Memory and kinship across the Indo-Myanmar border: A study of the lived experiences of displaced Kuki families

Introduction

Leo, an Indian businessman, nonchalantly makes his way through security checkposts dotted along the transnational highway connecting the Indian state of Manipur with Myanmar. He does this weekly to transport fruits and eatables from Namphalong market in Myanmar to his hometown in Churachandpur district of Manipur, where he sells them. He is the envy of his fellow businessmen for his command of multiple languages, which has gained him a good network of people and easy access across border gates. While the border offers good opportunities for Leo, it evoked both nostalgic and painful memories in his father, who passed away a few years ago. Leo’s parents were among the group of families from Phaisat and the neighbouring Kuki villages – such as Chahkap and Mollen in Ukhrul district of Manipur – that were displaced in 1964 when the ethno-territorial aspiration of the Naga movement evolved into violence against Kuki villagers. Following the killing of Kuki village chiefs in the early 1960s (Chaube, 1999; Haokip, 2017), several villagers left their lands and properties behind and were forced to start a new life in Churachandpur district of Manipur. Without the immediate proximity of the border, their ties with relatives in Myanmar have subsequently weakened. On his dying bed, Leo’s father still indulged in a reminiscence of his life in Ukhrul and his frequent trips across the imaginary line to hunt along with his friends. Even after the formalization of the boundary, access through the border was possible because of his familiarity with the land and people on both sides. The dislocation from Ukhrul to another location permanently cut off such cross-border relations.

Leo’s story reveals the complexity of everyday life in the north-eastern region of India, where securing a livelihood and maintaining family relationships can easily amount to breaking the law. The north-eastern region consists of eight states: Manipur, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Mizoram and Sikkim. The region shares 98% of its borders with neighbouring countries, including China, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Myanmar. It therefore remains an important and sensitive site to protect and assert India’s sovereignty (Leake, 2022). However, India’s strict border policies commonly undermine the culture and history of the borderland communities. The demarcation of a boundary and the separation of different ethnic groups of the region, such as the Kukis and the Nagas, into different nation-states is a result of colonial mapping and territoriality, devised as a means of administrative convenience and the fulfilment of commercial interests in the lowland areas of the region during the British rule in India (Haokip, 2023; Kipgen, 2020). Therefore, the ethnocultural aspirations of many ethnic groups in the region extend across the international border (Hausing, 2016). Given the long history of India’s conflict over territory with its neighbouring countries, such aspiration has been seen as a threat to the protection of India’s sovereignty, thereby resulting in strict regulation and securitization of the border (Leake, 2022; Roluahpuia, 2019). Apart from this contestation, which underscores the strained relationship between the people and the state, there are also several ethnonationalist movements that have provoked conflict between different ethnic groups over competing claims to territories and resources. Colonial administration through ethnic segregation led to subjective awakening and ethnonationalism in postcolonial India, resulting in inter-communal conflict. Owing to the involvement of insurgent groups, several of these conflicts have taken a violent turn, leading to the massacre of innocent lives and the displacement of hundreds of families. The Kuki–Naga ethnic conflict began with the threat of violence and selective killing of Kuki chiefs in the 1960s (Haokip, 2017). This led to the displacement of many Kuki villages in Ukhrul district of Manipur to their relatives in Myanmar and other districts of Manipur. Cross-border movement was made possible by the presence of ethnic kin and relatives on the other side of the border. From 1967 onwards, after the suspension of democracy and the political turmoil in Burma, these displaced families from Ukhrul were expelled by the Burmese authority to the Indian side of the border. Their journey home was fraught with traumatic experiences of violence and precariousness. The second phase of ethnic violence in the 1990s exacerbated the challenges of these families as many of them were forced to relive traumatic experiences of violence and displacement. Following the trajectories of these families, whose lives oscillate between the two sides of the border, this study seeks to understand how displaced families from border villages deal with the aftermath of violence, displacement and separation. In addition, the lived experience of present-day border villages is also taken into consideration. In the existing literature on ethnicity and the emerging border framework in north-east India, special attention has been paid to the macro-level political mobilization of different trans-border communities for cross-border unification (Pachuau and Van Schendel, 2016; Pau, 2018; Roluahpuia, 2022a; Wouters, 2021). This study focuses on the role of family experiences and memories in light of the centrality of the border and the altered social reality as a result of violence and displacement. Families and individuals showed resilience in their everyday lives as they faced changing realities. Throughout these processes of adjustment, cultural and family memories provide an important means of navigation and awareness of family and ethnic identity.

