By L.Keivom
Despite all these negative factors, the importance of Tipaimukh as a historical and strategic location from all considerations remains. It is a God given hinterland and if its infrastructure and connectivity are developed and properly utilized, it will be a boon not only to the local populace but also to the surrounding areas as far as the Chin Hills through Champhai and Churachandpur/Singat as had been the case during the British Raj when the western Chin Hills bordering Mizoram got most of its essential supplies from Silchar via Tipaimukh and other smaller outlets along the Barak and Tuivai.
Its name and location
Tipaimukh is the name of a place in south-west Manipur where the Barak River (Tuiruong) rising from its source near Mao Songsong village in Senapati District bordering Nagaland and the Tuivai river from Mizoram meet. The local inhabitants predominantly Hmars call it ‘Ruonglevaisuo’ (ruong-le-vai-suo) which means a confluence of Tuiruong and Tuivai. ‘Tui’ in Zo language is water and Tuiruong means ‘Lalruong river’. Lalruong (Ralngam) was a legendary figure, the greatest magician that ever lived in this part of the world. ‘Tuivai’ means a river that has no where to go. It literally means a ‘vagabond river’ (tui=water, vai=vagabond) but more appropriately a meandering river. ‘Le’ is a conjunction meaning ‘and’ and ‘Suo’ means confluence where rivers flow together and become one, like the Blue Nile and the White Nile in Egypt.
Tipaimukh is a combination of two words ‘Tipai’ and ‘Mukh’. The word ‘Tipai’ is a corrupted form of ‘Tui-vai’ resulting from mispronunciation or misspelling of ‘Tui’ as ‘Ti’ and ‘vai’ as ‘pai’ as most Bengali speakers have difficulty in pronouncing ‘v’; and ‘mukh’ in Bengali is ‘mouth’ or ‘confluence’. Literally, Tipaimukh means a confluence where Tuivai empties itself to become Tuiruong (Barak). Tipaimukh is on the 700 km long National Highway (NH) 150 linking Kohima (Nagaland) at the junction with NH 53 and Seling in Mizoram at the junction with NH 54 and is about 262 kms from Churachandpur, the district headquarters and 323 kms from the State capital Imphal. Silchar, the district capital of Cachar District in Assam State through which the Barak flows, is the nearest commercial centre and road and rail and air links from Tipaimukh to the outside world.
Historical watershed
The Zo descents covering the Chin-Kuki-Mizo/Zomi as a whole associated the Barak river with the name of their legendary hero and magician Lalruong and named the river ‘Tuiruong’ after his name. ‘Tuiruong’ means Lalruong’s river. There are many stories about him and his exploits. It’s their kind of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and their history and literature are inseparably entwined with Lalruong. His other name is Ralngam (Galngam) which means a man who overcomes or vanquishes his enemies or opponents.
The story of Lalruong’s conception and birth compares very close to that of Jesus Christ’s. Traditional belief held that Tuiruong had a guardian spirit (huoi), somewhat like the Burmese nat and Lalruong descended from the line of incarnation of that water spirit and inherited his exceptional magical ability from a heavenly being called Vanhrit. There are many stories of a magical Tuiruong gong (Tuiruong dar) having three bosses, each producing beautiful descending notes when struck and this gong belonged to the Tuiruong spirit. Lalruong’s father Zauhrang from Tinsuong (Tasuong) village obtained this gong from an old couple by way of providing succour at their old age. Many of the so-called Lalruong’s exploits, claimed by the locals, took place in and around Tipaimukh. These include a pierced stone by his arrow; the spot where he burnt clouds to remove a spell cast on him by his opponent, another magician Hrangsaipui (Dawikungpu), a place, it is said, morning mist or normal cloud has never covered even till this day; footprints on rocks of his double-horned mithun (sekiphir) which he took from Hrangsaipui to condole the death of his friend and opponent Keichal (man-tiger); his hidden or secret waterholes and many others.
