A People Betrayed: The Continuing Ordeal of the Kuki Since May 3, 2023

By: H.S Benjamin Mate

       Chairman, KOHUR 

Since May 3rd, 2023, the Kuki-community has endured a nightmare unimaginable in a democratic nation. We have been reduced to lives of fear and flight, treated worse than animals by the very systems meant to safeguard our dignity and rights. Under the watch of both the State and the Central Government, an entire community was pushed into the flames of persecution, without protection, without justice, and without a voice.

Our top bureaucrats, politicians, scholars, church leaders, government employees, and respected businessmen — people who once served the State with loyalty — were chased in the streets of Imphal like criminals, like prey, hunted by mobs inflamed with hatred. Our women were brutalised, our men butchered, our children burned alive. Homes built through years of sacrifice turned into ashes in a single night. Centuries-old heritage was erased with ruthless precision.

When violence forced us to flee the valley — the valley that was once our home — we were not even allowed the basic dignity of safe passage. Our traditional lifeline routes were blocked. The Meitei-controlled valley became a trap of death and humiliation. We were pushed to rely on dangerous jungle tracks for survival, like hunted animals forced into the wilderness.

Today, even the most essential supplies — food, fuel, medicines — are denied to us. Mothers fear for their sick children, elders die in silence, and hospitals struggle without essentials, all under the supposedly "watchful" and "assured" governance of the Republic of India. The very Constitution that promises equality, justice, and dignity for all stands frozen, silent, and unresponsive.

And yet — even after all this — some among us continue to speak of restoring the same government machinery that failed to shield us, the same institutions that turned their backs when we were slaughtered in broad daylight. What a tragedy. What a shame.

Have these leaders forgotten the charred bodies, the wailing widows, the traumatized orphans? Have they erased from their hearts the images of villages burned, churches desecrated, and thousands displaced overnight? How can anyone still preach about submission to a regime that allowed our genocide to unfold step by step?

Leadership demands empathy, conviction, and courage. Those who dare call themselves leaders today must first ask a question to their souls: Do I stand with my suffering people — or do I bend before those who inflicted the suffering?

We cannot — we must not — allow ourselves to become sacrificial lambs in the games of heartless and self-serving leaders. Our community deserves more: dignity, safety, autonomy, and a future built on justice.

This is not the time to forget. This is the time to remember.

Not the time to kneel. The time to rise.

Not the time to restore the old chains. But to build a new path, free from subjugation and fear.

May the blood of the innocents become the foundation of our unity.

May the tears of widows and orphans awaken in us an unyielding resolve.

Let us wake up — before it is too late.

Let us stand — before we are erased.

Let us lead — before we are led to the slaughterhouse once again.

The world may pretend not to see.

But history will record what we choose today.

KUKI TODAY📫

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