A gunbattle between militants and security forces took place in North Kashmir’s Bandipore on Tuesday morning, said Army officials. This is eighth such encounter in Kashmir Valley this month as security forces have intensified anti-militancy operations. Based on intelligence inputs…

Adil Akhzer Our Correspondent

A gunbattle between militants and security forces took place in North Kashmir’s Bandipore on Tuesday morning, said Army officials. This is eighth such encounter in Kashmir Valley this month as security forces have intensified anti-militancy operations.

Based on intelligence inputs regarding presence of terrorists, security forces launched a search operation in Nagmarg forest of Bandipore district, they said.

The forest area where the exchange of fire took place is situated in the middle of north Kashmir’s Bandipore and Kupwara districts and close to the Line of Control.

Army’s Srinagar-based Chinar Corps wrote on X that the forces had received inputs about the presence of militants in the area. “On 12 November 24, based on specific intelligence input regarding presence of terrorists, a joint operation launched by Army, police in general area Nagmarg, Bandipore,” the Army wrote on X.

It said “suspicious activity was observed by vigilant troops and on being challenged terrorists opened indiscriminate fire.”

“Own troops effectively retaliated. Operation is in progress,” Army said. Security sources said additional forces were sent to the area to hunt down the militants.

After militants carried out several attacks in the Kashmir Valley, the security forces have intensified the anti-militancy operations across the Valley and even conducting cordon and search operations in the forest areas, where militants are believed to be hiding.

Not only in Kashmir, the security forces are conducting anti-terrorist operations in Jammu region as well, where over the last few weeks, militants have carried several attacks on security forces.

8th incident in valley

• Based on intelligence inputs regarding presence of terrorists, the security forces launched a search operation in Nagmarg forest of Bandipore district
• Eighth such encounter in the Kashmir valley in November as the security forces have intensified anti-militancy operations
• The area is situated in the middle of north Bandipore and Kupwara districts and is close to LoC

Light intermittent snowfall continued in some of the higher reaches of Kashmir, resulting in the closure of vital routes in the upper areas of the Kashmir Valley, officials said on Tuesday. The season’s first snowfall in Kashmir, which began on…

Our Correspondent

Light intermittent snowfall continued in some of the higher reaches of Kashmir, resulting in the closure of vital routes in the upper areas of the Kashmir Valley, officials said on Tuesday.

The season’s first snowfall in Kashmir, which began on Monday, continued at many places during the night, the officials said.

Reports of snowfall were received from upper areas of Gulmarg and Sonamarg tourist resorts. Parts of Kupwara and Bandipora districts also withnessed snowfall.

The snowfall led to the temporary closure of Srinagar-Leh national highway and other vital routes in the higher reaches of the Valley, the officials said.

At least 20 vehicles, which were stuck in snow, were rescued by the Border Roads Organization (BRO) from Bandipora-Gurez Road. A team of BRO, along with J&K police rescued the passengers of these vehicles which were stuck in the snow near Zadkhus Nallah and Razdan Top on Monday night on the Bandipora-Gurez Road which saw snowfall.

Razdan Pass situated at 11,667 ft above sea level connects Gurez Valley in Bandipora district with Kashmir Valley.

The Meteorological Department has forecast generally dry weather till November 13.

From November 14-15, there is a possibility of light rain/light snow, especially in the higher reaches, at many places of Kashmir and few places of Jammu Division, while on November 16, there are chances of light rain/light snow in the higher reaches at scattered places, the MeT Office said. It said from November 17-23, the weather would remain generally dry.

Approximately 1.3 million Indian soldiers served in World War One, and over 74,000 of them lost their lives. But history has mostly forgotten these sacrifices, which were rewarded with broken promises of Indian independence from the British government, writes Shashi Tharoor.

Exactly 100 years after the “guns of August” boomed across the European continent, the world has been extensively commemorating that seminal event. The Great War, as it was called then, was described at the time as “the war to end all wars”. Ironically, the eruption of an even more destructive conflict 20 years after the end of this one meant that it is now known as the First World War. Those who fought and died in the First World War would have had little idea that there would so soon be a Second.