In his book ‘National Identity’ (1991 p.22) Anthony D.Smith observed thus: “What I have termed ‘shared historical memories’ may also take the form of myth. Indeed, for many pre-modern peoples the line between myth and history was often blurred or even non-existent. Even today the line is not as clear-cut as some would like it to be; the controversy over the historicity of Homer and the Trojan War is a case in point”. I believe this observation also holds good in relation to Tuiruong or Tipaimukh myths and legends including the primordial belief of the local people that the magic hands of their hero Lalruong will protect, serve and save them from ruination.
Ethnic homeland
Apart from a myth of common ancestry and shared historical memories, a key factor in shaping a sense of common ethnic or national identity is an association with a specific homeland. In Ethnic Groups in Conflict (1985) Donald Horowitz succinctly said that “the sense of whence we came is central to the definition of who we are” and this observation explains the importance of Ruonglevaisuo for the ethnic tribe classified by G.A.Grierson under Old Kukis namely Aimol, Anal, Biete, Chawrai, Chiru, Chothe, Darlong, Hmar, Hrangkhol, Kaipeng, Kharam, Koireng (Kohren/Koren), Kom, Lamjang (Lamkang), Muolsom, Purum, Ranglong, Sakachek and others. This group is commonly identified as Hallam in Tripura and Hmar in other places though each clan tends to hold a separate identity.
This ethnic group in batches moved west from the Chin Hills and some of them reached Tripura towards the end of fourteenth century. The first recorded mention of their settlement in Tripura was in the Tripura Rajmala (Chronicles of Tripura) composed during the reign of Dharma Manikya in 1431 A.D. Some of those who moved towards Manipur had also already settled in Manipur valley and the surrounding hills during the reign of King Chalamba (1545-1562) (Capt. R.Singh: Anals of Manipur, 1981). All these clans nostalgically remembered and claimed that, before their dispersal in different directions, their last known group settlement was Ruonglevaisuo.
I visited several Hmar ethnic settlements in Manipur, Tripura, Cachar, North Cachar Hills, Karbi Anglong and Meghalaya in January-February, 2009 during which I routinely asked the elders of the community their origin, their last known settlement and when did they come to settle in their present habitat. Almost invariably, their reply was Ruonglevaisuo. A well-informed and historically sensitive Ranglong (Langrong) elder I met at Bagbasa in Tripura gave me very interesting and nostalgic account of the historical landmarks in and around Ruonglevaisuo and the amount of their collective memory left me speechless. For them, Ruonglevaisuo is their Second Sinlung and Jerusalem combined, their Harappa and Mohenjodaro. It bears the indelible stamp of their roots, their history, their identity, their soul.
In the limelight
As briefly mentioned earlier, the first time the name of Tipaimukh came into focus in the eyes of the outside world was when the British government decided to invade Mizoram to punish erring chiefs who invaded Cachar plains and British held territories at will. The northern column or Cachar Column directed from Silchar set up Camp No. 4 at Tipaimukh and from there launched the invasion. R.G. Woodthorpe, Lieutenant Royal Engineers who left detailed account of the invasion in his book The Lushai Expedition 1971-72 (London:1873, Reprint Calcutta 1978) said that Deputy Commissioner at Cachar J.W. Edgar who accompanied the Cachar Column as Civil Officer recommended that, as per surveys conducted earlier since 1850, Tipaimukh should be adopted as the starting point which they did. There are conflicting accounts regarding the time of their arrival# but Woodthorpe clearly mentioned in his book referred to above that “General Bourchier reconnoitered Tipai Mukh in person on the 9th” (December 1871). They reached Senvon where they set up Camp. No 6 near the top of the range on December 19. After successfully completing their mission, the Cachar Column returned to Tipaimukh on March 7, 1872 and left Tipaimukh on March 10.
Lieut. Woodthorpe’s parting lines to Tipaimukh is worth repeating and thought-provoking. He said, “By the 10th of March, in accordance with the orders of the Government before quoted, all the troops and coolies had bidden farewell to Tipai Mukh; and the Tuivai itself, flowing past ruined huts and deserted godowns, once more greeted the Barak with its ceaseless babble, undisturbed by the cries of coolies and the trumpeting of elephants, while the surrounding jungles relapsed into their former silence, resounding no more to the blows of the invaders’ axes” (p.305). The moot question before us is: how many invaders’ axes had since befallen on Tipaimukh and would the construction of a massive dam in this hallowed ground obliterate the sons of the soil and silence their voices forever?
