Not many people outside the Northeast might be aware of the fact that the “Kuki-Chin-Mizo” people have orchestrated at least 10 major attacks on the non-Christian indigenous tribes of Manipur, Tripura, Assam and Mizoram since 1990, all to occupy their lands and change the demography of the region. Most of these attacks involved indiscriminate rape and torture of women, murder and arson. Religious sites were methodically targeted or destroyed during these coordinated attacks. There is hardly any community in the Northeast with which they have no conflict at all.

It’s not that the various small tribal communities settled in the Northeast have never resorted to fighting, killing and competing among themselves. Several historical instances have confirmed that despite similarities in their traits, origins and clans, intra- and inter-tribal conflicts were a common occurrence. But they also emphasised respecting each other’s cultural values and most importantly, their ancestral lands and properties. The “Kuki-Chin-Mizo” language-speaking groups, on the contrary, lack that basic sense of respect towards other communities and their culture and habitats.

Their mentality of prioritising ethnic loyalty over nation and duty has cost several thousands of lives. They are war-mongers and have never been trustworthy and loyal to the Indian State. Their unyielding mercenary spirit to fight against the nation has been prevalent throughout history. War and barbarism in any manifestation are alarmingly normalised for them, reflecting a distressing affinity for violence, hatred and suffering. Forcibly trying to distort historical facts to prove their “patriotism” cannot hide their history of brutality.

Their relentless attempt to drive out the non-“Kuki-Chin-Mizo” language-speakers is the first step towards creating an independent Kuki nation including parts of India, Myanmar and Bangladesh. Mostly the attacks launched against the natives have been unprovoked, arising out of not-so-serious matters that led to extremely unfortunate instances of brutal killings, and torching of houses and properties. Over 1,50,000 Hindus have been displaced due to these pre-planned attacks (including the ongoing Manipur violence), executed to cleanse them from their ancestral lands.

Indigenous Hindus have been wiped out from at least 18,500 sq. kilometres of Bharatiya territory. The beautiful state of Manipur, gifted with many rich and diverse cultures, traditions and communities, has learnt its lesson the hard way; we need to wake up to the reality before it is too late. Until the entry of the immigrant “Kuki-Chin-Mizos” who disrupted the peace and unity, indigenous people coexisted harmoniously. They are adept at crying foul against other communities by misusing their “tribal minority” and “Christian” identity, as has always been the case.

Besides Manipur and Assam, Tripura has borne the brutality of the Kukis for a long time now. The people of Tripura faced the chronic problem of Kuki raids from 1836 onwards to at least 1860 and afterwards. The Kukis conducted major raids at different periods in the history of Tripura, beginning from the massacre at the Manipuri village of Kochabari in Pratapgarh, Sylhet during the reign of Maharaja Krishna Kishore Manikya. Kuki raids were not based on any demand, and are therefore not to be considered as any movement or revolt against the ruler.

The attacks and atrocities of the Kukis were a regular concern for the people of Tripura who had been living a life in peace and harmony till then. The Kukis used to come down from the hills, attack the villages in the plains and kill the innocent villagers. Besides burning houses, they kidnapped women and girls, destroyed crops and grains, and carried away gold, silver and iron. Upon receipt of information regarding the impending arrival of a British military expedition to punish the offending tribes, many times, the Kukis themselves set fire to the place and vanished into the jungles.

Attacks carried out by the Kukis on Udaipur, the old capital of Tripura in January 1861 and another in Northern Tripura and Sylhet on January 22, 1862 (popularly known as the Adampur massacre) are the most infamous of all. Tripura was affected by devastating Kuki raids up to 1862, when Birchandra Manikya ascended the throne and initiated a new policy of providing vat or gifts to the Kukis, based on an Agreement between Kuki leaders and the British Government. The King perhaps felt that there was no other way of pacifying the Kukis. But the latter were still not satisfied with this policy of vat.

Their inherent violent character of killing and exploiting others has always been the same across all regions in the Northeast. In the contemporary period, unabated immigration of the Chin-Kukis and the subsequent demographic change has led to the ethnic cleansing of several native communities from Tripura. The example of Northern Tripura’s sacred Jampui Hills bordering Mizoram can be cited in this regard. An arcadian region with a glorious Hindu past, Jampui Hills (also known as the “abode of eternal spring”) has become completely Christian-majority primarily because of illegal immigration.

This has forced the locals, i.e. the Hindu Reangs, to move out to other safer Hindu-dominated locations. Sibraikhung, the highest mountain peak of Tripura (3,200 ft.) in the Jampui Hills, derives its name from Achu-Sibrai – the supreme deity of the Reangs. At the top of the Sibraikhung hill, a Sibrai temple called Behling Shiv adorned a wonderful stone sculpture of a deity that closely resembled Mahadev and a massive Siva Linga existed earlier. It was a major centre of worship for the Reangs. However, it was destroyed by a group of Christian Mizo and Kuki youths in early 2003.

