In a historic show of solidarity, thousands of Nepali-speaking people in the Indian state of Manipur took to the street and blocked the national highway 39—state’s most important connection with mainland India—and forced the state to heed their demand. This is one of the rarest cases where the community has forced the state to stoop.

The demonstration came as a protest against the rape of a 13 year-old girl Nepali girl by one S. Mapuni aka Tazmapuni, a 65-year old government contractor from Paomai area in Imphal East. During the demonstration last month, the police resorted to indiscriminate gunfire and shot dead one Mr. Tilak Paudyal, and left two others—Bir Karki and Hemant Sharma—injured at Kanglatongbi. The killing and injury intensified the public outrage, and the irate Nepalese from Kanglatongbi to Kangpokpi area blocked the highway. Ultimately, the government had to give in, and make four agreements with the Nepalese: compensating the rape victim, compensating the shootout victims, arresting the alleged rapist, and taking action against the shooting cop.

According to the news that went public, the victim’s family rented an apartment in the rapist’s home, and the two had been living as ‘father’ and ‘daughter’. On the fateful day, the rapist, who belongs to the local Naga community, reportedly took the girl out of home in his car on the pretext of arranging for her to cast vote impersonating his daughter who is studying B.Sc. nursing in Delhi. However, reports said that he took her to a hillock instead of the polling station and raped her there. On hearing the cries of the girl, a motorist stopped, and tried to thrash the rapist, the accused bribed the motorist. The girl, quick of reason, escaped and took shelter in the house of a relative there. The rape was later confirmed by medical investigations.

Later in the afternoon, when the news went public, angry Gorkhas blocked the highway from Kanglatongbi to Sekmai, demanding the arrest of the culprit. Police commandos, deployed from the nearby Sekmai police station, tried to disperse the mob with tear gases and mock bombs. But when the mob did not relent, they fired indiscriminately, leading to one casualty, and two critical injuries, not to mention the number of people who incurred minor injuries. The critically injured ones are still battling for their lives in a private hospital in Imphal, the capital city of Manipur.

In several years, this is the first time the tiny state has felt the power of the Nepali-speaking people. The current news took its turn, not because of the rape alone, but because of the indiscriminate police firing. It was something like the Jalianwala Bagh Massacre of 1919, when General Dyre of the British colonial army in India had opened fire to the peaceful demonstrators during India’s freedom movement, leaving hundreds of people dead, and many others injured.

Of the seven states in North-East India, popularly known as ‘seven sisters’, Manipur holds the largest population of the Nepali-speaking people, after the state of Assam. Around one hundred thousand of Nepalese live in the state, and are buffer between mutually hostile communities. This is not the first time Nepali-speaking population of the state has been made a victim of systematic, state-sponsored violence. History is filled with similar cases, and because a subaltern minority it is—unrepresented in the state assembly or responsible state systems—the community largely remains neglected and unaddressed.

In 1980s, an entire locality of the Nepali-speaking people was set on fire by the locals backed by secessionist underground forces on charge of being ‘foreigners’. Several people fled to safety and never returned to Iril Valley, while others returned with the return of peace, or when the Central government intervened with army deployment. In the 90s, when two ethnic groups, the Nagas and the Kukis, engaged one another in a bloody ethnic violence over the issue of the ownership of the hills of Nepal, several Nepalis had to leave their homestead and flee. Several of their houses, and large estates and farms in Irang part I and II, have now been occupied by the tribal hill-men, and the Nepalese are reeling under abject poverty elsewhere.

Cases of rape have continually figured over the last few years, as the crime is becoming rampant in the entire Indian terrain. In May 2012, a girl named Pushpa Basnet was found dead at a foothill in Imphal District, following a rape. Following this incident, as many as four similar cases have come up.

Rape is just one of several kinds of violence Nepalis in Manipur have been facing. Why and for what reasons were Shivu Ale and Bal Bahadur Bhujel kidnapped and murdered will perhaps never be revealed, because no government agency ever thought of conducting an investigation. No one knows why Pahar Bahadur, a local leader from Iril Valley was shot dead in broad daylight. There is no account of the number of livestock and fowls Nepali people lose everyday under duress, and no one has anything to say why all seats of local government in Nepali-dominated areas are being reserved for non-Nepali tribes. There is no telling how many groups of armed militants extort from the Nepalis—most of whom are farmers and wage-earners—and how many times they are made shields between warring groups.

The courage shown by Nepali people in Manipur this time under the leadership of All Manipur Gorkha Students’ Union and All Manipur Gorkha Welfare Union is quite salutary. Dominating powers have always enjoyed a sadistic privilege in ventrilocalizing the minorities, and rendering them voiceless. The subjection is not only illegal, but also communal, inspired by a self-imposed superiority complex. Every local tribe, and the state administration need to acknowledge the fact that the Nepalis have lived in Manipur for centuries. They fought for the state in Bir Tikendrajit’s army. They served the royals under King Buddhachandra and his heirs. They named the barren lands, made them cultivable, and solved the problem of food and dairy in Manipur. The fact that official names of several villages in Manipur come from Nepali names—Toribari, Panikheti, Rizaj Tahar, Maane Dada, Seti Khola—is an evidence that the Nepali people inhabited these places as first settling humans, and the dates go back to centuries ago. They have served the administration, education and security and have never been a violent group inviting security intervention in their history of more than a century in the state.

If the government’s recent resilience proves to be a mere pacifier, the worst might come forth from the community known in history as a ‘martial’ group. Humans unite across the borders to rise against cruelty and violence.  We are not in the 80s of limited network and communication. The Nepalis of Manipur belong to a global network of Nepali brotherhood, and also part of the wider movement for recognition and justice in India, in the region and globally. Authorities must attend to these facts, and strive to make wise decisions to ensure peace, harmony and justice.

The author can be reached at mahesh.kathmandu@gmail.com

[Paudyal teaches at the Central Department of English, TU]