But while the war took the flower of Europe’s youth to its premature grave, snuffing out the lives of a generation of talented poets, artists, cricketers and others whose genius bled into the trenches, it also involved soldiers from faraway lands that had little to do with Europe’s bitter traditional hatreds.

The role and sacrifices of Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians and South Africans have been celebrated for some time in books and novels, and even rendered immortal on celluloid in award-winning films like Gallipoli. Of the 1.3 million Indian troops who served in the conflict, however, you hear very little.

As many as 74,187 Indian soldiers died during the war and a comparable number were wounded. Their stories, and their heroism, have long been omitted from popular histories of the war, or relegated to the footnotes.

India contributed a number of divisions and brigades to the European, Mediterranean, Mesopotamian, North African and East African theatres of war. In Europe, Indian soldiers were among the first victims who suffered the horrors of the trenches. They were killed in droves before the war was into its second year and bore the brunt of many a German offensive.

It was Indian jawans (junior soldiers) who stopped the German advance at Ypres in the autumn of 1914, soon after the war broke out, while the British were still recruiting and training their own forces. Hundreds were killed in a gallant but futile engagement at Neuve Chappelle. More than 1,000 of them died at Gallipoli, thanks to Churchill’s folly. Nearly 700,000 Indian sepoys (infantry privates) fought in Mesopotamia against the Ottoman Empire, Germany’s ally, many of them Indian Muslims taking up arms against their co-religionists in defence of the British Empire.

The most painful experiences were those of soldiers fighting in the trenches of Europe. Letters sent by Indian soldiers in France and Belgium to their family members in their villages back home speak an evocative language of cultural dislocation and tragedy. “The shells are pouring like rain in the monsoon,” declared one. “The corpses cover the country, like sheaves of harvested corn,” wrote another.

These men were undoubtedly heroes – pitchforked into battle in unfamiliar lands, in harsh and cold climatic conditions they were neither used to nor prepared for, fighting an enemy of whom they had no knowledge, risking their lives every day for little more than pride. Yet they were destined to remain largely unknown once the war was over: neglected by the British, for whom they fought, and ignored by their own country, from which they came.

Part of the reason is that they were not fighting for their own country. None of the soldiers was a conscript – soldiering was their profession. They served the very British Empire that was oppressing their own people back home.

The British raised men and money from India, as well as large supplies of food, cash and ammunition, collected both by British taxation of Indians and from the nominally autonomous princely states. In return, the British had insincerely promised to deliver progressive self-rule to India at the end of the war. Perhaps, had they kept that pledge, the sacrifices of India’s First World War soldiers might have been seen in their homeland as a contribution to India’s freedom.

But the British broke their word. Mahatma Gandhi, who returned to his homeland for good from South Africa in January 1915, supported the war, as he had supported the British in the Boer War. The great Nobel Prize-winning poet, Rabindranath Tagore, was somewhat more sardonic about nationalism. “We, the famished, ragged ragamuffins of the East are to win freedom for all humanity!” he wrote during the war. “We have no word for ‘nation’ in our language.”

India was wracked by high taxation to support the war and the high inflation accompanying it, while the disruption of trade caused by the conflict led to widespread economic losses – all this while the country was also reeling from a raging influenza epidemic that took many lives. But nationalists widely understood from British statements that at the end of the war India would receive the Dominion Status hitherto reserved for the “White Commonwealth”.

It was not to be. When the war ended in triumph for Britain, India was denied its promised reward. Instead of self-government, the British imposed the repressive Rowlatt Act, which vested the Viceroy’s government with extraordinary powers to quell “sedition” against the Empire by silencing and censoring the press, detaining political activists without trial, and arresting without a warrant any individuals suspected of treason against the Empire. Public protests against this draconian legislation were quelled ruthlessly. The worst incident was the Jallianwallah Bagh massacre of April 1919, when Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer ordered his troops to fire without warning on 15,000 unarmed and non-violent men, women and children demonstrating peacefully in an enclosed garden in Amritsar, killing as many as 1,499 and wounding up to 1,137.