This incident led to the simmering of communal tensions in the area between the aggrieved Hindu tribals and non-tribals on the one hand and Christians on the other. The head priest of the temple was forced to flee and in a cruel gesture of mockery, Behling Shiv was renamed as Betlingchhip (locally pronounced as Balinchhip). This was done with the chief objective of systematically eliminating the historical existence of the Reangs and their Hindu identity from the region. At that time, around 5,000 Mizo tribal families spread over 10 tiny hamlets were residing in the Jampui Hills.[1]

Adding fuel to the fire, they subsequently published a map and a news item in Vanglaini, an Aizwal based- Mizo daily, showing Behling Shiv and parts of the Jampui Hills in ‘Greater Mizoram’ (Kukiland).[2] It may be recalled here that in the early 1980s, the erstwhile Mizo National Front (MNF) raised the demand for the inclusion of the Jampui Hills in Mizoram as a condition for peace. However, the fresh demand raised by the newspaper after the destruction of the temple in 2003 and a low-key campaign by political groups disguised as social organisations triggered fresh tensions in the area.

After the destruction of the temple, only this stump (as seen in the picture above) remains.

In the past two-and-a-half decades prior to the destruction of the Sibrai temple, Jampui Hills was rocked twice by political tension – first, in the early 1980s when the Mizos residing in the area, led by the Jampui Mizo Convention (a socio-religious body) of Tripura demanded a Jampui Autonomous Regional Council under the Autonomous District Council for the “economically and educationally backward” Mizos of Tripura. In late 1997 against the large-scale influx of persecuted Reang Hindu refugees from neighbouring Mizoram.

British records (specifically The Imperial Gazetteer of India: Volume IV by William Winson Hunter) have mentioned the name of this place as Betlingsib. After the destruction of the Sibrai temple, Christians planted crosses and verses from the Bible in different areas of the Jampui Hills and also renamed the Sibraikhung peak in the Mizo language as Thaidawr Tlang. Official sources in Kanchanpur Sub-Divisional town, the headquarters of the Jampui Hills, said that the Christian youths had allegedly built a Church-like structure next to the temple housing the deity.

Entry to the sacred Jampui Hills, renamed Thaidawr Tlang

In 2020, a Tripura-based Hindu group Songrongma announced its plans to construct a Siva temple at the border village of Phuldungsei[3] In the neighbourhood of Betlingchhip adjacent to Thaidawr Tlang. The area has been under the administrative control of North Tripura District since the creation of the state of Tripura in 1972. The proposed community construction work for the temple enraged the Mizo-Kuki Christian community in the area. The Jampui Mizo Convention immediately called for a shutdown in the area, which upset the Government of Tripura.

The Mamit district administration of Mizoram went a step ahead by imposing Section 144 of the CrPC in the bordering villages to prevent the movement of people in Phuldungsei.[4] It also asked the Tripura Government to stop any kind of construction work on the temple until the “land dispute” is settled. The administration of North Tripura, however, responded by saying that the State Government had, long ago, built a ‘watch tower’ at the peak of Betlingchhip under the Department of Tourism and that it has been an important tourist destination of Tripura.[5]

During the ongoing violence in Manipur, the Mizos of Jampui Hills expressed unity and solidarity with their fellow Kuki-Zo tribes of Manipur. They even assisted people from their community who were victims of the violence with a total sum of Rs. 3 lakh and demanded immediate dismissal of Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh’s Government for its negligence of duty and complacency towards the Kuki-Zo “minority”.[6] At present, the sacred Sibraikhung Hill has been robbed of all its purity.

It is extremely regretful that like many other Hindu religious sites in the Northeast, a sacred spot of the minority Hindus in Tripura too, has now been turned into a paradise of young lovers, drunkards drug addicts, gamblers and picnic-goers. Incidences such as the cooking of dog meat by the Christian Mizos in the surroundings of the desecrated Sibrai temple have also been reported (https://fb.watch/sKHyXOu9gh/). The Ram Mandir has been reclaimed after a historic 500-year-long struggle.

Other important Hindu temples in different parts of Bharat will be reclaimed soon, hopefully. However, will we ever be able to reclaim these equally important but lesser-known sacred sites of the Hindu civilisation in the Northeast?  It is the responsibility of the Hindu society to safeguard its rich history and reclaim the lost heritage of places like Jampui Hills which is currently under the illegal occupation of the Abrahamics.