It appears to be a different world from the rest of India, a culture that borrows heavily from East Asia. Tucked in the mountains on the border with Myanmar, Manipur was once ruled by a patchwork of kings and tribal confederations. The two warring factions have formed armed militias, laying bare the ethnonationalist fissures that have long threatened to worsen instability in India’s restive northeastern region. Two months ago, Vaiphei was teaching economics to students when the simmering tensions between the two communities exploded in a bloodletting so horrific that thousands of Indian troops who were sent to quell the unrest remain near paralyzed by it. “Our mothers, our sisters, they fast for us, praying to God,” Vaiphei says, standing at the mouth of his bunker where he keeps a copy of the Bible alongside him. There, amid endless groves of bamboo and oak, young men walk by with rifles slinging from their shoulders. “The only thing that crosses our mind is will they approach us will they come and kill us? So, if they happen to come with weapons, we have to forget everything and protect ourselves,” the 32-year-old says, his voice barely audible amid an earsplitting drone of cicadas in Kangvai village that rests along the foothills of India’s remote northeastern Manipur state.ĭozens of such fortifications mark one of the many front lines that don’t exist on any map and yet dissect Manipur in two ethnic zones – between people from hill tribes and those from the plains below.
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