The fact that Dyer was hailed as a hero by the British, who raised a handsome purse to reward him for his deed, marked the final rupture between British imperialism and its Indian subjects. Sir Rabindranath Tagore returned his knighthood to the British in protest against “the helplessness of our position as British subjects in India”. He did not want a “badge of honour” in “the incongruous context of humiliation”.

With British perfidy providing such a sour ending to the narrative of a war in which India had given its all and been spurned in return, Indian nationalists felt that the country had nothing to thank its soldiers for. They had merely gone abroad to serve their foreign masters. Losing your life or limb in a foreign war fought at the behest of your colonial rulers was an occupational hazard – it did not qualify to be hailed as a form of national service.

Or so most Indian nationalists thought, and they allowed the heroism of their compatriots to be forgotten. When the world commemorated the 50th anniversary of the First World War in 1964, there was scarcely a mention of India’s soldiers anywhere, least of all in India.

India’s absence from the commemorations, and its failure to honour the dead, were not a major surprise. Nor was the lack of First World War memorials in the country: the general feeling was that India, then freshly freed from the imperial yoke, was ashamed of its soldiers’ participation in a colonial war and saw nothing to celebrate.

The British, however, went ahead and commemorated the war by constructing the triumphal arch known as India Gate in New Delhi. India Gate, built in 1931, is a popular monument, visited by hundreds daily who have no idea that it commemorates the Indian soldiers who lost their lives fighting in World War One.

In the absence of a national war memorial, many Indians like myself see it as the only venue to pay homage to those who have lost their lives in more recent conflicts. I have stood there many times, on the anniversaries of wars with China and Pakistan, and bowed my head without a thought for the men who died in foreign fields a century ago.

As a member of parliament, I twice raised the demand for a national war memorial (after a visit to the hugely impressive Australian one in Canberra) and was told there were no plans to construct one here. It was therefore personally satisfying to me, and to many of my compatriots, when the government of India announced in its budget for 2014-15 its intention finally to create a national war memorial. We are not a terribly militaristic society, but for a nation that has fought many wars and shed the blood of many heroes, and whose resolve may yet be tested in conflicts to come, it seems odd that there is no memorial to commemorate, honour and preserve the memories of those who have fought for India.

The centenary is finally forcing a rethink. Remarkable photographs have been unearthed of Indian soldiers in Europe and the Middle East, and these are enjoying a new lease of life online. Looking at them, I find it impossible not to be moved – these young men, visibly so alien to their surroundings, some about to head off for battle, others nursing terrible wounds. My favourite picture is of a bearded and turbaned Indian soldier on horseback in Mesopotamia in 1918, leaning over in his saddle to give his rations to a starving local peasant girl. This spirit of compassion has been repeatedly expressed by Indian peacekeeping units in United Nations operations since, from helping Lebanese civilians in the Indian battalion’s field hospital to treating the camels of Somali nomads during the UN operation there. It embodies the ethos the Indian solider brings to soldiering, whether at home or abroad.

For many Indians, curiosity has overcome the fading colonial-era resentments of British exploitation. We are beginning to see the soldiers of World War One as human beings, who took the spirit of their country to battlefields abroad. The Centre for Armed Forces Historical Research in Delhi is painstakingly working to retrieve memorabilia of that era and reconstruct the forgotten story of the 1.3 million Indian soldiers who served in the First World War. Some of the letters are unbearably poignant, especially those urging relatives back home not to commit the folly of enlisting in this futile cause. Others hint at delights officialdom frowned upon – some Indian soldiers’ appreciative comments about the receptivity of Frenchwomen to their attentions, for instance.

Astonishingly, almost no fiction has emerged from or about the perspective of the Indian troops. An exception is Mulk Raj Anand’s Across the Black Waters, the tale of a sepoy, Lalu, dispossessed from his land, fighting in a war he cannot understand, only to return to his village to find he has lost everything and everyone who mattered to him. The only other novel I have read about Indians in the war, John Masters’ The Ravi Lancers, inevitably is a Briton’s account, culminating in an Indian unit deciding to fight on in Europe “because we gave our word to serve”.