Trading Centre
In fact, after the 1871-72 invasion, Tipaimukh had never regained its serenity. Realizing its commercial potential, the British administration gave permission to open Tipaimukh Bazar in 1873 which did a brisk business in raw rubber for the first year in exchange for manufactured goods and essential commodities brought from Silchar. But rubber trade began to decline from the next year onward as there were not enough wild rubber trees in the jungle to exploit commercially. Besides, the chiefs became ambitious and exacted heavy duty from rubber tapers and it became uneconomical to pursue the trade. One point worth mentioning here was a shameful malpractice resorted to by unscrupulous local suppliers who sold pebbles covered with rubber! Over and above all these, the five shops operating in Tipaimukh had to be closed down because of sporadic raids by Chief Liankhama’s men. Despite the zealous intervention of the Deputy Commissioner and the reopening of the bazaar at intervals, it was finally closed down in 1888* until the final subjugation of the region and the introduction of the British administration in 1890-91. With the imposition of the British rule, law and order was soon established and tribal raids became a thing of the past. Slowly but surely, traders returned to open shops again at Tipaimukh.
Another key factor responsible for increasing the strategic importance of Tipaimukh was the arrival of Christianity on February 5, 1910 at Senvon which became a mission headquarters. Manipur side of Tipaimukh belonged to the chief of Senvon, the largest village in Manipur hills. One of the strategic considerations of Watkin Roberts, pioneer missionary and founder of Thado-Kuki Pioneer Mission (which later became North-East India General Mission in 1923), was to support the indigenous mission by generating income through business ventures. With his trusted henchman, H.K.Dohnuna, a born-leader and a successful businessman who left his lucrative business in Aizawl to join TKPM, they came up with a business strategy which was to buy forest and agricultural products from along the banks of the Barak river, stock at Tipaimukh and then transport the goods to Lakhipur (Hmarkhawlien), Silchar, Calcutta and other trading centers. In this venture, the first hub was to be Tipaimukh and the second, Lakhipur. Therefore, they enthused villagers along the banks of the Barak and Tuivai rivers to take up commercially viable horticultural ventures and a good number of them started orange and pineapple orchards which later paid them good dividends.
Unfortunately, their vision could not materialize as planned due to many factors beyond their control including the reverberations of the two world wars, the crisis within the NEIG mission itself, the untimely death of Dohnuna and the worldwide Economic Depression following the collapse of Wall Street on October 24, 1929 that shook the world for almost two decades. But their dream did not die and still holds good. The recent crusade for economic redemption spearheaded by a retired senior officer Mr. L.B.Sinate since 2003 is the continuation of that vision described above. The atavistic belief that Tipaimukh holds Lalruong’s magic gourd for the survival of the people in the region will remain and not die.
Present state of Tipaimukh*
Of the 9 districts in Manipur State, the largest in terms of size is Churachandpur (4570 sq. kms) with a population of 2,27,905 (2001 census) and a literacy rate of 74.67 as against the average State literacy rate of 68.87. The district has 6 sub-divisional blocks and Tipaimukh Sub-division is one of them. The locals commonly call this sub-division as Hmar Area (Hmar Biel), the only spot on earth bearing this name. Headquartered at Parbung, it has a total area of 789.48 sq. km with 55 villages, 3975 households and a population of 24,084 predominantly Hmars. Tipaimukh is the 55th Assembly Constituency of Manipur and since its inception has been represented by men from the Hmar community such as Ngurdinglien Sanate, Selkai Hrangchal, Dr. Chaltonlien Amaw and Ngursanglur Sanate, the incumbent MLA.
