Wikipedia

Torbung Bangla

Torbung Bangla (or Bangla) is a village in the geographical precincts of Churachandpur district in Manipur, India. It is populated mostly by Meitei people who regard themselves as being part of Bishnupur district.[1][2] The village was originally called Boljang,[a] with an educational sericulture farm established here. At present, the village is a site of contestation between the majority Kuki-Zo people of the Churachandpur district and the Meitei people that dominate the state of Manipur. During the 2023–2024 Manipur violence, the village was almost entirely burnt down by Kuki mobs.

Torbung Bangla
Boljang
Torbung Bangla is located in Manipur
Torbung Bangla
Torbung Bangla
Location in Manipur, India
Torbung Bangla is located in India
Torbung Bangla
Torbung Bangla
Torbung Bangla (India)
Coordinates: 24°24′59″N 93°42′49″E / 24.4163°N 93.7137°E / 24.4163; 93.7137
CountryIndia
StateManipur
DistrictChurachandpur, Bishnupur
Language(s)
 • OfficialMeitei (Manipuri)
Time zoneUTC+5:30 (IST)
Map

Geography edit

The Torbung Bangla village is on the Tedim Road between Torbung and Churachandpur, in the Khuga River valley (also called "Lamka plain"). Immediately to its south is the village of Kaprang. Snuggled between the two is another small village called Waikhurok. Waikhurok and Bangla are populated by Meitei people, whereas Kaprang appears to be populated by Kuki-Zo people.

The villages are watered by streams diverted from the Torbung river as soon as it enters the plains, from near the Pengjang village.

History edit

The village is marked as "Boljang" in the Survey of India data, indicating its original name.[4]

The village of Boljang was likely present since the time of Indian independence. In 1959–1960, it was noted to have a private lower primary school, one of 149 such schools in the tribal areas that were recognised by the Government of Manipur.[5] In 1964–1965, an experimental sericulture farm was established in the village by the Government of Manipur to popularise non-Mulberry silkworm rearing.[6] In 1969, oak tasar silk was introduced by the Central Tasar Research & Training Institute of Ranchi.[7] The sericulture farm still exists, and it is still mentioned as being in the Boljang village.[8]

From 2000 onwards, the village of Boljang began to be overtaken by the newer village of Torbung Bangla. In 2005, a resident of the village submitted testimony to the AFSPA review committee.[9] In 2009, a driver from the village was abducted by armed miscreants, and the villagers claimed that the abductors were security forces themselves.[10] In 2013, a bomb placed in a roadside culvert killed a security personnel of Gorkha Rifles and injured two others. The security forces suspected the hand of the People's Liberation Army of Manipur (PLA), a Meitei insurgent group, whose members were believed to be taking shelter in the village.[11][12][13] Another bomb blast occurred in January 2015 near the 27 Sector Assam Rifles camp. The bomb blast, for which PLA claimed credit, was said to have been part of the "bycott" against the celebration of India's Republic Day.[14] In May 2016, another IED was discovered near a post of the Border Security Force (BSF), which was safely detonated by the bomb disposal squad.[15]

Hills–Valley divide edit

Scholar Rohlua Puia notes that the hills–valley distinction in Manipur is political rather than geographical.[16] The hill districts and the valley areas have different administrative systems. The Kuki-majority areas in particular have villages headed by chiefs, as per their traditional custom. The land of the village is owned by the chief and the residents pay only house tax. In contrast, the valley areas have private land-ownership and the owners pay land revenue. A village like Torbung Bangla, where the valley population resides in a hill district (Churachandpur) produces an anomaly. The villagers of Torbung Bangla, despite living in the geographical precincts of a hill district, desire to be treated as belonging to a valley district (Bishnupur). Their land revenue records are maintained in the valley district, while the remainder of administration lies in the hill district.[17]

However, at least since 2012, the Torbung Bangla and Waikhurok villages voted for the gram panchayat (village council) of Torbung.[18] There may be an effort to enlarge the boundaries of the valley district to encompass such villages, noticed by the Registrar General of India and the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes.[19] These efforts caused resentment among the hill populations.[20]

