What TV doesn't, print can't; we deliver.
What TV doesn't, print can't; we deliver.
Not many people outside the North-East might be aware of the fact that the Myanmar-origin “Kuki-Chin-Mizo” people have orchestrated at least 10 major attacks on the non-Christian indigenous tribes of Manipur, Tripura, Assam, and Mizoram since the early 1990s, with the objective of occupying their lands and changing the demography of the region. Most of these attacks involved indiscriminate rape and torture of women, murder and arson. Religious sites were methodically targeted or destroyed during these coordinated attacks. There is hardly any community in the North-East with whom they were able to co-exist peacefully. Historically speaking, it is true that the various small tribal communities settled in the North-East have often resorted to fighting, killing and competing amongst themselves. Several past instances confirm that despite similarities in their traits, origins and clans, intra- and inter-tribal conflicts are a common occurrence. But they also laid strong emphasis upon respecting each other’s cultural values and most importantly, their ancestral lands and properties.
The “Kuki-Chin-Mizo” language-speaking groups, on the contrary, lack that basic sense of respect towards other communities, their culture and habitats. Their mentality of prioritising ethnic loyalty over nation and duty has cost several thousands of lives. Their loyal to the Indian State have always been under question. Their unyielding mercenary spirit to fight against the nation has been prevalent throughout history. War and barbarism in any manifestation appear as an alarmingly normal phenomenon among them, reflecting a distressing affinity for violence, hatred and suffering. Vested interests groups forcibly trying to distort historical facts to prove the so-called “patriotism” of these people cannot hide their history of brutality. Their relentless attempts to drive out non-“Kuki-Chin-Mizo” language-speakers are the first step towards creating an independent Kuki nation (country) including parts of India, Myanmar, and Bangladesh. Mostly the attacks launched by them against the natives have been unprovoked, eventually leading to brutal instances of killings, torching of houses and properties.
Over 1, 50,000 Hindus have been displaced due to these pre-planned attacks, executed to cleanse them from their ancestral lands. Indigenous Hindus have been wiped out from at least 18,500 sq. kilometres of Bharatiya territory in the North-East. The beautiful state of Manipur is a stark example of the same. Gifted with many rich and diverse cultures, traditions and communities, Manipur has learnt its lesson the hard way; we therefore need to wake up to the reality before it is too late. Until the arrival of the immigrant “Kuki-Chin-Mizos” in the North-East, indigenous people co-existed harmoniously. They are adept at crying foul against other communities by victimizing their “tribal minority” and “Christian” identity, as has always been the case. Besides Manipur and Assam, Tripura has borne the brutality of the Kukis for a long time now. The people of Tripura, especially the Reang (Bru) community, faced the chronic problem of Kuki raids at different periods in history.
It is said that in the olden days the Reangs lived in the Maiyanithlang area of the Lushai Hills (present-day Mizoram), bordering on and stretching into the Arakans in Burma (Myanmar).[1] Unable to bear the brunt of the Kukis, they migrated to the Karnaphuli Valley of Chittagong in present-day Bangladesh where they set up small settlements during the reign of Ratna Manikya in the 14th century. Later, from 1836 onwards to at least 1860 and afterwards, when the Kukis too followed them there and sought to re-assert their authority over them, they fled to Hill Tipperah (now Tripura). Starting from Amarpur, they gradually spread over the whole state, concentrating mostly in Northern Tripura. Before the arrival of the Kukis, the people of Tripura had been living a life in peace and harmony. The entry of the Kukis was followed by regular raids, attacks and atrocities against the native population, beginning from the massacre at the Manipuri village of Kochabari in Pratapgarh, Sylhet during the reign of Maharaja Krishna Kishore Manikya.
Kuki raids were not based on any demand, and are therefore not to be considered as any movement or revolt against the ruler. The Kukis used to come down from the hills, carry out raids and attacks on the villages in the plains at night and kill the innocent villagers.[2] Besides burning houses, they kidnapped women and girls, destroyed crops and grains, and carried away gold, silver, and iron. Upon receipt of information regarding the impending arrival of a British military expedition to punish the offending tribes, many a times, the Kukis themselves set fire to the place and vanished into the jungles. Attacks carried out by the Kukis on Udaipur, the old capital of Tripura in January, 1861 and another in Northern Tripura and Sylhet on January 22, 1862 (popularly known as the Adampur massacre) are the most infamous of all. Tripura was affected by devastating Kuki raids upto 1862, when Birchandra Manikya ascended the throne and initiated a new policy of providing vat or gifts to the Kukis, based on an agreement between Kuki leaders and the British Government.