I was born and brought up in this area till I matriculated from Pherzawl High School, the first high school in the Manipur hills established in 1951 which produced most of the second generation educated Hmars who later came to occupy important positions in government as well as church organizations. The only road connection then to Churachandpur till 1970s was a four-foot wide mule road and it took three days of walk on foot from dawn to dusk to reach the town. Before the opening of the 262 km Churachandpur-Tipaimukh road in late 1970s, we got all our essential supplies from Silchar through Tipaimukh and this situation has slowly been reverting after Border Roads Task Force (BRTF) withdrew the road constructors in 1987 and the Tipaimukh road quickly deteriorated due to disrepair and lack of maintenance.
Then in January, 1999 Tipaimukh Road was declared a National Highway (NH 150) with a promise to make into a double-lane highway. But the progress has been tardy and at a snail’s pace. I traveled by this route in 1986 with the then Deputy Commissioner of Churachandpur Mr. D.S.Poonia, presently Chief Secretary of Manipur. The road then was in good condition and one could easily reach Tipaimukh on the same day from Churachandpur. I took this route again in March/April 1989 on a visit from Rangoon and reached New Vervek in Mizoram from Churachandpur at dusk. After a gap of 18 long years, I visited the area again from Delhi through Aizawl and Churachandpur routes in October 2007 and 2008 respectively. By then, this so-called National Highway 150 had become a jungle path full of potholes and sinking mud that reminds you of a scene in chapter one of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress in which he vividly depicted Christian precariously wading through the Slough of Despond.
The apathy and neglect shown by the state and the central governments to Tipaimukh area is appalling. The best way to experience their fate is to travel in this infamous NH 150 under unceasing autumn rains which I did twice in October 2007 & 2008. No word I know of is fit enough to describe the real situation. While the world is heading for post- IT age, Tipaimukh area is bouncing back to the Stone Age. The stony and mindless neglect of their only transportation route to the district headquarters has adversely affected the socio-economic livelihood of the remote villages as they are unable to market their forest and other products and buy and transport their essential needs. This has seriously impacted the overall development of the region.
In the 1980s some semblance of governance was still in place but in 1990s they had vanished into thin air. Rickety office buildings were still there but had become the home of cattle and pigs at night. Government schools were still there by name but not teachers. Frayed and faded signboards of rural hospitals and dispensaries were still there but in a locked up condition. They were reeling under a ‘No No regime’: no doctors, no nurses, no medicine, no electricity, no public distribution system (PDS), no proper communication system, no newspapers, no internet, mobile or telephone connectivity except radio, no proper water supply. The signboard of a petrol pump near Tipaimukh was still hanging precariously under a thorny bush after the last drop of petrol dripped more than twenty years ago. And Tuivai bridge on NH 150, the only bridge linking Manipur and Mizoram which was washed away by the surging Tuivai in 1989 had been replaced by a swinging nylon Bailey bridge! The dreaded mautam (bamboo flowering) came and left but perennial famine remains firmly entrenched. Corruption of all kinds has seeped through every pore of the society. Honesty has taken flight to be replaced by hypocrisy which now sits in every nook and corner of the society including inside the hollow and dispirited churches.
Taking advantage of the inaccessibility of this God-forsaken place, the United National Liberation Front (UNLF) set up training camps in the area and took control of the road and allowed no government vehicles to pass beyond Bungmual village at the outskirt of Churachandpur town till 2005-2006 when the Indian army launched an operation and cleared the entire region of militant groups but not before the cruel raping of 21 women at Lungthulien village on the night of January 16, 2006 and the exodus of a large number of frightened villagers to Mizoram. This was followed at frequent intervals by mysterious deaths of children and the mindless response from Imphal so far had been to send a malaria doctor and some uninformed nurses to test blood for malaria in the most primitive fashion. How better insult one can pour on to another fellow countrymen than this!
The isolation of the people of Tipaimukh by the government is complete. But they cannot deny or ignore their existence as they are the custodian of a sacred and hallowed ground where the highest dam in India is planned to be built without consulting them. Will the authorities concerned persist in trying to deny their existence? What are the merits and demerits of constructing Tipaimukh Dam? What are the benefits that will accrue from it or the negative impacts that will befall on the sons of the soil? Will naked calculation of commercial or economic benefit from the dam alone override all other human considerations? Is it justifiable to sacrifice the fate of the people living in the region and their existence in cruel exchange for the so-called development? We gather together here today to deliberate on these issues with an open and constructive mind.
