two ethnicities.”

Some Meiteis fear that the hill tribes are financing their war by engaging in illicit drug activities, aiming to eradicate the Meiteis altogether. Conversely, the Kukis are concerned for their safety and are now seeking federal rule over the state, along with administrative autonomy for their community.

These concerns culminated in violence on May 3 when clashes erupted in Manipur’s Churachandpur district, subsequently spreading to other regions as frenzied mobs attacked one village after another.

The violence reached the home of A. Ramesh Singh on May 4 in Phayeng, a predominantly Meitei village located approximately 17 kilometers (10 miles) from the state capital, Imphal.

The previous day, Singh had stood guard outside his village alongside over 200 residents, expecting Kuki mobs to descend from the neighboring hills. As a former soldier, Singh carried a licensed firearm, according to his son, Robert Singh.

During the raid, Singh fired shots into the air and at the mobs, but he was struck in the leg. Incapacitated and unable to walk, he witnessed the ransacking of his village before he and four others were abducted and dragged into the hills, his son recounted.

The entire village gathered in a nearby open area, praying for the safe return of their neighbors.

“We didn’t know if he was dead, but we prayed. We prayed for his return,” Robert, 26,

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about ethnic conflict

More about ethnic conflict

• Violent Ethnic Clashes in Manipur
• Ethnic Tensions and Conflict in Northeast India
• India’s Unrest in Manipur: Causes and Implications
• Government Response to Manipur Conflict
• Impact of Manipur Conflict on Displaced Population