The King perhaps felt that there was no other way of pacifying the Kukis. But, they were not satisfied with this policy of vat. Their inherent character of killing and commiting violence has found distinct parallels across all regions in the North-East. In the contemporary period, unabated immigration of the Chin-Kukis and the subsequent demographic change has led to the ethnic cleansing of several native communities from Tripura. The example of Northern Tripura’s sacred Jampui Hills bordering Mizoram can be cited in this regard. The Jampui Hills can be reached by road from Dharmanagar and Kailashahar via Kanchanpur, or from Mizoram. An arcadian region with a striking, picteresque landscape consisting of beautiful orange orchards, tea plantations, and an untouched greenery boasting of a glorious Hindu past, Jampui Hills (also known as the “Abode of Eternal Spring”) has today become completely Christian-majority primarily because of illegal immigration. This has compelled the local Hindu Reangs of the region to seek shelter in other safer Hindu-dominated locations.
Sibraikhung, the highest mountain peak of Tripura (3,200 ft.) in the Jampui Hills, derives its name from Achu-Sibrai (also spelt as Siprai or Subrai or Bathubrai by the locals) – the supreme deity of the Reangs. The origins of Sibraikhung date back to many centuries, to a time when the Reang community flourished amidst the rolling hills and dense forests of Tripura. The word Sibrai is a combination of two Tripuri/Kokborok words – Siba and Rai, i.e. Si+Ba, Si is Sinai or Simani which means knowledge and Ba is Kaiba, meaning five. Thus, the literal meaning of Sibrai is the ‘one who has knowledge of the five elements of nature’ – earth, water, air, fire, and sky. The word Rai signifies the male gender in Tripuri and is often used as a suffix after the name of a male offspring. Sibrai is thus equated by with the Supreme Creator, the one who has created life out of the five elements. His consort is Sangrongma or Borokowina, equated with Sakti. Even today, the people of Tripura worship Burasa (or, Bhairava), the fierce form of Sibrai by sacrificing livestock such as cocks and ducks, goats and buffaloes, pigs, pigeons, etc.
At the top of the Sibraikhung, a Sibrai temple called Behling Shiv adorned a wonderful stone sculpture of a deity that closely resembled Mahadev. A massive ShivaLinga existed earlier on this same spot. According to local beliefs, the Sibrai temple was built atop Jampui Hills by Reang artisans and craftsmen who were inspired by visions of Shiva Himself and guided by divine intervention. Constructed with meticulous care and fine attention to detail, Sibraikhung soon became a focal point for cultural and religious activities, drawing devotees from near and far to pay their homage to Sibrai. For generations, this ancient temple served as a beacon of spiritual devotion and cultural heritage for the Reang community – a place where pilgrims would gather to seek blessings and find solace amidst the beauty of the natural world. Pilgrims would undertake their journey to the temple from distant villages, trekking through the rugged terrain and braving wild animals to seek the blessings of Sibrai and partake in the ceremonies and rituals that were held within its hallowed halls.
Thus, Behling Shiv was not just a major centre of worship for the Reangs, but also served as a sanctuary, a refuge from the trials and tribulations of everyday life where the weary could find comfort and the faithful found renewal. In short, Sibraikhung is a testament of the Reang community’s unwavering faith and reverence to the sacred. Tensions began in the early 1980s when Christian Mizos residing in the area, led by the Jampui Mizo Convention (a socio-religious body) of Tripura, demanded a Jampui Autonomous Regional Council under the Autonomous District Council for the “economically and educationally backward” Mizos of Tripura. In late 1997, Mizos protested against the large-scale influx of persecuted Reang Hindu refugees from neighbouring Mizoram. Finally, tragedy struck in early 2003, when Behling Shiv was destroyed by a group of Mizo and Kuki youth. Emboldened by ongoing political and social tensions in the region, they sought to establish their dominance by abolishing the Reang community’s symbol of cultural heritage.
