TUG OF WARS

The Meitei-Kuki conflict in Manipur completes a year on May 3. But for the people on the state's border, there is another threat closing in.

- NAMRATA BIJI AHUJA

With the rise in the number of illegal immigrants and the ongoing war in Myanmar, the unfenced border has become one of India's biggest security nightmares. THE WEEK looks at the lives of the people facing two wars

The constant buzz of insects is broken only by the rapid movement of feet and the noise of a China-made scooter carrying fresh fish. In the humid forests of Phaikoh, the last village in Manipur on the India-Myanmar border, thousands of hungry faces peer out as plumes of smoke rise from thatched huts. The wood fires add to the heavy air of gunshots and violence. The village falls under the Kamjong district of Manipur, but blends smoothly into the upper Kabaw valley of Myanmar.

THE WEEK travelled north from Imphal to Ukhrul and onward to Kamjong in a six-hour backbreaking journey that crisscrossed police barricades and makeshift checkpoints manned by village guards. These posts divide the Imphal valley and the hills as the Meitei and the Kuki communities guard their territories with guns, creating islands of tenuous peace. This has been the case for a year now, ever since violence between the communities broke out on May 3 last year. 

Leaving these strife-torn zones behind, we climbed the treacherous terrain to reach the international border. The jungle near Phaikoh opened up into the Kabaw valley, an open area of relatively flat land surrounded by tall whispering trees. Tiny leeches stuck to my feet and, as I tried to remove them, I saw droplets of blood. The burly voice of an Assam Rifles guard asked, “Do you even know where you are standing?”