Borders, people and the state in north-east India

Border pillars, checkposts and security guards are a normal sight in peripheral areas along the border. While the concepts and ideas behind these structures are fraught with competing discourses, the hegemonic and homogenizing project of sovereign states provides the rationale for the militarization of the borderland. However, there are also local lives and activities driven by everyday necessities that generally ignore the strict regulations of the border. From the perspective of national policymakers, these activities constitute the illegality of the border. The Indo-Myanmar border, which symbolizes the power and territory of the state, also has an inverse impact on the borderland communities. The north-eastern states of Manipur, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram share an international border with Myanmar. While the boundary was drawn without consulting the indigenous people (Kipgen, 2020; Roluahpuia, 2019), the gradual passage of time and the imposition of social realities were transformative enough to obfuscate their struggles. Meanwhile, the issues of human mobility, including the cross-border movement of different insurgent groups, and the clandestine transit of weapons and drugs have raised concerns (Jacob, 2010) and reinforced the need for the state to strictly monitor movement across the border. Such an emphasis on surveillance overlooks the everyday problems that necessitated the constant movement of the trans-border communities (Weiner, 1985). Ziipao (2020) notes that in Mon district of Nagaland state, 17 villages are divided into two nation-states, India and Myanmar. For the chief of the village of Longwa in Mon, daily routines such as dining and sleeping involve a cross-border movement. Several other tribes of the region share a similar experience. While mundane activities in the home and on private property do not alarm the authorities, checkpoints at border crossings have always disrupted people’s everyday lives. The intrinsic relationship of tribal identity and culture with land and nature has been deeply plagued and transformed by the demarcation of territories by colonizers since the nineteenth century. Drawing on surveys and statistical reports (Pau and Mung, 2021) meant to expand the region’s rule and manage the newly acquired spaces, colonial rulers divided the region into different hills and named these hills on the basis of a particular tribe (Ziipao, 2020). Therefore, the traditional forms of territoriality and governance were gradually replaced with the British compartmentalization of indigenous spaces (Pau, 2018). The new names of the hills include Naga hills, Chin hills, Lushai hills, Mikir hills, Khasi hills and Jaintia hills. The process began in 1826, after the King of Ava and the British East India Company signed the Treaty of Yandaboo. The signing paved the way for colonial rule and marked the beginning of an arbitrary line between India and present-day Myanmar. The final agreement on the boundary between India and Myanmar was reached on 2 May 1967 (Roluahpuia, 2019) Based on the Treaty of Yandaboo, the agreement confirms the continuity of colonial administrative and territorial policies, while the plague of the separation of families and ethnic groups remains unattended.

Statist perspectives that reinforce the need for militarization and proper border control do not take into account the histories and struggles of the indigenous people. Meanwhile, the political mobilization and insurgency movements that resisted the imposition of boundaries and the separation of ethnic groups have been seen as threats that warrant a law-and-order approach (Hausing, 2016). Roluahpuia (2018) also notes that the development agendas implemented in north-east India ‘are deeply imbricated within the discourse of security’ (Roluahpuia, 2018: 257). Leake (2022) sees the inherent threat of securitization and protection of India’s sovereignty in the establishment of the North-Eastern Council ‘as a means for the center to assert a strict hold over this periphery’ (857). The region’s geopolitical attributes remain a concern for policymakers. The founding members of the council were worried about the looming threat of China’s control over the north-eastern region. Such a view was also triggered by the racialized gaze directed at the indigenous people, who have a trans-border connection with the neighbouring countries of South-east Asia (Hausing, 2016). At a time when both China and India worked to enhance their influence in the Himalayas, the cross-border movement of the Naga insurgents was a strong rationale for the Indian state to implement the Armed Forces Special Power Act (AFSPA), which legitimizes the use of force (Leake, 2022). The latest case of misuse of the act was reported in Mon district of Nagaland on 4 December 2021, when security forces killed 14 civilians including 6 daily wagers working at a coal mine (Kaushik and Agarwala, 2021). These laws and policies reflect the challenges of mobility and the impossibility of cultural regeneration for the indigenous communities as the threat of violence continues to lurk around every corner.

Contrary to the monological and law-and-order discourse that informs the policies and approaches of the Indian state’s nation-building project (Hausing, 2016), a more relevant approach is that which recognizes the temporalities (Pfoser, 2020) and heterogeneity of the borderland region, the border itself and the people living in its proximity. Understanding the temporalities of the border reveals its historical trajectory. This implies the need to unearth the collective memory and culture of the people that govern their cross-border activities and ethnocultural aspirations. Although official reports state that the violence of secessionist movements in north-east India has subsided, performative aspects of ethnic nationalism still recur among different ethnic groups as myths, songs, poetry and folklore continue to mobilize the idea of ethnonationalism (Roluahpuia, 2022b). These elements of ethnic groups have the potential to highlight how colonial mapping and territoriality, evident in the postcolonial border policies, have negated indigenous history and the concept of territory.

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Figure 1.

Map of Manipur before the bifurcation in 2016.

Among the Kuki community in Manipur, India, myths, folklore and songs transcend the border and play an important role in the cultural mobilization of the community. These elements of their culture tell us something about the historical trajectory of the Kuki community. The state of Manipur is home to different ethnic groups such as the Meiteis, the Nagas and the Kukis. According to the Indian Census of 2011, the Meiteis (including the Pangals) constitute 65.8% of the total population and inhabit 10.02% of the state’s geographical area, while the Kukis and the Nagas, both a conglomeration of several tribes, occupy 89.98% of the land. The British adopted a policy of ethnic segregation and used these three communities as a buffer to protect their territory (Agrawal, 1996). Such segregation led to a subjective awakening and turned into violence and insurgency in the post-independence era.