The incident led to the simmering of communal tensions in the area between the aggrieved Hindu tribals and non-tribals on the one hand and Christians on the other. The head priest of the temple was forced to flee and in a cruel gesture of mockery, Behling Shiv was renamed as Betlingchhip (locally pronounced as Balinchhip). This was done with the chief objective of systematically eliminating the historical existence of the Reangs and their Hindu identity from the region. At that time, around 5,000 Mizo tribal families spread over 10 tiny hamlets were residing in the Jampui Hills.[3] Adding fuel to the fire, they subsequently published a map and a news item in Vanglaini, an Aizwal based- Mizo daily, showing Behling Shiv and parts of the Jampui Hills in ‘Greater Mizoram’ (Kukiland).[4] Back in the early 1980s, the erstwhile Mizo National Front (MNF) raised the demand for the inclusion of the Jampui Hills in Mizoram as a condition for peace. And now the fresh demand raised by the newspaper and a low-key campaign by political groups disguised as social organisations triggered fresh tensions in the area.
After destruction of the temple, only this stump (as seen in the picture above) remains.
British records (specifically The Imperial Gazetteer of India: Volume IV by William Winson Hunter) have mentioned the name of this place as Betlingsib. After the destruction of the Sibrai temple, Christians planted blood-stained crosses and verses from the Bible in different areas of the Jampui Hills. In what can be called a naked display of cultural aggression and religious intolerance, they even renamed the Sibraikhung peak in the Mizo language as Thaidawr Tlang – a name that bore no resemblance to the temple’s original purpose or significance. Official sources in Kanchanpur Sub-Divisional town, the headquarters of the Jampui Hills, said that the Mizo youths had allegedly built a Church-like structure next to the temple housing the deity. And in this way, with the stroke of a pen, centuries of tradition and heritage was erased and the Reangs were left alone to mourn the last of their most cherished religious-cum-spiritual sanctuary. In the years that followed, Thaidawr Tlang underwent a dramatic transformation that mirrored the decline of the Reang cultural identity.
No longer a place of worship and reverence, the temple became a mere shadow of its former self, transforming into a neglected relic overrun by weeds and encroached upon by the forces of nature. The once-vibrant rituals and ceremonies that had filled its halls with the tinkling of bells and the sounds of conch-shells were replaced by a ghostly silence, broken only by the occasional footsteps of curious tourists and the buzz of traffic from the nearby roads. To add insult to injury, Thaidawr Tlang was repurposed as a popular picnic/outing spot, a destination for holiday-makers seeking respite from the hustle-bustle of city life. The sacred hill that had once been the spiritual centre of Tripura now became a playground for the idle and the indifferent, its sanctity desecrated by the reverie of picknickers and the clinking of beer bottles. As the years passed, Thaidwar Tlang faded further into obscurity, its once-renowned grandeur reduced to a crumbling façade of stone and mortar. The memories of its glorious days became little more than whispers in the wind, overshadowed further by Governmental indifference and apathy.
Entry to the sacred Jampui Hills, renamed Thaidawr Tlang
And yet, amidst the ruins and the rubble, there remained a glimmer of hope, a flicker of resilience and determination in the hearts of the Reang people who refused to let their cultural heritage be erased from history and public memory too. In 2020, a Tripura-based Hindu group Sangrongma announced its plans to construct a Shiva temple at the border village of Phuldungsei[5] in the neighbourhood of Betlingchhip adjacent to Thaidawr Tlang. The area has been under the administrative control of North Tripura District since the creation of the state of Tripura in 1972. The proposed community construction work for the temple enraged the Mizo-Kuki Christian community in the area and the Jampui Mizo Convention immediately called for a shutdown, which upset the Government of Tripura. The Mamit district administration of Mizoram went a step ahead by imposing Section 144 of the CrPC in the bordering villages to prevent the movement of people in Phuldungsei.[6] It also asked the Tripura Government to stop any kind of construction work on the temple until the “land dispute” is resolved.