he human faces behind the heroes: France’s tribute to Indian soldiers in WWI

A hundred years ago, almost down to the day, in late October 1914, two Indian infantry divisions – the Third (Lahore) and the Seventh (Meerut) – reached the Western Front in northeast France and Belgium to fight alongside French and British soldiers. On 28th October, fierce battles broke out in Neuve Chapelle with heavy losses. By the end of that year, around 28,500 Indian soldiers, enlisted in the British Army as part of the Indian Corps, came to fight on French and Belgian soils. They faced the severe winter of 1914-1915, then the brutality of war once again in Neuve Chapelle (March), Ypres (April), Festubert (May), and Loos (September). In all, from 1914 to 1918, around 90,000 combat and non-combat men fought for the freedom of France and Belgium, serving under the Indian Army and the Imperial Service Troops. Of them, 8500 died and 50,000 were injured. Numerous soldiers hailing from former French trading posts – now in present-day Puducherry – also fought in France. The names of those who died on the battlefield are engraved on war memorials in these former trading posts, and this military tradition is being carried forward in the French armed forces.

France will never forget the suffering and the heroism of these men. In 1927, Marshal Ferdinand Foch, Commander of Allied Forces in World War I, paid them a rich tribute: “Return to your homes, in your distant lands bathed in the light of the East, and proclaim out loud how your patriots spattered the cold northern lands of France and Flanders with their blood, how they liberated them from the clutches of the determined enemy, thanks to their quick-wittedness. Go and tell all of India that we must look upon their graves with the devotion that all our dead deserve. We shall cherish, above all, the memory of the examples they set. They hewed the path for us, it is they who took the first steps towards the final victory.”

On 11th November 2014 at the international memorial in Notre Dame de Lorette, President François Hollande will pay a solemn tribute to the 6,00,000 foreign soldiers who fell in World War I. Their remembrance remains deeply rooted in the memory of the French people, who recall the violence of the aggression and the magnitude of the sacrifice made to counter it.

During these commemorative events of the First World War Centenary, honouring the memory of these Indian soldiers will not be only about remembering their engagement. They will not be only a litany of battles, nor only a roll call of the dead. The commemorations will also be about gathering narratives so that, behind the valorous soldier, appears also the lives of these men who left their lands and their families behind to fight: Punjabis – who accounted for almost half the force – Pathans, Rajputs, Garhwalis, Gurkhas and many others. They will also be the re-reading of letters written by these soldiers; they will also be the collection of objects that bear witness to their passage to France.

These men lived through a period of not only extreme violence but also the sudden encounter of two worlds: India’s small landowners and a France whose countryside was ravaged by enemy fire, where women and children had to shoulder the tasks of the men who had left for the warfront. Apart from the sojourns in France by maharajas and political exiles during the Belle Epoque, the glorious period when peace and prosperity reigned and the arts flourished – which the War abruptly brought to an end – this was the first time that Indians came to live in such great numbers alongside the French, who, according to all accounts, extended them a warm welcome.

In 2015, we wish to continue this work of preserving memory and of respect by translating into English French works on Indian soldiers in France and by gathering objects and accounts of their lives for the major exhibition being organised by Roli Books. We are also delighted to support the Paris-based Indian filmmaker Vijay Singh, who is shooting a remarkable documentary on the lives of Indian soldiers in France, the brotherhood of arms created with French soldiers, and the close ties forged with the French civilian population.

Similar to those on the joint fight of French soldiers and Indian princes against the British in the 18th and 19th centuries, this work on Indian soldiers and World War I is important for the French and the Indian peoples to gain greater knowledge about each other. This part of shared history is a source of pride and mutual respect.

The Ukrainian army today faces a serious desertion crisis as 30,000-plus soldiers have already fled from their posts.

Abhijit Bhattacharyya

WILL the ongoing land wars of Europe and West Asia end with the advent of US President-elect Donald Trump? The fiery and fatal events have already shaken all, connected or unconnected. It is an intra-ethnic and intra-race (civil) war between Europe Slavs; it is an intra-religious war between Russian Orthodox/Eastern Church with a Jew as the head of one state that now is the hallmark of implacable Moscow-Kyiv hate war.

