When Home Becomes Hostile, Women of the Northeast Write Their Stories of Conflict and Resilience
A new government is in place in Manipur after two years of violence. In an attempt to represent the three major communities in the government, a Chief Minister and two Deputy Chief Ministers were announced. While Chief Minister Yumnam Khemchand Singh is a Meitei, Nemcha Kipgen, a Kuki, and Losii Dikho, a Naga, were named Deputy Chief Ministers. But Kipgen not only had to take the oath virtually, she has also not been able to set foot in the Meitei-dominated Imphal Valley due to security reasons. She has to work from Kuki-dominated Kangpokpi, trying to help her community heal and bridge the divide.
This is the reality of Manipur today—a state where even a Deputy Chief Minister cannot safely enter the valley. It is a stark reminder that the wounds of ethnic conflict remain raw, and the path to reconciliation is long and uncertain.
Stories the Fire Could Not Burn
In her new book, Stories the Fire Could Not Burn, journalist and writer Hohinu Hauzel traces the reasons for the ethnic strife that erupted between the Meiteis and Kuki-Zomi people on May 3, 2023. “It is the Kuki-Zomi/Mizo people—my people—who have borne the brunt of the inhumanity unleashed in Manipur,” she writes in the Preface, “…hill communities [who] have lived under systemic neglect, routine violence, and constant threat” ever since the inception of the State in 1972.
But what unfolded in 2023 and beyond, says Hauzel, “shattered what little illusion of safety that remained.” Healing takes time, Kipgen said in an interview to The Hindu, urging the government to let the buffer zones between the Meiteis and the Kuki-Zo communities remain for now, particularly in areas where the violence was high, because safety comes first.
No Hierarchy of Horror
Hauzel poignantly writes about the night her family had to flee Imphal—”how silence hung heavier than the air, how we carried not just our belongings, but our memories, our dead, our dread. That night, we didn’t just leave behind homes. We left behind parts of ourselves we may never be able to reclaim.”
Many people were not as lucky. At least 250 people lost their lives in the violence, and over 60,000 people have been displaced. “There is no hierarchy of horror,” says Hauzel, “but each story demands to be told. Each name deserves remembrance.”
Hauzel asks a pertinent question that every marginalised person will identify with: What does one do when home becomes hostile? Manipur has seen waves of violence through the years due to insurgencies and ethnic conflagrations. Growing up in Manipur during the 1980s, violence wasn’t an exception, writes Hauzel—”it was part of the routine”, and she could tell the difference between the sound of a cracker and the pop of a pistol, “the way someone else might know birds by their calls.”
In neighbouring Nagaland, no stranger to violence herself, schools would often accommodate students from Manipur fleeing the heightened tension. When “fear became ordinary and survival instinctive,” Hauzel says she and others like her learned resilience, unwittingly preparing themselves for “a life lived in the shadow of conflict.”
The Roots of Conflict
How did Manipur reach this point? Hauzel points out that to understand Manipur, one must begin with its geography. While Imphal Valley is at the centre, its land covers just 10% of the State but is home to most of the population, particularly the dominant Meitei community. All around the valley are the hill districts which make up 90% of the terrain, not all hospitable. They are inhabited by at least 38 Scheduled Tribes, mostly belonging to the Naga and Kuki-Zomi/Mizo/Chin groups.
The hill people have long argued that the valley has cornered a lion’s share of funds, leaving a huge developmental disparity between the valley and the hills. This disparity, compounded by decades of neglect and marginalisation, created the conditions for conflict.
Hauzel’s book is filled with stories about “voices that don’t make headlines,” and the long, hard road to truth and reconciliation.
Temsula Ao: A Life of Fractures
Women often have to stand up to gendered violence, patriarchal mindsets and other upheavals. Writer Temsula Ao underscores this in her memoir, Once Upon a Life: Burnt Curry and Bloody Rags, in which she writes about her “fractured childhood” which was ripped apart by a series of tragedies, not least the loss of her parents in quick succession. For her, an important reason for writing her account was a “sense of wonder” at being able to achieve “a measure of success” from being an “absolute destitute.”
