The Kuki-Chin villages of the Churachandpur hills: between memory and recovery

The hill towns of Churachandpur district, at the centre of Manipur’s conflict, are engaged in the slowest kind of reconstruction: the rebuilding of daily life.

Schools have reopened, markets have staggered back, and village councils — old and new — are the load-bearing walls.

Residents are clear-eyed about the timeline. ‘Trust is like the terraces,’ one elder said. ‘It is built by hand, and it is rebuilt the same way.’