Apart from segregating the borderland communities along ethnic lines, colonial ethnography and administrative strategies also created internal divisions and fragmentation of ethnic groups such as the Kukis, who remain scattered across different nation-states. This complexity demands an examination of myth and collective memories. According to Grierson (1904), the terms Kuki and Chin are synonymous and belong to the Tibeto-Burman category. The Kuki–Chin tribes believe in the same myth of origin: they emerged from a cave called Chinlung, or Sinlung (Dena, 2008). They also share the same culture, and their historical trajectory reveals the experiences of a community whose movements and stories transcend present-day international boundaries. The works of colonial writers including Lewin (1870), Shakespear (1912) and Grierson (1904) have recorded several encounters with the Kukis, for example, in the Chittagong Hill Tracts and Burma. Through the Boundary Commission of 1894 and the separation of British India and Burma (Myanmar) in 1937, the Kuki–Chin tribes were fragmented and placed in different nation-states. However, myths, poetry and collective memories defy borders and continue to provide an impetus for political mobilization. A landmark event of the Kukis that continues to channel a strong sense of ethnic nationalism is the Anglo–Kuki War (1917–1919), also known as the Kuki Rebellion (Bhadra, 1975; Guite and Haokip, 2019). The war was led by a confederation of Kuki chiefs in the hills of Manipur to protect their territorial integrity from colonialism. It was also preceded by other wars, including the Great Kuki Invasion of the 1860s. These historical accounts of resistance to colonial power continue to evoke a strong sense of ethnic nationalism among the Kukis. The formation of the Kukis’ political party – the Kuki National Assembly – in 1946 can be seen as the persistence of their commitment to preserve their territorial integrity. However, their failed attempt to dissuade the Meitei Maharaja of Manipur from signing the merger agreement of Manipur led to a setback in their movement (Arora and Kipgen, 2017). Despite these difficulties, Kuki ethnic nationalism remains alive through political and cultural mobilizations. Political mobilizations and festivals, myths of origin, accounts of the war against the colonizers and common culture continue to evoke a strong sense of oneness across the border. This reveals how the politics of memory in the borderlands constitutes a multiplicity of actors and temporalities. As myths and collective memories are attached to a territory, the statist definition of the border remains contested from different perspectives.

Border, kinship and memory

The statist interpretation of history often neglects the temporality of the border and implies a wilful ignorance and negation of the culture and memory of the indigenous people living along the border. The obsession with territories, the location of borders and their spatial stretching (Pfoser, 2020) have been the dominant theme in both policy and academic discourse on borders. However, with the development of critical border studies (Parker and Vaughan-Williams, 2009), scholars have begun to inculcate an actor-oriented outlook (Roluahpuia, 2022a) that underpins a dynamic interplay between memory, culture and borders. Contrary to a spatial approach, this development reveals the significance of temporality as a way of understanding borders and highlights the importance of memory studies as a means of conceptualizing the border and its temporalities. The study of borders through the lens of memory contributes to a non-linear and transcending view that goes beyond spatial orientations. It gives due consideration to local cultures and allows for the possibility of maintaining a historical awareness regarding the delimitation of boundaries and the social realities of the borderland communities forced into oblivion by the colonial and postcolonial narratives of history. This actor-oriented process enables the trans-border communities to echo competing claims to and relationships with the border based on their positionality and memories. The process is reminiscent of Smith’s (1986) notion of myths and memories in the development of national consciousness. The quintessential nature of ethnic memories is also explicated by Roluahpuia (2022a), in his study of how the Mizo community of the north-eastern borderlands creates its own space through remembrance and narratives of myths and memories centred on certain landscapes.

In the north-eastern borderlands, the prevalent idea of territory is fuelled by an ahistorical (Alvarez, 1995) approach that obfuscates the concept of temporality and multiculturalism. Therefore, keen on protecting and asserting its sovereignty, postcolonial India fails to encompass the value of multiculturalism and the heterogeneity of the borderland space and community. The agency of the people and their rich cultural heritage, interwoven with traditional ideas of land and nature, are thus at stake. This heritage has already been subjected to a constant process of social magic (Bourdieu, 1993) through colonial administration and ethnography. Colonization and the social action it encompassed had an immense psychological impact, which manifested itself in the categorization and reworking of indigenous knowledge and identities (Wouters, 2021) and the transformation of the traditional concept of self and space (Pau, 2018). Despite such accumulation of credence, Pau is also optimistic about the revival of relations between trans-border communities such as the Kuki–Chin in Myanmar and India through festivals as well as civic and political events; this movement involves the efforts of the trans-border community to evoke ethnic memories, myths and folk tales, which are most successful in countering the hegemonic pursuit of the state to reproduce a homogeneous memory through militarization, education and bureaucracy (Leake, 2022; Roluahpuia, 2022a).

The performative aspects of nationhood and cross-border relations, which have been propagated through civic mobilization, have been instrumental (Pau, 2018; Roluahpuia, 2022b). However, while this has happened in the larger political and cultural arena, the homes of borderland families are equally important in the circulation of similar ethnocultural ideas. The work of Carsten (2007) reveals the interconnectedness of the family and the political, even though the activities of the former are often ignored. Home as a politicized space has been echoed in the works of various scholars who have examined the interrelatedness of the public and the private (Doornbos and Dragojlovic, 2022; Merikoski, 2020). While it is commonly idealized and celebrated, the home can also be an affective and haunted space in the aftermath of disruptive events (Doornbos and Dragojlovic, 2022). By emphasizing the mundane place of the home, the intergenerational transmission of memories reveals the intricate interweaving of family experiences and memories with the larger political and macro-commemorative events where one can also understand the centrality of the border in the life of the trans-border community.