The poet, novelist, short story writer and teacher went on to write several best-selling books including Laburnum For My Head, These Hills Called Home, Book of Songs and The Tombstone in My Garden. But before that, right after secondary school, due to the circumstances she was in, decisions about her life were taken without taking into account what she wanted.
Ao had dreamed of becoming a doctor, but who was going to pay for her studies? Forget education, she found herself stranded without a ‘home’ to take shelter in. The “obvious solution” the extended family arrived at was marriage. It was a “mad plunge into the unknown” for Ao, and her only weapons of self-defence were “natural instincts and a will to survive.”
Early on in her remarkable life, during her high school years in the mid-1950s, she encountered the violent fallout of the Naga freedom movement. Encounters between the insurgents and security forces made the hills of Nagaland, and her village, “almost inaccessible and extremely dangerous.”
Everyday Struggles
In much of the Northeast, the central theme in literature has been conflict. As Banamallika writes in her Introduction to Riverside Stories: Writings from Assam, “…conflict features as a background, in the foreground, in dreams or rather nightmares” in the stories she chose to represent Assam through the decades.
In one of the stories, ‘Kaike Atomo’ (an everyday story) by Klimri Terangpi, a school teacher, Manai, who has not been paid in months, “buys the safety and perhaps lives of her family by giving away her last remaining pieces of bangles from her wedding. The boy from the forest with a gun, her ex-student, assures her it is for the cause of their community.”
This could be the everyday story for many women in the Northeast, carrying the burden of conflict and uncertainty. Their lives are shaped by forces beyond their control, yet they find ways to survive, to protect their families, to hold onto hope.
Conclusion: Writing as Witness
The women of Northeast India have borne the brunt of decades of conflict. They have lost homes, loved ones, and futures. Yet they continue to write, to tell their stories, to bear witness. In doing so, they not only preserve memory but also assert their humanity.
Hauzel’s book, Ao’s memoir, the stories collected in Riverside Stories—these are not just literary works. They are acts of resistance against erasure, declarations that the lives of women in conflict zones matter, that their experiences count.
As Hauzel writes, “Each story demands to be told. Each name deserves remembrance.” In a region where violence has become routine, where fear has become ordinary, the act of storytelling is itself a form of healing.
Q&A: Unpacking the Women’s Stories of the Northeast
Q1: What does the experience of Deputy CM Nemcha Kipgen reveal about Manipur’s current state?
Kipgen, a Kuki leader, had to take oath virtually and cannot set foot in the Meitei-dominated Imphal Valley due to security reasons. She works from Kuki-dominated Kangpokpi. This reveals that even at the highest levels of government, the ethnic divide remains raw, and safety concerns prevent normal functioning. Healing and reconciliation are still distant goals.
Q2: What does Hohinu Hauzel’s book Stories the Fire Could Not Burn document?
The book traces the ethnic strife that erupted between Meiteis and Kuki-Zomi people in May 2023, which killed at least 250 people and displaced over 60,000. Hauzel documents the experiences of hill communities who have “lived under systemic neglect, routine violence, and constant threat” since Manipur’s inception in 1972. She asks what one does when home becomes hostile.
Q3: How does Temsula Ao’s memoir reflect the challenges faced by women in conflict zones?
Ao writes of her “fractured childhood” after losing her parents, her dream of becoming a doctor thwarted by lack of funds, and being pushed into marriage as the “obvious solution.” Her only weapons were “natural instincts and a will to survive.” Her story reflects how conflict and patriarchy compound to rob women of agency and choice.
Q4: What developmental disparity does Hauzel identify as a root cause of conflict?
Imphal Valley comprises just 10% of Manipur’s land but houses most of the population, particularly the dominant Meitei community. The hill districts make up 90% of the terrain and are inhabited by at least 38 Scheduled Tribes. Hill communities argue the valley has cornered most funds, creating huge developmental disparity that fuels resentment and conflict.
Q5: How does literature from the Northeast reflect the experience of conflict?
As Banamallika writes, conflict “features as a background, in the foreground, in dreams or rather nightmares” in Assamese literature. In Klimri Terangpi’s story, a school teacher gives away her wedding bangles to buy safety from an armed ex-student. The everyday struggles of women—carrying the burden of conflict and uncertainty—are central to Northeast literature, making visible experiences that might otherwise remain invisible.
