393 Meitei temples and shrines destroyed & burnt by Kuki militants [ Manipur, India ]

[ Reported as seen ]

The Umanglai Kanba Apunba Lup (UKAL) organization based in Manipur conducted extensive research and investigation to identify the destroyed sacred sites as a result of the violence in the state. These included sites  dedicated to ancestral and local deities from the pantheon of Sanamahi religion, as well as traditional Hindu temples.

Working Committee on Protection of Meitei Temples (under the UKAL) informed that 393 Meitei temples and shrines were destroyed and burnt by Kuki militants. Mutum Maniton, convenor of WCPMT said that Kuki militants not only destroyed the shrines and temples. In some instances they also humiliated the Meitei community by first kicking and spitting on the sacred sites before burning them.

Maniton further demanded authorities to take action and restore these sacred sites.

The Sangai Express reports that these worship sites have been vandalised, desecrated, burnt, razed to the ground etc in the course of the bloody ethnic clash; the count is not final, and the figure of 393 is what has been unearthed till now. No places of worship of the Meiteis seem to have been targeted in Naga dominated areas.

The full report in PDF form prepared by UKAL reads:

Out of 393 desecrated/destroyed sites, 223 Hingkhol Lai (homestead deity/Ishta devi in the pantheon of Sanamahi religion) shrines were desecrated: 41 in Kakching, 72 in Churachandpur, 20 in Bishnupur, 43 in Tengnoupal, 30 in Imphal East, 4 in Imphal West and 13 in Kangpokpi.

110 sites dedicated to Apokpa Laipham, the ancestral deity of the Meiteis, were also desecrated: 15 in Tengnoupal, 38 in Churachandpur, 22 in Bishnupur, 23 in Kakching, 9 in Imphal East and 3 in Kangpokpi.

44 laishang (holy shrines) dedicated to worship of forest deity Umang Lai were desecrated: 3 in Tengnoupal, 11 in Churachandpur, 4 in Kakching, 3 in Imphal East, 10 in Kangpokpi, 6 in Bishnupur and 7 in Imphal West district.

Apart from this, 16 Hindu mandirs – such as the ancient Shiva mandir (more tweets here, here, here) at foothills of Koubru Leikha (one of the most sacred mountains of Manipiur) in Kangpokpi district, or the Radha-Krishna temple in Churachandpur – were also completely destroyed or desecrated by Kuki militants. As per the twitter handle @porbotialora, a storehouse of knowledge, Bhagwan Shiva is equated with Lainingthou Koubru of the Sanamahi pantheon, who is worshipped by both Meiteis and Zeliangrong Nagas.

There have been past attacks too on Hindu mandirs and indigenous sacred sites in Manipur, such as this 2017 bombing of a Shiva mandir built by Tamil migrants in border town of Moreh.

The Sangai Express highlights that worship of the forest deity Umang Lai underlines the fact that the Meitei is one of the few groups of people in the North East who continue to worship nature to this day, a distinct tribal trait. This should in fact strengthen their demand to be included in the Scheduled list of tribal people under the Constitution of India, something the Kuki-Chin ‘tribals’ are opposing.

While the European Parliament has been crying foul over the Kuki-Chin churches that have been damaged in the ongoing violence (although many of them were illegally built on protected forest land), the reality is that it is Dharmiks, including followers of indigenous native religions (which have so much in common with Hindu Dharma), who are facing an existential threat in Manipur and the rest of the North East.