2023–2024 Manipur violence edit

On 3 May 2023, serious ethnic violence broke out between the Meitei and Kuki-Zo people, in which Torbung Bangla was a key location. On that day, a protest march was held in the Churachandpur town to protest the Meitei demand for a Scheduled Tribe status.[b] Meitei groups organised a counter-agitation in the neighbouring areas of Bishnupur district against the protest march.[21] The Kangvai village (a Kuki village to the north of Torbung) appears to have been attacked and houses ransacked, causing the death of two people. At the same time a fire was started at the base of the Anglo-Kuki War Memorial Gate in the Leisang village (to the south of Bangla and Kaprang).[22][23] The people that started the fire were described as "unknown miscreants travelling in a white Bolero [van]", who fled the scene after being discovered.[24][25] Kuki mobs from Churachandpur rushed to the border areas.[26] As the Kuki fighters passed through Torbung Bangla around 3:30 pm, some with advanced guns, a video of them got circulated on social media, which caused considerable alarm among the Meitei community.[27][28]

The two sides clashed at the Torbung and Kangvai villages, injuring 30 people. Properties and vehicles are said to have been torched.[29] Apparently after the police dispersed the mobs from these villages, the Kuki mobs returned to Bangla and burnt down almost the entire village.[1][30] The residents had fled the village when the mobs arrived. According to a resident, the mobsters had complained about a sign board marking the village as being part of the Bishnupur district. [31]

Three months later in August, the Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum (ITLF), an umbrella body of Kuki leaders, proposed to bury the bodies of 35 Kuki people killed in the violence[c] near the sericulture farm at S. Boljang village.[32] (The original announcement mentioned Haolai Khopi, which is apparently a new subvillage established adjacent to the sericulture farm to its south).[33] The proposal brought up strenous objections from the Meitei community who got organised under the Torbung gram panchayat, calling it a "violation of international law".[34] The International Meitei Forum filed a petition in Manipur High Court, which directed that status quo be maintained till the matter is decided. The Deputy Commissioner of the district said that the site was on land belonging to the Sericulture Department, while the Superintendent of Police noted that it was close to the boundary between Churachandpur and Bishnupur districts, which was a "buffer zone".[35] After appeals from the Union home ministry and the Mizoram chief minister Zoramthanga, ITLF postponed the burial ceremony,[36] and eventually accepted alternative sites. ITLF mentioned to The Hindu that the reason for its insistence on the original site was to assert that it was part of the Churachandpur district, and not Bishnupur district as some Meitei residents claimed.[37]

See also edit

Notes edit

  1. ^ Kukis' preferred spelling is Bualjang.[3] It is also sometimes written as S. Bualjang, presumably to distinguish it from other villages with the same name.
  2. ^ This was part of a state-wide protest in all the hill districts organised under the banner of All-Tribal Students Union of Manipur (ATSUM).
  3. ^ These were the bodies of the victims of violence accumulated in the Churachandpur District Hospital. Most of them were killed in or around the Churachandpur district. They do not include the victims of violence in the Imphal Valley.