The future
I am not going to delve deep into what the future holds for Tipaimukh. I am more interested in what we do or what can we do to save Tipaimukh from extinction. It is amply clear to my mind that unless we stop Tipaimukh from further sinking in its rot and do something to bail it out, no amount of self-pontification from public rostrums during election campaigns, seminar halls and church pulpits will help. The rot within has to be cleansed and repaired from within and not from without. Outsiders can only lend helping hands. The degenerating factors responsible for this quagmire have to be identified and corrected. For this, it is necessary to re-examine closely when and where and how and why things went so wrong and whether corrective course can be taken. If this salvaging mission is not done, it is immaterial whether dam is constructed or not, Tipaimukh will ultimately self-destruct and sink down to oblivion in its own sludge.
Everyone knows that Tipaimukh is one of the sub-divisional blocks in a failed State. The system of governance had collapsed since long providing a good excuse for the gun-toting hands to run a parallel but seemingly more effective government. In my travelogue of 2004, I wrote an article entitled ‘Land of the Living Dead’ and I quote a few paragraphs to repeat my observations:
Quote:
The Killing Field
Manipur of to-day is no longer Manipur that was. The society has now gone back to the Hobbesian state of nature where people live in continual fear and danger of violent death, where life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short, where swords but not words reign supreme and where they embrace not with loving arms but with deadly arms of AK-47s. It has become a land of the living dead where they empty out their anger and frustration from the barrel of guns. Whichever side you turn, you see uniformed men with deathly toys in their hands. On the streets are government security personnel and those in the backyard are the so-called Ugs (underground soldiers). They all wear uniforms and batches and carry weapons. They co-exist side by side. They are afraid of each other because they too are mortals and the toys they carry kill effectively and mercilessly.
The worst part of it is that much before they kill you, they kill your freedom first. All these in the great name of freedom and integrity. One side kills to defend freedom and integrity of the whole country and the other side kills to demand and achieve freedom. One side is armed with Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), a licence to kill a suspect with immunity from legal prosecution which is a clear negation of the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution. The danger point in this is that a suspect is not necessarily the culprit and the obnoxious act provides a big room for an innocent to suffer unjustly. As a father has a duty to discipline a disobedient child but not to kill, the government has also the same rights and responsibilities but not to kill except through due process of law. AFSPA is a negation of that due process and no amount of articulation in its favour will justify its existence.
A Failed State
The more realistic issue is: what necessitates the imposition of such a draconian law as the AFSPA? Let’s see the picture of Manipur. According to my observation, Manipur has since long become a failed State. Corruption of all kinds has eaten away its foundations and the machinery therefore inevitably collapsed. Elected members with little or no vision at all have been busy making ministry after ministry but never have the time to run the government. It is a State where every elected MLA, in a ceaseless war of position, is vying to become a Minister. If he is not given a berth in the Cabinet, he rebels and plots to bring the Ministry down to form another one. If I remember correctly, at one point of time the Opposition had a solitary Congress member namely Mr. Rishang Keishing as his men left in droves to join a coalition government. Party affiliation and loyalty has little or no meaning amongst the foxy Judas Iskariots whose culture is thriving on outward allegiance and inner betrayal.
A House of Cards
Only a stable House can provide a stable government. Unfortunately, Manipur for long has been having only a house of cards which collapsed at every knock of power-hungry politicians. Ministry after Ministry fell like ninepins and elections after elections held in the past returned more and more ambitious members bend on looting the coffers of the State to make good their election expenses and amass some for the next elections. I was told time and again that, on paper, successive ministries had already undertaken projects after projects, dammed and bridged every river and nullah worth its name, terraced every imaginable hillside for cultivation, provided almost every village some form of schools with complimentary teaching and administrative staff, health centers and dispensaries, electricity and potable water supply. The list is endless but the reality is shorter than a hot-pant.
