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.
The village was originally called Boljang, 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.

Geography

The (Torbung) Bangla village is on the Tedim Road between Torbung and Churachandpur, in the Khuga River valley (also called "Lamka plain"). To its south is the village of Kaprang, a census village.

Snuggled between the two is another small village called Waikhurok. Waikhurok and Bangla are populated by Meitei people, whereas Kaprang is populated by Kuki-Zo people.
More recently, a new Kuki-Zo settlement called Haolai Khopi has been founded around the year 2020, immediately to the south of the sericulture farm at the Boljang/Bangla village.INAUGURAL CEREMONY OF HAOLAI KHOPI - 2020 , , Khosatpa: Kamsei Haolai
Ahsi Media, via YouTube, 11 December 2020.

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

History

The village is marked as "Boljang" in the Survey of India data, indicating its original name. It was listed as "Bolzang" among the list of villages in Churachandpur Subvidision in 1956, along with the village "Kapprang".

These villages likely date back to the times before Indian independence. In 1959–1960, Boljang was noted to have a private lower primary school, one of 149 such schools in the tribal areas recognised by the Government of Manipur. In 1964–1965, an experimental sericulture farm was established in the village by the Government of Manipur to popularise non-Mulberry silkworm rearing. In 1969, oak tasar silk was introduced by the Central Tasar Research & Training Institute of Ranchi. The sericulture farm still exists, and it is still mentioned as being in the Boljang village.

From 2000 onwards, the village of Boljang began to be overtaken by the newer village of Torbung Bangla. (The actual name of the village is "Bangla". The prefix "Torbung" indicates that it has associated itself with the Torbung '' gram panchayat''.) In 2005, a resident of the village submitted testimony to the AFSPA review committee.
In 2009, a driver from the village was abducted by armed miscreants, and the villagers claimed that the abductors were security forces themselves.
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.
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.
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.

Hills–Valley divide

Scholar Rohlua Puia notes that the hills–valley distinction in Manipur is political rather than geographical. 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.

However, at least since 2012, the Torbung Bangla and Waikhurok villages voted for the '' gram panchayat'' (village council) of Torbung.

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.
These efforts caused resentment among the hill populations.

2023–2024 Manipur violence

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. Meitei groups organised a counter-agitation in the neighbouring areas of Bishnupur district against the protest march.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...".

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).

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 waktaareas 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."

The people that started the fire were described as "unknown miscreants travelling in a white Bolero an, who fled the scene after being discovered.
Kham Khan Suan Hausing
Manipur riots: The chilling methods in the madness
The Indian Express, 5 May 2023. . "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."
Kuki mobs from Churachandpur rushed to the border areas.
As the Kuki fighters passed through Torbung Bangla around 3:30 pm, some with advanced weapons, a video of them got circulated on social media, which caused considerable alarm among the Meitei community.

The two sides clashed at the Torbung and Kangvai villages, injuring 30 people. Properties and vehicles are said to have been torched.
Apparently after the police dispersed the mobs from these villages, the Kuki mobs returned to Bangla and burnt down almost the entire village.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 rom 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)

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.

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 near the sericulture farm at "S. Boljang" village. (The original announcement mentioned Haolai Khopi.).
The proposal brought up strenuous objections from the Meitei community who got organised under the Torbung ''gram panchayat'', calling it a "violation of international law".
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".
After appeals from the Union home ministry and the Mizoram chief minister Zoramthanga, ITLF postponed the burial ceremony,Manipur: Mass Burial of Kuki Victims Postponed After MHA Request, Zoramthanga's Intervention
The Wire, 3 August 2023.
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.
Abhinay Lakshman
Manipur HC directs status quo be maintained at mass burial site
The Hindu, 3 August 2023.

See also

* List of populated places in Churachandpur district

Notes

References

Bibliography

* {{citation , first=Roluah , last=Puia , chapter=When boundaries matter: land, laws and territorial conflict in Manipur, Northeast India , editor1=Kedilezo Kikhi , editor2=Dharma Rakshit Gautam , title=Comprehending Equity , publisher=Taylor & Francis , year=2021 , isbn=9781003182726 , pages=98– , doi=10.4324/9781003182726-8 , chapter-url=https://www.academia.edu/49356615 , via=academia.edu , chapter-url-access=registration , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F7k6EAAAQBAJ , ref={{sfnref, Puia, When boundaries matter, 2021, url-access=subscription

Villages in Bishnupur district
Villages in Churachandpur district