Focusing on the intergenerational transmission of memories, this article explores the lived experiences of Kuki families that continue to sustain familial and ethnic relationships across the Indo-Myanmar border. The Kuki and Naga ethnic groups of Manipur have mixed settlements. The northernmost district of Ukhrul, bordering Myanmar, was characteristic of such entanglement, where a close relationship was sustained until an exclusive ideology based on ethno-territorial movement began to gain momentum. The violent wave of ethnonationalism, channelled by the colonial define-and-rule strategy (Mamdani, 2012), that predicated the rise of insurgency began around 1960 with the killing of Kuki chiefs (Haokip, 2017). Beginning with the village of Phaisat in 1964, inhabitants of Chahkap, Mollem and Saichang also left their Ukhrul homes to escape violence. Kuki villagers from the north-eastern hills of Ukhrul were displaced to different parts of Myanmar depending on the presence of kin across the border. Almost all the households of the Phaisat and Chahkap villages moved to Churachandpur district of Manipur to rebuild their village. To avoid being separated from their ethnic kin in Myanmar, a few opted for a detour across the border to Kuki villages such as Teijang and Phailen in Sagaing, Myanmar. The famous Khadawmi Operation of 1967 in Myanmar, led by General Ne Win, remains a tragic moment in the collective memories of the displaced community in particular. The operation was launched to drive back migrants without valid citizenship cards; as fate would have it, the conflict-induced displaced families from Ukhrul were repatriated to Manipur.

This study began with in-depth interviews and participant observations involving 15 displaced families from the Kuki community. A total of 35 interviews with different members of the selected families were conducted between January 2021 and August 2021. Later, supplementary interviews were conducted with participants from present-day border villages, including Jangngoubung and Haolenphai in Manipur and Phailen in the Sagaing region of Myanmar. Participants were initially recruited through personal contacts and voluntary organizations. Subsequently, the method of snowballing was used to find more participants. The interviews were conducted in the participants’ homes and lasted between 1 and 3 hours. Participants were asked to tell their life stories, followed by more specific questions about their experiences of cross-border movement, family relationships and the challenges of violence and displacement. In this study, displaced families were mostly found in the Indo-Myanmar border town of Moreh, and in Churachandpur district of Manipur on the Indian side of the border. The participants are broadly categorized into three groups: elders or grandparents (aged ⩾65), parents in late-middle age (45–64) and young people in early adulthood (22–34). The first two groups have directly experienced the traumatic events of violence and displacement, whereas the younger generations were born after the displacement. The study was conducted with a focus on the memories and lived experiences of violence and displacement that are commonly disregarded in the study of border temporalities and state narratives of borders. Therefore, due attention has been paid to the selective use of memory during the process of data collection and analysis. The participants’ narratives were complemented by those of other family members. The interviews were transcribed and analysed using narrative analysis, which focused on key narrative patterns to generate a broader perspective of memory, violence and the lived experiences of displacement around the border. Participants were given pseudonyms, but the names of places and villages were used in their original form.

Nostalgia and family history

Family memories of life before the violence and displacement are deeply intertwined with ethnic memories. Elders nostalgically recall their relatively comfortable lives before the dislocation. This nostalgic tone of the narratives echoes collective memories, myths and village sociality as they recall their old lives and the traditions emanating from their relationship with the land and forests. According to Martin, a 25-year-old participant from Churachandpur district, his grandparents’ tales of their old home in Ukhrul district are a source of both family and collective memory. He stated,

My knowledge of Kuki and Naga histories came from my grandfather, who often talked about the Japanese war and stories of other wars he had learned from his parents. Village life from his stories sounded very pleasant as he often talked about how the villagers would celebrate and share meat from hunting in the nearby forest. Back then, they maintained a cordial relationship with villagers, with Naga neighbours in Ukhrul as well as with their friends and relatives in Myanmar. Before the violence took place, my grandfather was instructed by his Naga friend to leave the village in order to avoid any untoward incident. That’s how they survived the violence. So, apart from the stories of violence, I can also imagine the good relationship and good times they had back there. Life here is fast and totally different.

Martin’s stories reveal how his grandparents’ account of the family’s history is often laden with elements of broader historical and political events. The elders’ nostalgic recollection provides a means of imagining the traumatic past from a gentler perspective, which also reveals how cross-border mobility was an everyday routine. Therefore, the nostalgic transmission of memories acts as a source of criticism of the present (Wale, 2020), which often questions contemporary sociality and vulnerability. This theme of communality is evident in several other interviews, too. Paul, a 30-year-old participant, from the new Chahkap village, recalled his conversation with his grandfather as follows:

Whenever my grandfather talked about our old home in Ukhrul, he would always mention the close relationship with and occasional visit from their relatives in Kolgam (Myanmar). He said that everyone was jealous of Chahkap villagers and wanted to occupy their land. Since they were united, nobody – including the White people – could claim it from them. He assured me that the life we live now is in stark contrast to the riches they enjoyed back then and that it is my duty as a son to reclaim such a status. Back then, people worked together and cared for each other, he said.

