‘On 3 May, around 10pm, we heard people throwing stones at our house. We didn’t understand what was happening. In the morning, we woke up and we were cooking. We saw that there was a frenzy outside. Everyone was walking out of their homes with their bags packed. They asked us why we were still at home and explained the situation. We were scared.’
Runa, Imphal
India’s Manipur State has been engulfed in violence for two and a half months now. Sparked by a protest on 3 May in which an estimated 60,000 people marched in opposition to the Manipur High Court’s request to the state government to send a recommendation to the central government to include the non-tribal Meitei community in the Scheduled Tribe (ST) category, the unrest has claimed at least 100 lives, with local sources suggesting that the death toll is significantly higher.
Thousands of homes have been burned down and tens of thousands of people have been forcibly displaced in a dispute over whether the predominantly Hindu Meitei community should be granted access to the same benefits afforded to the state’s typically more disadvantaged tribal communities.
Continue reading “‘We don’t know how we can restart our lives’ – stories from Manipur”