The Israel-Hamas bloodshed, on other hand, is also inherently a religious war between Jews and Islam-following Hezbollah (Lebanon), Houthi (Yemen) and Iran. What makes things more ominous is that even after the regime change in the US, the crusade-jihad congenital revenge to “kill-to-finish-all” will intensify, as was felt in US pre-poll political campaign. Both wars brought profit and prosperity to the US arms industry, which the US President-designate can’t ignore.

Also, the situation is so charged that no warring leader has either the time or the intention to talk peace and stop caravans of dead or dying bodies and displaced persons in search of food, shelter and medication. No leader is bothered about rotten, melting corpses on streets. Everyone wants the war to continue and intensify. From state or government heads to gun makers, traders, diplomats, the war is lucrative for everyone, and an opportunity to hog limelight as nationalist, patriot and hero of his/her land.

Fortunately, however, in the midst of these lunatics who are ceaselessly giving the call for revenge-war, race-war, religious-war and endless war to all stakeholders (though for different reasons), there have suddenly developed two strong “anti-war” sentiments from most unexpected quarters. Despite Ukrainian President Zelenskyy determined to continue fighting the war, young Ukrainians are fiercely opposing conscription and refusing to go to the warfront to get killed.

Consequently, the Ukrainian army today faces a serious desertion crisis as 30,000-plus soldiers have already fled from their posts. Desertion reached such alarming proportion that on August 20, 2024, Ukrainian parliament was forced to “de-criminalise the first attempt to flee army as long as those caught agree to return to duty”. The initial euphoria of February 2022 of joining the forces to protect their motherland has evaporated, owing to astronomical number of body bags, which has created an incurable psychic disorder among large number of surviving combatants.

Evidently, Ukraine is in a spot. Denuded of 25 per cent of its population, which has migrated, or is maimed, slaughtered, and forcibly scattered, conscription has not gone down well with eligible army recruits. Youngsters are protesting hard to avoid joining the armed forces, which has become a sure-death prospect. Times have changed. The 21st-century Crimea’s war has no resemblance to the 19th-century Crimean War that inspired Lord Tennyson’s, The Charge of the Light Brigade’s iconic lines, “Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die….” Today’s globalised youth wants materialistic pleasures of life and not die facing bullets. Kyiv’s pining for peace, not war.

Jewish Israel, too, is a revelation. Despite being a country in constant state-of-war since 1948, the staunch refusal to join Israel Defence Forces (IDF) by ultra orthodox Jews created unprecedented divisions in society. Although the ultra orthodox Jews have historically been exempted since Israel’s birth in 1948 from military service if they dedicate themselves to study of sacred Jewish texts, the June 2024 Supreme Court verdict ended the exemption enjoyed by seminary students from military duty. Understandably, the July 2024 conscription notices to 1,000 ultra orthodox Jews ignited the age-old debate of choosing between authority of church or the state.

Thus, whereas the state says “fall in line to fight for state against foe in front”, “believers” will have none of it because they are subjects of church first, state later. Being in service of church does not allow them to follow the state’s diktat to fight in the battleground. Let state make its own arrangements to get men on ground to deal with its foes.

Though considered unpatriotic by any standard of modern definition of a ‘citizen’s duty’, yet these are signs of modern world’s anti-war sentiments. Any nation, especially in the west, has to take into account that memories of mass destruction and brutal mayhem of 65 million people in World War-II are still too fresh to be forgotten. The leaders may become or remain warmongers for their own power games and corporations may be influenced by astronomical profits earned by their weapons of mass destruction, but the thought of dying for “wars without cause” cannot be ignored any more. Gone are days of demagogues and ramblers of Armageddon in the name of nationalism, patriotism and martyrdom for dealing with enemy.

Israel is on a multi-front war; Russia-Ukraine conflict has already imperilled the EU’s economy which is based on technology, industry and agro-industrial export. The youth there is still well looked after by various state welfare measures.