The administration of North Tripura responded by saying that the State Government had, long ago, built a ‘watch tower’ at the peak of Betlingchhip under the Department of Tourism and that it has been an important tourist destination of Tripura.[7] During the recent Manipur violence, the Mizos of Jampui Hills expressed unity and solidarity with their fellow Kuki-Zo tribes of Manipur. They even monetarily assisted people from their community who were victims of the violence and demanded immediate dismissal of Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh’s Government for its negligence of duty and complacency towards the Kuki-Zo “minority”[8] The current Government plans to develop eco-friendly tourist infrastructure in Jampui — improving access, lodging, and visitor amenities – along the highly sensitive Tripura-Mizoram inter-state boundary. However, it remains to be seen how it achieves this objective, negotiating with all communities residing in the area. Mizo civil society groups and students’ organisations such as Mizo Zirlai Pawl (MZP) have been at constant loggerheads with the Government of Tripura.
In May 2025, construction work in Jampui undertaken by the Tripura Forest Department was vandalized by a low-intensity blast, prompting tightened border security and a thorough investigation.[9] At present, the sacred Sibraikhung Hill stands almost as an abandoned relic. It has been robbed off of all its purity – a tearful, heart-wrenching tale of what once used to be a revered Hindu temple and a stark reminder of the consequences of Abrahamic intolerance. It is extremely regretful
that like many other Hindu religious sites in the North-East, a sacred spot of the Hindus in Tripura too, has been turned into a paradise of young lovers, drunkards, drug addicts, and gamblers. Incidences such as the cooking of dog meat by Christian Mizos in the surroundings of the desecrated Sibrai temple have also been reported[10], leading to the outbreak of frequent tensions in the Monpui area of Jampui Hills and other places. Locals say that alcoholics and drug addicts from Mizoram have often vandalized their property, cut down trees in local gardens, and stolen their cattle.
Today, the story of Sibraikhung stands as a cautionary tale as much as a testament to the enduring resilience of the Reang community who continue to honour the memory of their sacred temple and strive to reclaim their Dharmic identity in the face of all adversity. Though the Sibrai temple may now lie in ruins, its legacy lives on in the hearts and minds of those who remember the divine sanctuary that once graced the slopes of Jampui – a lingering hope of survival in a world darkened by ignorance and religious intolerance. It is the responsibility of the Hindu society to safeguard its rich history and reclaim the lost heritage of places such as Sibraikhung.
(Acknowledgement: A special note of thanks to Teesta Rani and her family from Dharmanagar, Tripura for assisting me in my field visits to Tripura undertaken during 2015-16).
References :
[1] Trouble Brews in Tripura’s Jampui Hills, The Telegraph Online, January 13, 2003. https://www.telegraphindia.com/north-east/trouble-brews-in-tripura-s-jampui-hills/cid/847030
[2] Ibid.
[3] R.K. Samanta, “The Reangs of Tripura: Socio-Cultural and Agro-Economic Changes”, Social Scientist, Vol. 9, No. 5/6 (Dec., 1980-Jan., 1981), pp. 44-54. Available at https://www.jstor.org/stable/3520402?origin=crossref
[4] Ibid.
[5] Phuldungsei village falls under the Sabual Village Committee of the Jampui Hills Rural Development Block in Kanchanpur Sub-Division of North Tripura District.
[6] Withdraw Section 144 from Border Village: Tripura to Mizoram, The Times of India, October 19, 2020. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/agartala/withdraw-section-144-from-border-village-tripura-to-mizoram/articleshow/78749498.cms
[7] Ibid.
[8] Mizos of Jampui Hill Stand with Kuki-Zo Tribes of Manipur, demands step down of Manipur CM, Tripura Chronicle, July 25, 2023. https://tripurachronicle.in/local-news/mizos-of-jampui-hill-stand-with-kuki-zo-tribes-of-manipur-demands-step-down-of-manipur-cm/
[9] Security tightened along Mizoram-Tripura border after blast at tourist facility site, India TodayNe, May 29, 2025. https://www.indiatodayne.in/tripura/story/security-tightened-along-mizoram-tripura-border-after-blast-at-tourist-facility-site-1221430-2025-05-29
[10] https://fb.watch/sKHyXOu9gh/