Paul’s narratives also reveal the complex interweaving of collective memory with the family’s experience and how the cross-border movement was a vital part of familial relationships. Michael, a 32-year-old participant from Churachandpur, recalled similar experiences of gaining political consciousness through family memory. Displaced from the village of Phaisat in Ukhrul in 1964, Michael’s parents and grandparents still remember and narrate stories of the past to their children. He stated,

In our family, Ukhrul story is always narrated by my parents during family worship and everyday conversations. This is why I was politically very supportive of the slogan of brotherhood during the Kut festival in 2015. Once, during the send-off ceremony of my eldest sister, my grandfather gave a speech to the congregation and expressed his delight that his granddaughter was finally getting married in a proper manner. During the speech, he broke down in tears as he narrated stories of his old village.

Michael’s story also reveals how, in the domestic realm of the everyday, the elders’ narratives are often saturated with painful emotions and memories of the past. Their stories become a platform for the children to gain political consciousness through family tragedies. Narratives of loss and grief have found an affective circulation through the intergenerational transmission of memories and are interwoven with other recurring emotions, too. The incorporation of memories of loss and pain into a marriage event shows how emotions and remembrance of a painful past can coexist with other emotions in everyday family activities. Deborah, a female participant from a family that was displaced from Ukhrul to Churachandpur, had a similar experience of gaining political consciousness through her parent’s lament about the difficult cross-border relation with their kin network in Myanmar. On a wider political level, festivals are an important means of exhibiting the idea of nationhood and building connections between communities separated by the border (Roluahpuia, 2022a). Important festivals such as Chapchar Kut in Mizoram, the Hornbill Festival in Nagaland and Chavang Kut in Manipur provide a platform for the respective communities to express their ethnic identity and history. In 2015, Chavang Kut, the post-harvesting festival of the Kukis, was celebrated for 3 days from 30 October to 1 November at Peace Ground in Tuibong Village, Churachandpur district. Apart from the Kukis in Manipur, several other tribes from different north-eastern states and Myanmar attended the event, which became an important landmark for the Kukis, celebrating relationships and brotherhood across the border. For people such as Michael and Deborah, the event became a space to find the relevance of family memories and enhance their political consciousness, acquired through the affective circulations of emotions at home. In addition to civil society organizations, churches also played an important role in nurturing the Kuki–Chin unification spiritually and politically.

Other than the common allusion to myths and collective memories such as the Kuki Rebellion and cross-border relations, nostalgic memories were devised as a critique of the present state of vulnerability. This critique is evident in the accounts of all participants. Martha, an elderly woman from the Phailen village of Myanmar’s Sagaing division, lamented that ‘the separation has disintegrated family relationships but children should be taught to know their roots and learn Kuki traditions’.

While children derive political meaning from family memories, the elders’ narratives of the past are strongly inspired by the lingering memories of the old home and diminishing family and social values. A common element found in the nostalgic recollections of the older generation was the cordiality of villagers, which is inspired by the practice of Lom, an informal labour organization created to complete the shifting of cultivation in the village (Kipgen, 2019). The practice of Lom involves members of the organization working collectively in every member’s field. This practice played a pivotal role in sustaining the socio-economy of the village and also instilled a sense of duty and communality in the village. However, for displaced families, the different topography of the new settlement and the abandonment of the regular practice of cultivation gradually led to its loss. As narrated by elders such as Martha and Paul’s grandfather, the old home or village is also deeply entangled with one’s identity and strong communality through the practice of Lom. Therefore, the elders remain determined to regenerate the social and cultural values of their old homes against the rapidly urbanized culture of their new homes. The elders of Chavangphai village, in Tengnoupal district of Manipur, made an effort to promote traditional values and ethnic history through the formation of a cultural trope known as Chavangphai Khanglui Lom, which implied writing songs and reciting poetry to evoke memories of the old home. Their songs and poems recall the mythological origin of the Kukis as well as the valour of the community during the Kuki Rebellion (1917–1919). Chavangphai was established in 1992, after the dislocation of four Kuki villages from Ukhrul district. Leaving behind their land, the founding members of the trope found it imperative to form the trope as a means to find healing as well as to regenerate the customs and cultures of their old villages. Such a collectivity and the narratives fostered through it remain an impeccable way to provide continuity to their disrupted lives. Narratives are also an important means of fulfilling intergenerational responsibility (Fukuoka and Takita-Ishii, 2022). Therefore, for the elders, it is important to raise awareness of the fact that the present state of vulnerability cannot shape their personal and family identity.

Despite the sincere efforts of the elders, nostalgic reiterations are often difficult to conceive for the younger generations born and raised in the new place of settlement. For the younger members of the community, the existing scenario of poverty and vulnerability did not match the elders’ narratives of an abundant past. However, such indifference among the younger generations did not imply wilful negligence of family history and identity, which evoked a strong sense of responsibility. Ruth, a 25-year-old participant from Moreh, stated that ‘[m]y parents and grandparents have faced the brutalities of war and poverty. We are slowly moving ahead again. Getting a good government job would help secure their pride’. Ruth’s remark is similar to those made by Paul and John, who also inherited a sense of responsibility from their grandparents’ stories. While Paul remembers his grandfather’s advice to take responsibility for reclaiming the lost status of the family, John – Martha’s grandson from the Phailen village in Myanmar – took the responsibility for sustaining familial relationships through occasional visits. A sense of responsibility and commitment can also be seen in the case of Ruth. In the face of poverty after the displacement, regular employment in a government job becomes a source of continuity for many displaced families. Apart from getting employment, for many like Ruth, a government job gives status to the family. Therefore, in addition to the political tone embedded in the nostalgic recollection, the parents’ experiences and family memories continue to shape the lives and aspirations of the younger generations.