References edit

  1. ^ a b Journalist Kalyan Deb on reporting from Manipur during protests, escaping gunshots and more | EP 10, Fabled Talks Podcast (via YouTube), 25 May 2023, 11:36 minutes in. "When I started uploading the videos, I started getting calls that the situation had escalated further in the border areas of Churachandpur and Bishnupur... at 6pm... After travelling for 45 minutes [from the Churaachandpur town], we see huge clouds of smokes... There was a lot of burning down, and a lot of people carrying sticks, rods etc. ... The name of the village was Bangla village. According to locals, it is a Meitei village. The officials were nowhere to be seen. Substantially bigger village. The whole village was burnt down." (emphasis added)
  2. ^ Puia, When boundaries matter (2021), pp. 105–106.
  3. ^ Notice of Publication of List of Polling Stations, Office of the Deputy Commissioner of Churachandpur District, 31 August 2018. Listed under 59/2, "Leisang (B)".
  4. ^ See for example Bhuvan 3D, Indian Geo-Platform of ISRO, retrieved 29 February 2024. The villages along the Tedim Road are, from north to south, "Phugakchau", "Kangvai", "Torbung", "Kotlian", "Boljang", "Kaprang" and "Leisang".
  5. ^ Manipur Gazette, 1 April 1959, p. 7 – via archive.org
  6. ^ Akham Langol (1965), Manipur Annual Administration Report for 1964-65, Manipur Administration, p. 20 – via archive.org
  7. ^ Report on Development of North-eastern Region, National Committee on the Development of Backward Areas, Planning Commission, Government of India, 1982, p. 54
  8. ^ Churachandpur seed distribution centres, Sericulture Information Linkages And Knowledge System (SILKS), Central Silk Board, Ministry of Textiles, retrieved 29 February 2024.
  9. ^ Report of the Committee to Review the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958, Government of India, Ministry of Home Affairs, 2005, page 97.
  10. ^ 2009 - most violent year in Manipur's recent history, The Assam Tribune, 2 January 2010. ProQuest 610220342
  11. ^ Bomb attack leaves one army man dead, The Sangai Express, via e-pao.net, 26 February 2013.
  12. ^ RPF says security forces targeting people, Imphal Free Press, 2 March 2013. ProQuest 1313862167
  13. ^ India Timeline - Year 2013, South Asia Terrorism Portal, 2014.
  14. ^ RPF claims hand in series of bomb blasts, Imphal Free Press, 28 January 2015. ProQuest 1648403625
  15. ^ Bomb safely disposed, Imphal Free Press, 28 May 2016. ProQuest 1792072484
  16. ^ Puia, When boundaries matter (2021), p. 106: "[The previous case] underlies that the categories “hill” and “valley” are political in that they represent ways of governance, control and authority.".
  17. ^ Puia, When boundaries matter (2021), p. 106.
  18. ^ Manipur Gazette (PDF), 4 October 2012, p. 12
  19. ^ Vijaita Singh, Several hill villages in Manipur wrongly included in valley districts: ST panel, The Hindu, 11 September 2023. "A report by the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST) has observed that several hill villages in Manipur were wrongly included in the valley districts during the Census 2011 exercise."
  20. ^ Vijaita Singh, Several hill villages in Manipur wrongly included in valley districts: ST panel, The Hindu, 11 September 2023. "[ATSUM] noted that about 144 hill villages had been placed under the jurisdiction of police stations in valley districts “in the name of convenient administration”, calling it a “systematic way of encroaching into hill areas”. The ATSUM had also added that several hill villages had their land records in the custody of adjacent valley districts."
  21. ^ Special Leave Petition (Civil) Diary No 19206 of 2023: Dinganglung Gangmei vs. Mutum Churamani Meetei & Others, The Supreme Court of India, August 2023. "... large-scale violence broke out in the State of Manipur on 03.05.2023 after a Tribal Solidarity March undertaken by All Tribal Students Union Manipur (ATSUM) in opposition to the demand for inclusion of the Meitei community in the list of Scheduled Tribes. The call for this march led to a counter response by Meiteis. Thereafter large-scale violence broke out in the State of Manipur...".
