An activist of the All Tribal Students Union Manipur (ATSUM) holds a placard during a protest amid ongoing ethnic violence in India's northeastern Manipur state, in New Delhi on May 31. (Photo: Arun Sankar / AFP)
India’s pro-Hindu federal government has announced a relief package worth US$12 million for the strife-torn northeastern Manipur state where riots between the predominantly Hindu Meitei community and tribal Christians claimed 98 lives and damaged homes and churches.
The federal government has approved a sum of 1 billion Indian rupees (some US$12.5 million) for providing "relief to the internally displaced people in the state,” Kuldiep Singh, security advisor for the Manipur government, said in a press statement in Imphal, the capital of the hilly state.
Singh indicated that Manipur, bordering the civil war-hit Myanmar, is limping back to normalcy after a month-long violence, saying on June 8, “Manipur is currently in a state of peace” as there were “no fresh reports of any acts of violence within the state for the past 48 hours.”
The state government, also led by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party, has not withdrawn law and order measures, including a curfew.
The unprecedented violence started in Manipur on May 3 between the ethnic Kuki and Meitei communities over a court proposal to give special tribal status as a “Scheduled Tribe” group to Meitei people under India’s affirmative action program to enable them special benefits such as seats in government jobs and educational institutions.
Most Kuki tribe people are Christians, while a majority of Meiteis are Hindus, though a few of them are Christians, too.
The Meiteis make up 53 percent of Manipur’s 3.2 million people and control political power (40 of the 60 lawmakers in the state assembly are from the Meitei community), and economic resources.
The violence so far, according to reports, claimed 98 lives, hurt 310 people, and displaced more than 45,000.
The reports said 260 churches have been gutted, including six Catholic churches and one pastoral training center, and 1,700 homes were damaged. The government has recorded 4,014 cases related to arson.
Nationwide support for minority Christians has been growing. Nearly 35 bishops, including Eastern rite Cardinals George Alencherry and Baselios Cleemis, joined a candlelight procession and a special prayer gathering in solidarity with the victims on June 7 in Kerala, the headquarters of their Churches in communion with Rome.
The cardinals gathered at the Basilica of Our Lady of Vallarpadam, a renowned pilgrimage center under the Latin rite Varapoly archdiocese in Kerala.
Cardinal Alencherry, the head of the Syro-Malabar Church, said, “An ethnic conflict was fuelled to become full-scale communal violence in Manipur.”
The cardinal blamed political parties and other interested groups (without naming anyone) for the current plight of people, especially Christians.
Those killed, Cardinal Alencherry said, “include our priests” as well.
“We have come together to seek the intercession of Mother Mary for the victims of sectarian violence in Manipur,” said Cardinal Cleemis, president of the regional Kerala Catholic Bishop's Council.
Cardinal Cleemis, head of the Syro-Malankara Church, urged the government to restore peace in the riot-hit state.
Expressing solidarity, a rally was also held in Mangaluru in the southern Indian state of Karnataka on June 6.
Hundreds of people, including Christians, demanded an end to violence against Christians in Manipur.
Father Roy Castelino, who addressed the gathering, appealed to the authorities to restore peace in the northeastern state.
Father Faustine Lobo accused the government and elected representatives of failure to protect people, saying, “It is tantamount to the government encouraging the unrest.”
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