Therefore, in the present era of globalisation, which prosperous youth of west would like to die as chained animals? History shows that usually the ‘medically unfit’ rich are invariably incapable of any physical fight. Rich love to take up lucrative contracts to produce combat weapons to make profit, but are never known to have joined forces to fight and die for their nations. The wealthy west and belligerents today face such a defining moment in the two ongoing wars. However, there are indications of winds of change. Wars are started by both, agent provocateurs and lunatics. Only people with mass action can put brakes on fanatics making dollars over dead bodies as was done by Americans themselves to stop the Vietnam War. It is time to end war and restore normal lives in the much-touted globalised world.

Punjab Defence Services Welfare Minister Mohinder Bhagat today said the State Government was committed to providing employment opportunities to Agniveers after they retire from the Army. Bhagat met ex-servicemen at a public meeting held under the ‘Punjab Sarkar Aap De…

Tribune News Service

Punjab Defence Services Welfare Minister Mohinder Bhagat today said the State Government was committed to providing employment opportunities to Agniveers after they retire from the Army. Bhagat met ex-servicemen at a public meeting held under the ‘Punjab Sarkar Aap De Dwar’ initiative in Patiala.

Bhagat highlighted that the first cohort of 800 Agniveers is expected to retire in 2027. Since they will not be eligible for ex-servicemen benefits, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann has called for preparing a proposal to ensure jobs for these “young veterans”.

Addressing a gathering of ex-servicemen, Veer Naris, widows and gallantry award recipients at the District Defence Services Welfare Office, Bhagat emphasised that the State Government will engage with the Centre and Ministry of Defence to address difficulties arising from the issuance of life certificates under the Sparsh programme.

To ensure a systematic approach to grievance redressal, the minister said district administrations across Punjab had been instructed to convene monthly coordination meetings with the Defence Services Welfare Department.

Brig Bhupinder Singh Dhillon (retd), Director of the Defence Services Welfare Department, accompanied Cabinet Minister at the event.

Army’s Northern Commander Lt Gen MV Suchindra Kumar on Tuesday visited the White Knight Corps to review the operational preparedness of troops and discuss the security situation with senior officers, the military said. The visit of the General Officer Commanding-in-chief…

Arjun Sharma

Army’s Northern Commander Lt Gen MV Suchindra Kumar on Tuesday visited the White Knight Corps to review the operational preparedness of troops and discuss the security situation with senior officers, the military said.

The visit of the General Officer Commanding-in-chief of Udhampur-baser Northern Command to the 16 Corps headquarters came amid intensified anti-terror operations, especially in the remote forest areas of Kishtwar district, where a Junior Commissioned Officer and two village defence guards (VDGs) were killed by terrorists in two separate incidents in the past five days.

The GOC-in-C met with the GOC of Nagrota-based White Knight Corps, Lt General Navin Sachdeva, and discussed the security situation among other matters.

In an official statement, Northern Command stated that Lt Gen Suchindra met Lt Gen Sachdeva to review the operation preparedness. “The Army commander exhorted all ranks to maintain the highest standards of professionalism and alertness in anti-terrorist operations,” the statement read.

Naib Subedar Rakesh Kumar of Special Forces along with three other soldiers were injured during an anti-terror operation in Kishtwar. Kumar later succumbed to his injuries. The incident took place when the security forces were searching for terrorists, who had brutally killed two village defence guards in forest area of Kishtwar on Thursday.

The Northern Army commander’s visit holds importance as a massive search operation is still continuing in Kishtwar. The ultras have used the tactics of ambush against the soldiers and J&K Police in which security forces have suffered many casualties in the past two years, specifically in forest areas of Jammu division. The dense forest areas are continuously giving the terrorists an edge who target security forces by remaining hidden in bushes.

Lt Gen Navin Sachdeva later visited Kishtwar and held discussions with the ground troops and officers who are overseeing the search operation.

Army in a post on X stated, “GOC White Knight Corps alongwith GOC CIF Delta, J&K Police and intelligence agencies, visited Kishtwar sector to review ongoing counter-terror operations. GOC emphasised the need for close synergy among all stakeholders to eliminate remaining threats and commended their unwavering commitment to maintaining peace and security in the region.”

Highly trained terrorists from Pakistan have been able to infiltrate into J&K and are hiding in forest areas that has become a threat for the locals living in these areas. Sources informed that a close eye is being kept on the over ground workers (OGWs) who are helping these terrorists to sustain in jungles by providing food, water and other necessities.