The intergenerational transmission of memories in the family through common allusions to folk tales and ethnic history has shed light on the relevance of family matters as an intersection of the personal and the political. The content of transmitted memories reveals the inextricability of cultural and communicative memories (Assmann, 2010), as tales of the family are inseparable from the political and ethnic experiences of violence and displacement. The family thus emerges as an important source of memory, capable of bridging private and public forms of remembrance where family memories of loss and a painful past acquire an affective and imaginative lens through which to critique the present sociality and hardship. Nostalgic narratives of cross-border relations also provide people with an imaginative capacity to understand how the Indo-Myanmar border becomes an impediment to their lives. Therefore, the circulation of loss and painful experiences involving stories of cross-border mobility takes on a political tone in the family, too (Butler, 2004; Jara, 2016).

The silent past and daily habits

Despite the experience of violence and displacement, there is also a strong sense of resilience in the mundane space of the home (Butler, 2004; Das, 2007). Home is a place to explore the embeddedness of traumatic memories and the development of habits and communication emanating from a violent past experienced through a cross-border movement. Like other narratives discussed previously, the growth of Naga nationalism that eventually evolved into militancy after 1956 (Chaube, 1999; Haokip, 2023) turned the relationship between Kuki and Naga villages in Ukhrul district into a hostile one. Many Kuki villagers in the north-eastern hills of Ukrhul were told by their friendly Naga neighbours to dislocate before the onset of violence. The experience of Phaisat villagers is one example of the cordial relationship between the Naga and Kuki neighbours leading to the safe dislocation of the latter to different parts of Manipur. However, many families also fled to villages such as Teijang and Vokso in the Kabaw valley of Myanmar to escape the atrocities of the Naga militants (Chaube, 1999). After a brief stay in Myanmar, these families were again expelled by the authorities as part of the Khadawmi Operation of 1967 (Haokip, 2023). During a visit to a family displaced from Myanmar to the town of Moreh, I was invited to join them for dinner. While the food was being served, the mother grew restless. On further inquiry, she expressed concern that the meal would again take place without her husband. After the meal, over a cup of chaphan (local homemade tea), I inquired about the cause of the mother’s nervousness. This particular family has experienced forced dislocation twice. The first time was in 1964, when it was threatened to leave Ukhrul for Myanmar. According to the father, their stay in Myanmar – facilitated by the presence of a distant relative – was brief as they were immediately expelled by the Burmese (Myanmar) authority in 1967. Therefore, they continue to live in a state of constant alertness, where their presence in a particular place is contingent on political tensions. The father, who arrived during the conversation, explained – with an apologetic countenance – that he had been delayed by a church-related activity and that it was an unwritten norm that one must reach home before darkness and, most importantly, dine with one’s family. While darkness phobia is common to many, and commonplace enough to overlook in this particular case, the husband reiterated how the family had been strictly observing it after their arrival in Moreh. He narrated,

Many people faced brutal harassment as the Myanmar government was forcing us to go back to Manipur. The only option we had was to leave Myanmar together as a family. So every day, my parents strictly adhered to the routine of keeping an eye on us.

The father’s narrative reveals how traumatic experiences of escaping violence across the border shape habits and family traditions. As the children obediently acquiesced to their parents’ manoeuvres, they gradually learned the values of such habits that, at first, appeared abnormal or too rigid. Following the father’s account, one of the sons stated,

[a]s we grew up it became difficult to follow this habit. But during our school days, it was being followed. But I believe things are alright now. I do it out of respect and fondness for family members now. These are important habits, too.

The efforts to be ‘home before dark’ and ‘with the family for meals’ are unavoidable for the son and his father. While the boy did not hear or witness any traumatic experiences, contrary to his parents and grandparents, the embodied memory of the violence in the form of daily habits was experienced and carried on by his father. According to the latter, it ‘reminds us and helps us appreciate time and people’. Moreover, as trans-border areas such as Moreh are a route for drug trafficking (Hausing, 2016; Mahadevan, 2020), parents and children agreed that proper family relationships and strict regulations are important to safeguard the children. According to Joseph, a member of the Hill Tribal Council in Moreh, many of the town’s school-going children succumbed to the lure of drugs and insurgency in the aftermath of the Kuki–Naga ethnic conflict (1992–1997). Samuel, another young participant from Moreh, also described how his father’s advice constitutes an important everyday habit:

My father advised us not to be lavish. He does not want us to use more than a pillow at night because we are always on the brink of war. Today we are here in India. Tomorrow we may escape to Myanmar again. We had to do it because he went through the same thing. By obediently doing it, we learn the value of things and I often feel that I am different from others, that we belong to a family that suffered a lot.

