I am allowed to share a small snippet of an incomplete piece that i am writing......It was such an emotional experience recovering the stories of hundreds of ordinary people who experienced war, death and destruction in Manipur and the Naga hills since the Japanese invasionof the region in the 1940s..... Aseno (name changed) was only 5 years old when the Japanese army approached Kohima. Her father who served the British establishment stationed in Kohima was very worried of the impending invasion. Aseno’s older sister was unwell and had been bedridden for months. It was late evening, 6th April 1944 when the sound of mortars was first heard in the village. Aseno had just returned home after visiting her aunt. Her father and the servants were pacing around in the house stuffing as much as food and clothes in the khangs they found in the house. Aseno, an innocent child, had little idea of the recent developments across the Chindwin River in Burma. After much deliberations and disagreements in Tokyo, Japanese authority decided to go ahead with Operation U-Go, to launch an offensive strike against the Allied strongholds in British India. Imphal valley with its newly laid 8 Allied Airstrips lay between the Japanese army and British Indian territory. On 15th March, the Japanese 31st Army crossed the Chindwin, and under the command of Mutaguchi, a section of the Japanese army began the Seize of Kohima on 6th April which was defended by the 1st regiment of Assam Regiment. Aseno barely managed to grab hold of her favorite doll gifted to her last Christmas, when her family abandoned the village and began the long march in the dark and wild forest of Naga Hills to safety. They did not return to the village till June 1945 when the seize was finally lifted and the surviving Japanese armies were finally on the run. When Aseno returned to the village and her courtyard, she could barely recognize the landscape. The village which saw heavy fighting earlier between the Japanese and the Allied forces was devastated and lay in utter ruins. Her house had been ransacked, pigs slaughtered, crops burnt and graves pillaged. Her family moved to the rehabilitation camps organized under the Assam Relief Measures just outside Kohima until they could receive monetary compensation to rebuild their house and their lives.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Sep 2014 04:53:53 +0000
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