Torbung
Torbung is a census village split across the Bishnupur district and Churachandpur district in Manipur, India. The Bishnupur part of the village has a population of 2781, and the Churachandpur part a population of 2358 in the 2011 census.
Torbung is watered by the Loklai river and the Torbung stream, which flow down from Thangjing hills to join the Khuga River. Torbung is a village of historical as well as current political significance. The 2023–2025 Manipur violence started in the vicinity of the Torbung village.
Name
indicate that the lower portion of the Khuga River valley might have been referred to as "Torbung". The British Gazetteer of Manipur refers to the Khuga River as "Turbung stream", describing it as flowing in a "remarkably wide, flat-bottomed valley". It lists several villages in the Turbung valley as well as on the "Torbung stream", but none by the name Torbung.A 1944 Survey of India map shows Torbung as a village at roughly the present location. But the use of "Torbung" to refer to the Khuga River valley continued beyond this date as a "Torbung road block" was fought during the World War II within the valley.
Geography
The Torbung village is at the mouth of the Khuga River Valley bordering the Imphal Valley. A stream called Maichom Lok flows through the Torbung village. South of the area, another river called Loklaiflows down from Thangjing Hills, takes a bend near the Pengjang village at the foothills and joins the Khuga River very near to the Torbung stream.
The Torbung village is split across the valley district of Bishnupur and the hill district of Churachandpur. The division is practically significant since the valley and hill districts in Manipur have different land revenue regulations. Scholar Roluah Puia states that the hill tribes living in border localities regard themselves as belonging to the hill districts, while the Meitei people in the same localities regarded themselves as belonging to the valley districts.
Torbung village in Bishnupur district
The Torbung village in the Bishnupur district is listed in the census with area and a population of 2,781 people. This includes sub-villages such as Torbung Sabal and Torbung Govindpur, as well as villages further away such as Phougakchao Ikhai, Torbung Bangla and Waikhurok. All these villages are included in the gram panchayat of Torbung. Phougakchao Ikhai, which is really part of the Kangvai cluster of villages, is said to have a population of 2,000 people. Torbung Bangla and Waikhurok are further south, geographically in Churachandpur district. So, the population of the Torbung village itself may be only a few hundred people.Torbung village in Churachandpur district
Churachandpur district's Torbung village is listed in the census with a population of 439 people, and other villages are listed separately: New Zalenphai, Matijang, Maichammun, S. Kotlian and Torbung Loklaiphai, with a combined total of 2,358 people. The last two villages are on the bank of the Loklai River. All these villages are populated predominantly by Scheduled Tribes.Tedim Road, connecting the Imphal and Churachandpur towns, passes through Torbung. About 1 km to the north of Torbung is the village of Kangvai, populated by Kuki-Zo people and the headquarters of a subdivision of the Churachandpur district. Further north is Phougakchao Ikhai, populated by Meitei people and included in the Torbung gram panchayat. These overlapping district jurisdictions makes it hard to depict geographic boundaries of districts.
History
Early history
According to historian Jangkhomang Guite, during the medieval period, the Tripura kingdom extended its control over the southwestern hills of present-day Manipur up to the foothills of the Thangjing range. Manipur was at that time focused on its eastern frontier and conducted trade with the Burmese. In the 17th century, with the occasional invasions of Tripura into the Imphal valley, interactions began with Tripura. The southern frontier of the kingdom of Manipur was the southern end of the valley, i.e., the Torbung region.Manipur's royal chronicle, Cheitharol Kumbaba mentions "Torbung" for the first time in 1712. An astrologer called Chantrasekhor, who was on his way to Tripura, was murdered at Torbung near "Khuka".
In 1722–1723, Tripura is said to have attacked Manipur, encamping at present-day Torbung. Skirmishes lasted an entire year and the Manipuris suffered significant losses. In the end, the ruler Gharib Niwaz himself came down to command the forces, there was hand-to-hand combat, and ten attackers were captured. "On the same day the Takhens fled of their own accord from Loklou," says the chronicle.
In 1744, the "Katwan of Moirang" was given the charge of dredging the river in Loklou. There are also several mentions of "Loklaopung".
In 1769, during the rule of Bhagya Chandra, the subsidiary ruler of the Moirang principality called Khellemba allied with the Burmese invading forces and governed the whole of Manipur while Bhagyachandra himself went into exile. Khellemba's capital was at Kwakta. He is said to have shifted the village of Kiyamgei to Torbung, causing considerable hardship to people. Eventually Bhagyachandra defeated Khellemba and the forcible migration was reversed.