Looting the looter
Consequently, the list of people’s frustrations and complaints is getting longer and longer but their tempers have become shorter and shorter. Every imaginable government job carries a heavy price. The criterion in the employment market is money. You pay the price, you get the post. Nothing is possible without money and nothing is impossible with money. Thousands of educated unemployed youths who cannot afford to buy employment either have to go outside the State to seek employment or sit idle at home indulging in drugs or take up arms and join the underground outfit. The ongoing famous saying in Manipur is that if you want to build a good house and provide economic and physical security to your family, join the underground. It is a sad alternative to joining election politics but equally and immorally lucrative. The new equation is simple and straightforward: politicians loot and you loot politicians.
Believe it or not, this is the way the system operates in Manipur. The Ugs now decide who will get elected. And once elected, it is the turn of the elect to support the electors and oblige their demands and wishes. It is a classic remake of Mrs. Shelley’s Frankenstein and the monster he created. There was a time when a voter actually and in person cast his or her vote in the ballot box at the polling booth. Even now, on paper, a voter still casts his/her vote in the ballot box in a polling booth but with a difference: now an unseen hand casts the vote for the highest bidder through the barrel of a gun. That is the way our proxy democracy operates in many areas in Manipur. It’s a complete sham but it works in its own fashion. You loot the looter through democratic machinery and share the booty. Nothing official about it, as the advertisement goes.
Dead Voters
I was told that the number of houses officially declared and registered in the villages is much more than the actual number of houses, and accordingly the number of voters too. It is indeed an inflation of a strange kind perhaps not found anywhere on earth. How could this happen? Because enumeration in Manipur is a great political bargaining game. In some areas, there are more voters than the population. The dead do not die here for good; they faithfully surface again at the time of elections. If you sit with any official and ask his experience on election duties, he will tell you many juicy election tales that you will never find even in a book of fiction. Strange things happen naturally in this land of deception, a paradise turned into a blazing inferno by its own people. It certainly beats Dante’s inferno.” Unquote.
Tipaimukh has its full share of the result of the tragic drama briefly described above. The irony is that one can neglect Tipaimukh but cannot write off as it sits on a strategic location where a high dam is to be built. Will this dam be a boon or a bane? Survival or extinction? Salvation or eternal damnation? For whom the Tipaimukh bell tolls?
Arguments for and against building Tipaimukh Dam has been going on for some years and dissenting voices particularly from the affected areas and the riparian regions in India and Bangladesh will grow louder and louder as awareness to the damage it can cause increases. Some even call it a geo-tectonic blunder of international dimension, an alarming venture of high magnitude, a death-knell to indigenous people in the region, a doomsday project which will inundate vast forestland, damage biodiversity and ecological balance and cause devastating floods and earthquakes, a project driven by selfish motive and vested interest and many others. The protagonists for the dam dismiss these dissenting voices as jeremiad and argue that the benefit will far surpass the damage it can cause.
However, even in a case like this where opinions are diametrically polarized, there often is a median line for a possible solution. Lack of transparency and disregard of proper consultation mechanism for a mega project like the proposed Tipaimukh dam can create avoidable misunderstanding and complications. Casual observation of the manner the concerned authorities have so far handled the proposed dam betrayed the confidence and trust of the local population who will bear the brunt of the project. Any further attempt to ride rough shod over them and deprive them of their birthright to live and survive will be a violation of their constitutional rights and it will boomerang. The situation calls for a review from all angles.
(December 7, 2010, Delhi.)
* Prepared for the National Seminar on Dams and Development: The Case of the Tipaimukh Dam sponsored by North-Eastern Council (NEC), Shillong and held at the Vocational and Training Centre, Muolhlum, Rengkai, Churachandpur from 13-15 December, 2010.
# According to B.Lalthangliana (Mizo Chanchin, 2001 p.411) the Cachar Column left Silchar on December 16, 1971 and proceeded further from Tipaimukh towards Mizoram through Senvon on January 2, 1972.
* Further details can be had from B.Lalthangliana’s compilation ‘India, Burma, Bangladesh-a MIZO CHANCHIN’ Aizawl, 2001 p. 528-529
* Dr. Lal Dena’s vivid account of his visit to Tipaimukh area is attached with his permission for further reading.
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