Samuel’s acquiescent obedience in following his father’s advice enabled him to communicate with his father in an empathic way. These examples show how traumatic memories of violence and displacement are transmitted across generations without proper verbal articulations. The corporeal experiences and empathic relationship could engender a form of communication (Kidron, 2009) where children learn about their family histories and experiences of the hardship of violence that set them apart from others. Like Samuel, Jonathan – the son of another displaced family – reiterated:

Nobody would understand why my father imposed a strict regulation on us, but we grew up following his instructions to always be available for family prayers and to maintain the same sleep time. My parents felt safe to know we are with them. It was tempting to watch late-night football matches, but family routines are important, too. I grew up learning how difficult it must have been to constantly be on the run, across the border.

The parents’ empathic relationship and interaction with the child in the mundane and shared space of the home enable communication and the construction of meanings. Therefore, the home remains a site of transmission of both verbal and embodied memories of violence that reveal the complexities of life in the border villages. Silence and discreetness are also significant habits adopted by families of the displaced community. During the difficult period of Operation Khawdawmi in Myanmar in 1967, strict vigilance was imposed by the government to trace family histories and repatriate displaced families from Ukhrul, causing chaos and tensions between neighbours. Joshua, a former resident of the Vokso village in the Sagaing division of Myanmar before the dislocation in 1967, narrated:

We could no longer trust our neighbours because they knew when we arrived from Ukhrul. We could lie to the authorities but not to our Myanmar neighbours. So by the time we reached Tengnoupal, we made it a point not to be loud and exposed. It’s better to remain silent except to people who are close to us.

The past is embodied in everyday conversations and habits in the domestic realm of the home in border villages. For families living in proximity to the Indo-Myanmar border, for example, in Moreh, the unpredictability of everyday life and the constant state of fear made it imperative to inculcate such habits. The presence and movement of militant groups across the border, as well as the trafficking of drugs, often cause an alarming situation in trans-border areas (Hausing, 2016; Roluahpuia, 2018). Many inhabitants of border villages such as Khengjoi in Tengnoupal district continue to live a precarious existence as they find themselves trapped between insurgents and state militaries, with the former resorting to landmines that kill many innocent villagers. Therefore, embodied memories of families who experienced violence and displacement in the 1960s are saturated with family and political histories, as well as lessons and strategies for negotiating the everyday challenges of the border villages.

Sustaining kinship across the border

Apart from the fact that narratives and habits are saturated with traces of the past, family practices and sociality also strongly reflect the theme of cross-border relations. Mobility across the border constitutes an important part of the everyday activities of the borderland community, and it often happened under the watchful eyes of the state agents deployed to protect the border. Theorists of the dominance–resistance binary in power relations might define this activity as political resistance (Jones, 2011). However, looking at the factors that make such cross-border mobility necessary, there are several everyday urgencies – from maintaining kinship ties to securing a livelihood – that require such movement. Resistance, however, is not in the minds of the people. Jacob, an elderly man from the village of Phaisat in Churachandpur district, still recalled his last visit to relatives in Myanmar in 1996. Thirty-two years after their dislocation from Ukhrul in 1964, they were still able to freely visit each other despite the formalization of the international border. Following the onset of the violence in the 1960s, Jacob and his family left their home in Ukhrul for Churachandpur. However, decades later, family traditions still made it imperative for members to cross the border. He narrated,

I visited Phailen in 1986, at the behest of the elders of our clan and the village authorities of Phailen to resolve a dispute arising from a Church denominational conflict. Along with a senior, I went and it took us more than 20 days to discuss and hold various meetings with the two churches. We could not bring them together as one church, but everyone was glad that peace was restored.

On being asked how he managed to cross the border, he responded:

It was actually the suggestion of the Myanmar police because they found it hard to tackle such a village conflict. So they asked for a third party that could handle the situation with proper forethought. Our arrival and return were adequately taken care of by the police.

Narratives of the continuing cross-border association with relatives and the aspiration to sustain relationships across the border reflect the collective desire of elders. Jangngoubung and its neighbouring villages in Tengnoupal district of Manipur still maintain cross-border familial relationships with inhabitants of Kuki villages on the Myanmar side of the border. Despite the proximity of security guards to their village, Jangngoubung villagers are able to carry out their daily cross-border movements. According to Matthew, one of the village youth, such mobility is possible given their familiarity with the security personnel on both sides of the border. The cases of Jacob and Matthew reveal the tenuous nature of sovereign power in the border areas, where state agents find themselves making contradictory decisions (Jones, 2011) when the need for mundane and peaceful cross-border mobility arises.

Unlike the experiences of Jacob and the inhabitants of Jangngoubung, whose movements are partly facilitated by state agents, the Integrated Check Post and other entrances around the international border town of Moreh in Manipur are strictly regulated with proper security measures. An agreement between the Indian and Myanmar governments has permitted the free movement of people within 16 km along the border (Singh, 2018). Travellers are required to carry valid identity cards. However, this regulation is also subjected to a changing law-and-order scenario. The volatile nature of the border has continually hampered movements under this provision. For Esther, a 30-year-old resident of the village of Haolenphai in India, the free movement agreement has not facilitated family relationships as many of her extended family members living in the Myanmar town of Homalin live well beyond the official free movement limit.