Gender-based violence is being normalised in the strife-torn northeastern state

Kishalay Bhattacharjee

IT is a hard piece to begin. On November 7, a 31-year-old woman was shot, tortured and set on fire during an attack on Zairawn village in Jiribam district of Manipur. Most villagers managed to escape, but Zosangkim, a mother of three, was hit by a bullet in the leg. She was a schoolteacher. Her husband alleged that she was raped and then left to die in the burning house.

Zairawn is a Hmar village located just 7 km from Jiribam town. According to villagers, there is a CRPF camp just half a kilometre from the village, and security forces patrol the area daily. The perpetrators are believed to be members of radical Meitei organisation Arambai Tenggol.

No state, national or international organisation has devised an effective mechanism for morally rejecting sexual violence as a weapon of war.

More than 230 people have been killed and 60,000 displaced since the ethnic conflict between Meiteis and Kuki-Zos broke out in May 2023.

On July 19 last year, a video clip of two Kuki women being paraded naked and assaulted by a mob of Meitei men went viral. It brought home the reality of Manipur’s volatile ethnic divide. A day after the video surfaced, the Supreme Court took suo motu cognisance of the case, calling it “deeply disturbing”. The court went on to order an investigation into 17 cases of sexual violence against women and children in Manipur by the Central Bureau of Investigation. The investigations were meant to be monitored by the court. Justice Gita Mittal headed the three-member committee that was formed by the court to probe cases of sexual violence in Manipur. Dattatray Padsalgikar, former Director General of Police, Maharashtra, was appointed to supervise the special investigative teams. A year later, these cases remain in limbo.

A woman’s body as a ‘site of violence’ is a not unfamiliar to conflict zones. Manipur is no stranger to armed conflict; thousands of women have lost their husbands to insurgent violence or the Army crackdown. However, the mayhem over the last year and a half has befuddled observers, who are struggling to make sense of the hatred between two indigenous communities which have lived together for centuries.

This is the very place where Meitei women once disrobed in public to protest against state violence. This is where Irom Sharmila, a Meitei woman, observed an unprecedented hunger strike for 16 years against state violence. And this is where an elected government with a Meitei Chief Minister has been accused of being the defender of an overground radical Meitei group that has been unleashing terror.

How does a democratic nation like India allow an elected representative to operate like a warlord? Why is it that the Centre is reluctant to rein in the BJP-run state government that has overwhelmingly failed to govern? The Prime Minister does not seem to have been moved by all this and has so far refused to even look that way, leave alone visit the state.

It is well known that militarisation often leads to violence by state actors who have jurisdictional power over the area concerned. The state then turns a blind eye to the crimes. For decades, crimes against women in states like Manipur have been virtually effaced under Acts like AFSPA (Armed Forces Special Powers Act) that grant immunity to the state.

In militarised zones across the world, the rules of war are changing dramatically. Civil conflicts have been increasing and targeting of women is being normalised. What used to be safe places, such as one’s neighbourhood, are now ‘enemy lines’.

Women are denied the opportunity to emerge as equal stakeholders in conflict zones; what’s worse, they are becoming obvious targets. Manipur is a disturbing case in point of the rising gender-based violence as well as a decline in the gender-sensitive framework, despite its tradition of an assertive women-led civil society. Acts of mass violence cloak gender-based violence and invisibilise the aggrieved women. The associated stigma of conflict-related sexual violence contributes to the silencing of victims. In many regions, a woman’s honour is equated with the community’s honour. Violations against women then becomes a mode of revenge in ethnic violence.

The triumphant impunity enjoyed by offenders discourages reporting. Disinformation as a tool further exacerbates the faultlines. Little or no media coverage as well as Internet and telecommunication curbs black out the sites of violence.

The initial outrage that follows an act of sexual violence often fails to bring acceptance to the victim, leave alone justice. It could result in displacement; it tears apart the social fabric, destroys families and affects communities. When rape is used as a weapon against neighbours, it splits open society at various levels.

No state, national or international organisation has devised an effective mechanism for the moral rejection of sexual violence as a weapon of war. Nor is there any evidence of a timely response by states in line with constitutional obligations.