  22. ^ Deeptiman Tiwary (26 July 2023). "An arrest, crackdown and deep distrust: Manipur fire had been simmering for over a year". The Indian Express. ProQuest 2841943429. Things began to turn ugly around 2.15 pm that day after a tyre was seen burning along the plaque of the Kuki War memorial gate near Torbung, kilometers ahead of Churachandpur. Around the same time, police found two bodies in Kangvai village, a kilometre away from Torbung. Following this, massive crowds began building up on the Torbung-Kangwai stretch of the Imphal-Churachandpur highway.
  23. ^ Lien Chongloi, Dispelling Some Misleading Claims About the Violence in Manipur, The Wire, 27 May 2023. "On May 3, while a peaceful protest was underway at the Kuki-majority Churachandpur town, news had reached the hill areas that the Anglo-Kuki Centenary Gate at Leisang-Monglenphai was set on fire by unidentified Meitei miscreants. According to eyewitness accounts, many Meitei volunteers who were held up at Kakwa [Kwakta] areas started moving towards Torbung and Kangvai areas and began torching Kuki houses. The first victim of that mob attack was Haopu Kipgen from Torbung Village; he was bludgeoned to death. The first casualty with torching of houses, therefore, was a Kuki."
  24. ^ Tribal Solidarity March takes ugly turn; houses, offices, vehicles burnt, The Sangai Express, 4 May 2023. Churachandpur section.
  25. ^ Kham Khan Suan Hausing, Manipur riots: The chilling methods in the madness, The Indian Express, 5 May 2023. ProQuest 2809434306. "The immediate spark for the violence was provided by the retaliatory destruction of the Anglo-Kuki War Memorial Gate in Leisang and razing of Vaiphei houses in Kangvai village by Meitei mobs following the beating up of a Meitei driver whose tripper truck hit a bike and ran over a stock of water bottles kept for use by peaceful tribal protestors in Lamka on the same day."
  26. ^ Tribal Solidarity March takes ugly turn; houses, offices, vehicles burnt, The Sangai Express, 4 May 2023. "Later, a large number of people from Churachandpur side stormed towards Bangla and Torbung along Tiddim Road and destroyed several shops."
  27. ^ Rajkumar Bobichand, The Violent Conflict Between Kuki-Zomi And Meitei Erupted On May 3 in Manipur’s Churachandpur District Was Not Spontaneous or Without Early Warnings, Imphal Review of Arts and Politics, 22 July 2023. "Video clips of Kuki mobs and Kuki militants wielding sophisticated guns at S Bualjang and Torbung [Bangla] were circulated through social media at about 3:32 pm."
  28. ^ Manipur: Protestors seen with AK-47 weapons amid violence-hit Churachandpur district, India Today NE, 4 May 2023. "The social media handles have been flooded with visuals of alleged civilians carrying sophisticated weapons such as AK-47s amid tribal groups' protest over a court order on Scheduled Tribe status at Churachandpur."
  29. ^ Yudhajit Shankar Das, Manipur violence: State is burning, but what is the decades-old fuel behind the fire, India Today, 8 May 2023. '"They only moved back only after Kukis from neighbouring villages and towns came to confront them. The initial violence was in Kangvai village. Police and commandos remained mute spectators and sided with them as they went about ransacking and destroying houses. Over 30 people have been injured," says [Kelvin Neihsial of All Manipur Tribal Union].'
  30. ^ Kalyan Deb, Ground Report: Homes, vehicles burnt down following clashes in Manipur's Churachandpur, EastMojo video report (via YouTube), 3 May 2023.
  31. ^ May 3, 2023 : How it all started at Torbung, The Sangai Express, 24 September 2023. 'At Torbung Bangla, the Kuki men and militants led by "a fat man" started destroying a signboard put up on the road. The Kuki militants shouted "Kanagi Ayaba Louraga Bishnupur District Thabra" (Under whose permission, Bishnupur district is written in the sign board).'
  32. ^ Prabin Kalita, Fresh violence brings back total curfew in both Imphal districts, The Times of India, 4 August 2023. ProQuest 2845340300
  33. ^ Vangamla salle K S, Manipur violence: Tribal forum to bury those killed in Churachandpur, EastMojo, 1 August 2023.
  34. ^ Manipur: Mass burial at Torbung Bangla in Bishnupur opposed, Ukhrul Times, 2 August 2023.
  35. ^ Abhinay Lakshman, Manipur HC directs status quo be maintained at mass burial site, The Hindu, 3 August 2023.
  36. ^ Manipur: Mass Burial of Kuki Victims Postponed After MHA Request, Zoramthanga's Intervention, The Wire, 3 August 2023.
  37. ^ Abhinay Lakshman, Manipur HC directs status quo be maintained at mass burial site, The Hindu, 3 August 2023.

Bibliography edit

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