No letters for you: How violence left parts of Manipur sans a postal service

What happens when a state's second-largest city stops receiving postal mail services? If you are lucky, deliveries only take months, but if you are out of luck, your parcel may remain stuck for over a year.

In the aftermath of the violence that broke out in May last year between the Meitei and the Kuki-Zo communities in Manipur, among others, one of the public services that has been severely affected is the postal service. 

No letters or parcels could reach the Kuki-Zo areas from Imphal, nor could any mail go down to Imphal from the said areas. Most specifically, Churachandpur district in the south, Tengnoupal, and Chandel in the southeast have borne the burden of the discontinued postal service. 

After the offices were closed, the service came to a grinding halt and could not resume regular even after over a year of the crisis. Though some attempts, like transporting mail from Imphal once or twice, have been made, regular services are out of the question. 

Last year, it was reported that bags of undelivered mail were piled up in the locker room in the state capital Imphal. All these remain stuck, as there are no means or ways of delivering them to their destinations in the Kuki-Zo area. 

For instance, in Lamka, Churachandpur district, which is the most affected by the discontinued services, no mail delivery truck has come from Imphal since May 2023. Reportedly, staff are attending the office just for the sake of it, doing work like accounting and other clerical affairs.

“No mail or parcel could be sent from here since May last year until today,” said Thangkhanlal, one of the residents of New Lamka. “Those who need to send urgent mail or parcels do so through Aizawl (Mizoram)." He further said, “This added to the cost of the long process."

In districts like Tengnoupal or Chandel, mail and parcels from Imphal for Kuki-Zo areas are stranded in towns like Kakching, about 40 km from Imphal. “We received mail and parcels once in a while being delivered by our Naga friends,” said Hechin Haokip, a resident of Pallel in the Tengnoupal district. 

Since the past year, Kaimuanthang, an MA student of IGNOU distance learning, has been looking for someone in Shillong who can help send his books to Lamka from the Shillong IGNOU study centre. “Since the postal service is closed or out of service, the Shillong study centre is informing me to collect the books from the centre in person.”. 

This is easy to say by the centre, but for Kaimuanthang to go and collect the books in Shillong is altogether another matter. He has to travel from Lamka (Manipur) to Aizawl (Mizoram) to Shillong (Meghalaya). This will take him two days on a road journey winding through the rough terrain. “I was looking for someone who can help me collect the books in Shillong,” he said, “and send them to me by the private vehicle courier service operating between Shillong via Aizawl and Lamka.”. 

Fortunately, after a long wait, the books somehow reached him. “The centre sent me in May and reached me in July this year,” he told me, relieved that he could get his books. 

After more than three months into the crisis, in August last year, 870 bags of mail escorted by security forces arrived in Lamka (Churchandpur). These are mostly bank documents like ATMs, job-related documents, etc. 

Somehow, once in a while, delivery arrives from the state capital; that too is not reliable, and nobody knows when it will come. The mail entirely depends on the security available. Since goods, including medicines and other items meant for Kuki-Zo areas, would be waylaid, blocked, and even destroyed by the women on the way, postal mail delivery too could not provide any service. 

The government postal service from Imphal is no longer used by the Kuki-Zo communities. As of now, people in Kuki-Zo districts are finding one way or another for an alternate route and means. 

Since the past year, the most popular and frequent information sharing among the Kuki-Zo people has been about the availability of “courier service” and vehicles that can transport letters, parcels, commodities, and goods. These services are from Lamka via Aizawl to Shillong, Guwahati, and other cities across India, such as Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, etc., and vice versa. Several WhatsApp groups have sprung up since last year for information and communication on “courier services” availability. 

Affinity Courier Service was started by a young team about five months ago. The main reason is that people who want to order items online or send mail, documents, etc. have been unable to do so for more than one year. So Affinity Courier started a service where they provide an address in Aizawl for online and physical delivery, and from there they transport the goods or parcel to Lamka. And for those who are required to send items from Lamka to various parts of India, they send them to the Affinity courier service in Aizawl, and from there, Affinity will further send them to various parts of the country. Affinity Service sends it through the post office or other private services such as Blue Dart, Delhivery, etc. from Aizawl. 

The courier service charges Rs 50 per kilogram of the parcel between Aizawl and Lamka. They coordinate with the private vehicle services that play between the two towns. Ever since the violent crisis erupted and road communication between Lamka and other parts of Manipur to the state capital Imphal has been shut down, numerous public transports have sprung up and are plying between Aizawl and Lamka regularly. These public transport vehicles- Tata Sumos, Boleros,  also serve as an alternative to the “postal service” since the post office shuts shops in Kuki-Zo areas. 

“We regularly get parcels to courier off from Aizawl or receive mail and parcels in Aizawl that need to be further sent to Lamka,” said Ben, the coordinator of Affinity Courier Service. 

Apart from Affinity, several other courier services operate between Guwahati and Shillong, via Aizawl to Lamka. All Kuki-Zo who are residing outside Manipur use this route for transport as well as for “postal service”. 

Meanwhile, the Regional Passport Office in Imphal is no longer accessible to the Kuki-Zo communities. As a result, those who need urgent passports, including emergency applications, have to make the arduous journey to the Regional Passport Office in Guwahati. The considerable distance and logistical hurdles involved in this process have added to the burdens endured by the Kuki-Zos. 

Even non-Kuki prefer to go to Guwahati for passport matters. Since the passport is mandatory to be transported via postal service for the Kuki-Zo communities, this has become a major problem as the mail is unlikely to reach its destination. Even if it reaches the destination at some point in time, it cannot be said when it will arrive. This also stopped many applicants and aspirants from going abroad. 

Paolienlal Haokip Saikot constituency MLA in Churachandpur district has also written to External Minister S. Jaishankar, stating that post-May 3, 2023, the Kuki tribals can no longer access the services available at RPO Imphal for application or renewal of the Indian passport. Haokip urged the minister to instruct concerned authorities under his ministry to expedite setting up a regional passport office in Lamka, Charuchandpur, to facilitate the citizens who can no longer access RPO-Imphal to avail themselves of the much-needed services. Lamka in the Churachandpur district, is the second most populated town after Imphal and is accessible to people from Pherzawl, Chandel, Tengnoupal, and Kangpokpi.

Postal service is one sector that does not draw much attention, though an essential service. The violence in Manipur has subsided for a few months, but one cannot be so certain that there will be no violence or a sudden blockade. While there are still “lines of control” and “volunteers” on both sides of the divide between the two warring communities, essential services continue to be hampered and affected. 

This story has been published as part of the AIPP-EastMojo Fellowship 2024

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