It is true that the last decade has witnessed a significant shift, with many armed militias either retiring or laying down arms and joining the political system. I recall a senior Indian intelligence officer’s veiled caution about the de-escalation of counter-insurgency operations in India. He was involved in a ‘peace process’ that was going nowhere. He warned that insurgent violence would soon give way to ethnic wars. He was damn right!

Tribal outfit cries foul, announces shutdown today

Animesh Singh Tribune News Service

Ten militants armed with sophisticated weapons were killed in retaliatory fire after they attacked a CRPF post at Jakuradhor under Borobekra police station in Manipur’s Jiribam district around 3 pm on Monday, officials said.

Editorial: Manipur’s misery

Though the officials did not confirm the identity of the militants, tribal body Kuki-Zo Council alleged its village volunteers were killed by CRPF personnel. The council put the count at 11.

Hours later, the Manipur Government imposed an indefinite curfew across Jiribam district as the tribal body declared a shutdown in the state from 5 am to 6 pm tomorrow. In a post on X, the Manipur Police said, “The CRPF post was attacked by armed militants and the security forces retaliated strongly. CRPF constable Sanjeev Kumar sustained a bullet injury and has been evacuated to Silchar Medical College in Assam. After the firing ceased, the area was searched and the bodies of 10 militants were recovered.”

The Kuki-Zo Council said, “A total shutdown will be observed on November 12 from 5 am to 6 pm. We call for immediate and thorough investigations to bring the perpetrators to justice.” The Hmar Students Association also condemned the killings, alleging these had been orchestrated by “Central, Manipur state-supported forces and Meitei militants”.

Officials said a relief camp was also located within the premises of the police station and five persons living there went missing. It was not clear whether these civilians were kidnapped by the retreating militants or went into hiding after the attack began.

In West Bengal, a boy was killed and 5 were injured as a mortar shell reportedly carried by floodwaters of Teesta river exploded

Tribune Web Desk

Chandigarh, October 7

A loud explosion was caught on camera on Friday in Sikkim’s Rangpo on the bank of Teesta river after a huge cache of ammunition, belonging to the Indian Army, exploded.

As per the Army sources, the ammunition was swept away during the flash floods in Teesta, reports India Today.

No injuries were reported.

In West Bengal’s Jalpaiguri district, a boy was killed and five others were injured as a mortar shell reportedly carried by the floodwaters of Teesta river exploded, police said on Friday. Police believe that the mortar shell belonged to the Army and was carried by floodwaters flowing down the hills following a cloudburst and flash floods in neighbouring Sikkim on Wednesday.

Local police sources said the explosion took place at Champadanga village in Kranti block on Thursday evening when one person took the mortar shell home to sell it as scrap metal and tried to break it open.

Search operations continued on Saturday for the 142 people who are still missing after the flash flood in the Teesta river that devastated Sikkim, officials said.

Twenty-six people, including seven Armymen, were killed in the flash flood, which was triggered by a cloudburst in the early hours of Wednesday and affected over 25,000 people, damaged more than 1,200 houses and washed away 13 bridges, bringing the picturesque Himalayan state to its knees, they said.

So far, 2,413 people have been rescued from different areas and 6,875 people are taking shelter in 22 relief camps set up across the state, most of which has been cut off from the rest of the country.

“There have been damage worth thousands of crores of rupees. We cannot give exact details about the damage. It will be revealed once a committee is formed and completes its analysis. Our first priority is to save those who are stranded and provide them immediate relief,” he told PTI Video.

“Road connectivity between the districts has been cut off and bridges have been washed away. Communication in North Sikkim has been severely affected,” he added.

Of the 23 Army personnel who had gone missing from Bardang, the bodies of seven have been recovered from different areas downstream of Teesta, while one of them was rescued earlier.

The search for the remaining missing soldiers is continuing both in Sikkim and the northern parts of West Bengal through which the Teesta flows, the chief minister said.

At Bardang, Army vehicles have been dug out and stores were recovered, a defence statement said, adding that tracker dogs and special radars have been deployed for assistance in the search operations. With PTI inputs