Around 90 tribal writers from across the country have written to President Droupadi Murmu seeking her intervention in restoring peace in Manipur.

Writing “on behalf of crores of tribal people of India”, the members of the All India First Nations (Indigenous/Adivasi) Writers’ Conference appealed to the President who is “the constitutional head of this vast and culturally diverse country” for “help in this hour of great sorrow”.

“Eighty-eight writers from 26 states and Union Territories signed the letter, a copy of which was also sent to Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” Vandana Tete, a member of the organisation’s national council, told The Telegraph while sharing the letter.

“We tribal writers and common people across the country are shocked and saddened by the ongoing violence in Manipur for the last two months,” the letter said.

To add to this misery, a video dated May 4 surfaced just two days ago in which two Kuki tribal women were takenhostage and brutalised, the letter said, adding it had shocked not only more than 700 tribal communities of India but also the entire civil society.

“We believe that brutality done to women is not just a crime but it is a bad act to give terrible wounds to the soul,” the letter said, adding this wound, sadly, is “often inflicted by societies whose history is full of such communal riots and wars, and who consider themselves more civilised and cultured than the tribals”.

“In the Constituent Assembly, our supreme leader Jaipal Singh Munda had said that in the new democratic India, tribals should get the right to live with equality and peacebecause they are the creators and original inhabitants of India,” the letter reminded.

“The tribal people are the makers and carriers of the oldest republican system in the world. We the tribal people of India are accepting the Constitution of new India because now it has resolved to run on ‘democracy’,” the letter stated.

But the letter alleged that the tribal people have been deprived of their constitutional rights since Independence, adding the provisions of the Fifth and Sixth Schedules embedded in the Constitution to protect tribal interests have not been fully implemented till date.

“When the tribal people organise to protect their rights and want to reach out to the government, they have to face such barbaric actions and brutality,” the letter said, adding such brutal and inhuman incidents are not only shameful for any civil society but also the most heinous crime committed against Indian democracy and the Constitution.

“We the tribal litterateurs of India strongly condemn this inhuman barbarism and urge you to take strict action against all the direct and indirect culprits of this heinous crime committed against tribal women,” the letter added.

All possible administrative and legal measures should be taken immediately to stop the violence going on for two months in Manipur so that the life and property of both the tribal and Meitei communities there, and especially women, can be protected, the letter urged.