Koms Trapped in Manipur Crossfire

Despite their neutral stand in the state’s ethnic violence, the Koms, Manipur’s smallest community, are caught in the crossfire of the ongoing ethnic battle between the Meiteis and Kukis and are struggling for their survival.

Despite repeated appeals by community leaders, the Koms are now planning to travel to New Delhi and do a sit-in at Jantar Mantar to spread the message that they are a peaceful group that desperately wants peace.

Koms, Christians by faith, number only around 20,000 (2011 census put the figure at 14,000). The Meiteis, who make up 53 per cent of the population, inhabit the Imphal Valley, that accounts for a tenth of the former princely state’s land area. The strength of the Kukis, living in the hills, is 16 per cent.

It is significant that boxing champion Mary Kom recently called for help to her community. In a letter, she sought the intervention of Union home minister Amit Shah to ensure that security forces prevent both warring groups from intrusion into the Kom villages in Manipur.

Bogged down by the lukewarm response of the state administration, the president of the Kom Union Manipur, the apex body of the tribe, Serto Chungjahao Kom, told reporters: “We are the most victimised. When gunfights take place between the valley and the hills, we at the foothills become human shields.”

The problem, he said, is that both Meiteis and Kukis distrust them, a result of the paranoia that conflicts breed. The week before last, Serto Thangthang Kom, an Army sepoy who was on leave, was abducted from his home in Imphal West. A day later his body was recovered from a jungle in the valley. Posted at Leimakhong Military Station in the foothills, Thangthang, many Koms say, may have been a victim of the distrust.

So potent is this paranoia that Koms who flee violence can’t even take shelter in relief camps -- the suspicion that they are taking sides follows them.

Mr Chungjahao also pointed out that last month a Kom village got caught in a gunbattle between militants of the two bigger communities. The village is in Kangathai, half a km from the main road where Meiteis live and less than half km from a Kuki settlement. In another clash between the two groups in Sagang, Churachandpur district, 11 Kom villages had to be evacuated. “Around 10 to 15 of us are still there guarding the villages. The rest, 200 to 300, are all scattered. They fled either to relatives’ or to a new place.”

Koms are scattered in five districts of Manipur -- Churachandpur, Chandel, Kangpokpi, Imphal East and Imphal West. “We live in the periphery between the hills and the valley. These days they call it the buffer zone,” he said.

Buffer zones don’t just mean being in the middle of Meitei-Kuki battles. Living there also requires coming to terms with a large presence of the security forces. And Koms can’t travel to either the valley or to the hills.

That Koms have been in this terrible situation before doesn’t make it better this time. The tribe was caught in the Naga-Kuki crossfire in 1992 too, and suffered for almost a year. In Manipur’s conflicts, origin stories often become weapons. Nagas and Kukis both claim Koms as part of their ethnic group. Koms however clarify that they belong to neither.

Asserting that Koms will remain non-violent even after the suffering, Mr Chungjahao said: “We are going to remain non-violent. The adults, in any case, don’t have the luxury of spending time thinking up revenge attacks. Our biggest concern is the displacement of our schoolchildren. We have brought the children to a community-run school, Grace Academy, in Imphal, but it is difficult to manage around 300 children’s education with the little money we have.”

Ms Mary Kom in her letter had also written: “We are all dispersed between the two rival communities… there is always speculation and doubt against my community from both sides, and we are caught in the middle of all problems... due to a weak internal administration and tiny size as a community among the minority tribes, we have not been able to stand against any forces that intrude into our jurisdiction.”