Manipur started burning in May 2023. A year down the line one continues to read about sporadic episodes of violence, assertions by the Arambai Tenggol at the Kangla Fort, Kuki-Zo’s attempts to prove their citizenship yet again and requests to restore the Free Movement Regime (FMR).
These are a few instances of the arduous, unsettling and never-ending ethnic contestations in the not so old history of the State of Manipur in India.
Who better to capture these events in a candid yet sensitive way than Nandita Haksar? A well-known Human Rights lawyer, Haksar has been associated with the North East since the 1980s and was the first to file a case against the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 in the context of human rights violations in Manipur.
Haksar’s narrative is detailed, vivid and nuanced making it a formidable work to review. The title of the book is a translation from the Meitei epic Numit Kappa or ‘Shooting the Sun’, and can be traced to the period of the Ningthouja dynasty of Manipur.
May 2024, volume 48, No 5