In 1789–1790, Bhagyachandra launched an expedition to Saiton Hills lying to the south of the Imphal Valley, and encamped at Cheklapai near Torbung. The result of the expedition seems to have been ambiguous since the tribals of Saiton Hills were not fully subdued. Cheitharol Kumbaba states that the soldiers blocked up the Loklai river.
Scholar Pum Khan Pau believes that the Khuga River valley might have been traversed by Manipuris for the first time in 1857, when Maharaja Chandrakirti led an expedition to Tedim, which was then the central base of the Kamhau-Sukte tribes. The Manipuri troops fled "in confusion" after facing the combined troops of Kamhau, Sukte and Sihzang tribes, and returned to the Imphal Valley via a previously "unknown route", which is believed to be the Khuga River valley. The British laid the "Hiangtam Road" through the valley around 1920, and later expanded it to the Tedim Road during the Second World War.
In 1858, Torbung is mentioned as a region. The Maharaja of Manipur is said to have settled "Saitons" in a village in Torbung. The Saiton Hills were invaded in 1789, but not fully subdued. In 1858 when the Maharaja came to Moirang to repel the Kamhaus tribes, a Haokip clan of Kukis apparently came down from Saiton hills to accept settlement in the Torbung region.
British Raj
The British-compiled Gazetteer of Manipur describes the "Turbung stream", which it describes as a fair-sized stream that enters the Manipur valley at its southwest corner. It is said to flow through a wide flat-bottomed valley, which is described as suitable for camping. The Gazetteer makes no mention of a village by the name Turbung, but mentions several villages along the stream or the valley of Turbung, including "Lairit","Mangyol", "Saikot", "Saitul", and "Tunnam",
In 1872, the Maharaja sent an expedition to the Chivu salt springs, ostensibly to support the British Lushai Expedition. The Manipuri troops camped there for two months, and arrested the Kamhau chief of Mualpi during their return journey. Even though the British officials decried the expedition as "treachery", the Maharaja succeeded in marking his desired territory.
The Chivu expedition did not have any immediate consequences. The southern tribes continued to be either independent or tributary to the Kamhaus. From their base at Mualpi, the Kamhaus appear to have controlled the hills up to the Khuga River valley. The British administration reports narrate an incident in 1876, describing a clash between Manipur's Khongjai troops and the Kamhaus, with victory going to the Manipur troops.
In 1894, the British delineated the border between Manipur and the "Chin Hills", the latter being awarded to Burma. They ran the border close to the previously demarcated "Pemberton's line", and continued it to Chivu springs. According to scholar Pum Khan Pau, 47 tribal villages that paid tribute to the Kamhau chief were thus transferred to Manipur, including the entire southern part of the present-day Churachandpur district. Thus, Torbung became an interior location to the state of Manipur instead of being a border locality.
During World War II, the British constructed a motorable Tedim Road between Imphal and Tedim in 1942–1943. Seven decisive battles were fought along this road between the 17 Indian Division of British India and the 33 Division of Japan. The Japanese reached Churachandpur on 8 April 1944, and four of these battles were fought within Manipur, including one at "Torbung". The Japanese were eventually defeated at Imphal and withdrew from Manipur with heavy losses.
Independent period
After Manipur's merger with India in 1949, the whole state was administered as a single district. The Bishnupur subdivision was established some time between 1951 and 1961, and Torbung was included in it. By 1991, Bishnupur has been made a district.As a key interaction point between the valley communities of Meitei people and the Kuki tribes of the Churachandpur district, Torbung has often been in the news. Protests were held by the valley communities against the renaming of Thangjing Hill and another group opposed the protest. Women protesters from the tribal communities protested against three controversial bills passed by the Manipur assembly in 2015, who were in turn opposed by other women's groups.
The Torbung area was also the epicentre of the 2023-2025 Manipur violence. On 3 May 2023, as the tribal communities protested the Meitei community's demand for the scheduled tribe status, the valley communities organised a "counter-blockade" at Torbung and another "counter agitation" from the Moirang subdivision, which led to clashes between the two sides and properties were burned on both the sides of the district border. The resulting tensions led to a two-year-long ethnic violence resulting in over 260 deaths and over 60,000 people displaced.
The first casualty of the violence on 3 May was at Torbung. A pastor called Sehkhohao Kipgen was lynched to death. His body was dumped in a ditch in the Meitei part of the town and could not be retrieved by Kukis. A Meitei man was also fatally injured on that day in Torbung and died in an Imphal hospital the next day. He was an Arambai Tenggol activist from Ithai, who reportedly went to Torbung to "save people's lives and houses". The Kuki Organisation for Human Rights said that it was only after the lynchings of Kipgen and another Kuki-Zo man that Kukis started firing gun shots. The mobs were very violent on that day according to a senior police officer. The Director General of Police P. Doungel, who went to Torbung to control the situation, had to be evacuated.