The experiences of mobility of borderland villagers reveal the intricate interweaving of memory and relatedness that inspired an apparent breach of laws. While this could be construed as wilful ignorance of the law or resistance, the need to meet daily urgencies and the desire to sustain relationships override the obligation to comply with border regulations. While sovereign power dictates against such activities, agents of the state (Jones, 2011) are also convinced of the need for such mobility. This shows how exposure to the wounds of the border reinforces a new understanding among such agents. Therefore, cross-border relations and movements problematize the dominant ideas of sovereignty and resistance. While the idea of the state of exception (Agamben, 2005) negates the space and activities of resistance, theorists of power and resistance tend to define any act of non-compliance as an act of resistance (Scott, 1985). However, the lives and experiences of the Kuki families interviewed for this study reveal a space of the borderland region that is complacently administered by agents of the state. Their proximity to the people and their awareness of cultural and familial relationships and memories soften stiff regulations and restrictions. This growing awareness thus plays an important role in undermining the popular understanding of the region as a unitary space. The affective circulation of emotions through family memories and the need to sustain relationships across the border regulate everyday activities and cross-border movements.

Conclusion

Nostalgic memories as well as everyday habits in the mundane space of the home that have been disrupted by violence and displacement are also a repository of knowledge about borders and their historical trajectory. At home, the affective transmission of traumatic and painful memories of older generations foregrounds a mode of habitation and understanding of spatial imagination that is different from the present-day hardened border. Although invisible in the political and cultural mobilization of the ethnic groups of the borderlands, traumatic experiences of grief and longing evolved from personal habits and intergenerational narratives into an affective circulation of family memories, embedded with similar themes as those evoked by cultural and political movements. As various armed and non-armed groups engage in the cultural mobilization of ethnonationalist aspirations, the development of information technologies facilitated the transmission of ethnic memories, myths and traditional values (Roluahpuia, 2022b) that echo themes of cross-border relations. Among the Kuki–Chin in India and Myanmar, religious institutions also play an important role in nurturing unification across the border (Kipgen, 2020). In the mundane domain of the home, the elders’ narratives and criticism of the present state of vulnerability and diminishing social values resonate with the call to the younger generations to remember their cultural and traditional values to alleviate their precarious existence. Such calls are interwoven with the idea of conviviality and unhindered cross-border relations, which resembles the explicit political mobilization of ethnonationalist bonds across the border. Thus, through the children’s empathic interaction fostered by communality in the shared space of the home, familial and personal tragedies are transformed into a political story that is intricately interwoven with the larger mobilization outside the home.

The development of information technologies also facilitated the transmission of antagonistic memories and hate speech among different ethnic groups in Manipur. The long period of colonialism in the north-eastern borderlands has redefined traditional knowledge and territoriality. As a result, boundaries and binaries between people of the same cultural and ethnic group have been internalized, as have the exclusive ethno-territorial aspirations that continue to generate hate speech and antagonism between different ethnic communities. The former is the case of the Kuki–Chin, a composition of fragmented tribes scattered across different nation-states, including India and Myanmar (Pau, 2018). An example of the latter can be found in Manipur, where hate speech and slogans are directed against the Kuki population, described as a ‘refugee’ and ‘immigrant’ community (Chongloi, 2022). The irony lies in the fact that these rampant insults and questions of indigeneity against the Kuki population have been orchestrated by civil society groups such as the Federation of Haomee and the International Meitei Forum. The basis of their argument was the resurfacing of confidential correspondence between the Deputy Commissioner of Manipur, S. C. Vaish, and the Sub-Divisional Officer of Ukhrul, who exchanged information to facilitate the settlement of displaced Kuki families from Myanmar. The letter, dated 6 June 1968, wrongly portrayed the return of displaced Kukis from Ukhrul as that of refugees, and this mistake was negatively magnified into a political case through social media platforms. This shows the complexity of the borderland region, where insensitivity to different historical experiences can only reproduce tensions between the state and its diverse ethnic population. Therefore, memories remain an important tool to understand the historical experiences of the indigenous peoples, who have been silenced for much of the policy-making process of the region and its borders.

The presentism inherent in the prevalent understanding and practices of the border negates the question of temporality in the institutionalization of the border. This lack of sensitivity to the historical trajectory of boundaries has an impact on the borderland communities, resulting in mobilizations that are often misinterpreted as a threat to the statist perspective of the border and nationhood. In the north-eastern region of India, both international and internal borders between states continue to remain an issue. A recent internal border conflict was the violent standoff between Assam and Mizoram police forces at Vairengte in Mizoram. The incident claimed the lives of 6 people while more than 50 people were injured. Therefore, the issue of border conflicts in the north-east is not limited to international borders alone; as Wouters and Tunyi (2016) assert, the region should also be understood as an internal borderland region. Analysing the violent territorial dispute between Mizoram and Assam, Hausing (2021) raises the need for a people-centred approach that can give due consideration to the relationship between people, land and identity. Such consideration warrants the conviction that memory is a powerful border device that can give an idea of the temporalities of the border. A proper understanding of border temporalities can be drawn from the memories and lived experiences of the family relationships of the borderland communities. The intergenerational transmission of memories of displaced families examined in this study reveals that the home and family memories are a repository to understand border temporalities. Within the mundane space of the homes of families disrupted by violence and displacement, memory also facilitates a means of negotiation and endurance through the evocation of a nostalgic past that can generate familial responsibility and criticism of the present.