Hope in a time of
War
By Vikram Nongmaithem
The frequent killings and ambushes that take place around us almost every day have created a war-like situation. While it is almost evident that state security forces would retaliate with full might whenever and wherever they are attacked it is the common people who are forced to suffer the consequences of such action. When lives of the common people are always in a state of danger, the insurgents as well as the state armed forces continue to bark and blame one another for the havoc they create. It appears that both the sides believe that people will forget whatever that have happened after some time when the dust settles down. A time has come when most people are reluctant to go outdoors and feel safe indoors.
Added to this are the woes when people's organizations begin resorting to
bandhs, gheraos and other measures in protest against the killing of innocent lives and the excesses committed by the armed forces. There is a rumor going around that if a passenger inside a bus says out of fun that the next day is a statewide
bandh, the next morning is a bandh. So, the meaning and significance of calling a bandh has lost much of its importance. In this age of the automatic
Kalashnikov, Gandhian methods of protests like fasting, sit-ins, gheraos etc. have turned out to be of no use. Mention may be made of the case of Sharmila who decided to go on fasting for an indefinite number of days after the November 2000 massacre of innocent civilians.
Every day, innocent people are killed in fake encounters, cross-firings etc. In fact, it would be a tough thing to ascertain the exact number of persons killed in
such encounters. The government in turn would declare that some amount of money would be given to the family as a compensation for the killed person. Again, it would take months to obtain the lump sum by the family because of the delay caused by the
red-tapism of the official machinery that we have used to live along with. It is as if money can recover or buy a dead man's soul.
From time to time, commissions of inquiry are constituted to investigate the cases and bring the guilty under law. But enquiry commissions take years to come to a final conclusion and book the culprits. It is said, "Justice delayed is justice denied". In Manipur justice is not only delayed but also never won.
Injustice is labeled as justice and justice is the power of the gun and pelf. It is no wonder why the number of trigger-happy persons is rapidly rising. Are we slowly turning into a cowboy nation? When are we coming to realize the fact that we are becoming a rotten people and that bullets serve no better purpose than taking the lives of people who are, in fact, our own near and dear ones?
Our hatred of a polluted system has unconsciously led us to do things that work to tear apart the fabric of unity, fraternity and social cohesion that has prevailed in our land for ages. Our wounded pride has blinded our eyes from seeing the truth as it
is and we tend to be led by the philosophy 'bullet for bullet'. We were born as men and not as other animals that do not have a sense of how an organized society works and why it exists. Very often we tend to forget that all mankind share a home called the 'earth.' The voice of sanity has eluded us for long.
It is no more a rare sight to see formerly healthy people crippled, deformed and disabled by bomb explosions and bullet wounds. We do not need a Daniel's brain to see into and understand the plight of such people. For how long shall we go on living in this state of perpetual trouble? For how long shall we continue to tolerate the miseries dumped upon us by the acts of the idiosyncrasies of a few men whose ideology is not shared by the majority of the people? Our democracy is turning
into a minority tyranny.
In our childhood days, school-going kids would wave their hands and jump in joy as convoys of paramilitary forces and the army passed by the road adjacent to our school. In return they would bring sweets, eatables and notebooks and distribute to the children. They were honestly welcomed and children used to salute them. But, now, it does not happen like that anymore. On the contrary parents would want their children to stay
indoors. Only two decades ago, weeping children would be made to stop at the mention of the line,
"Tapta is coming". Now the vocabulary has changed. The word
'Tapta' has changed to the 'army'. Oh, what a fair transition!
Cases of rape, molestation, torture, shootouts etc. are served hot every morning in our newspapers like daily meals. The words 'curfew, AK, bomb, execution' and everything that are related to violence have found their places in our everyday lingo. A ten-year-old in Manipur may not have heard Jawaharlal Nehru but he definitely knows what Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure is all about. It is not a mere theoretical or bookish knowledge but rather knowledge learnt by practice and observation. In our school textbooks we learn of
fundamental rights, liberties, duties and our vibrant democracy. Where are they all gone now? 'Man has liberty and therefore we are not wrong when we attack other people's lives and put their liberties in danger.' Is this notion of liberty in tune with the ethos of a civil society? Is everything all right with us when perpetrators of violent crimes go scot-free and innocent lives suffer?
Most people are actually fed up with the violence around us but afraid to speak out their voices for fear of being individually attacked and harmed. It is all the more disheartening and fearful when people belonging to the 'fourth estate' are attacked without reason and forced to toe the lines set by criminals. At times people are forced to believe and follow certain customs. It is good when such acts help in the preservation of the tradition that we are slowly losing but there are times we are asked to follow many weird things that encroach too
much upon our personal liberty and faith. The world does not want fundamentalism any more and fundamentalist groups like the Taliban have been routed. So Talibanization is not going to help us in solving our problems. Why should we take pride in helping to create in Manipur a Cambodia of Pol Pot's regime where thousands were
murdered in cold blood and tortured in the name of state socialism? When is war fatigue going to set in Manipur?
Manipur today is a malfunctioning anarchy. The name 'Manipur' has failed us. The real worth and meaning have been lost in the corridors of time. We have even failed to carefully protect the
'Kangla' where twenty centuries of Manipur's history lie buried. Today, Kangla has turned
into a fecal ground for the Mayang Siphais. The British blew away the
'Sanathong' that was once the symbol of Manipur's sovereignty and prosperity. Then it is no wonder that independent India still continues to follow the British policy in the form of stationing of armed forces of the state. It is not a mere coincidence that the rule of brute force still
remains in this land.
At least, India ought to remove the vestiges of the colonial rule from the
'Kangla' where Pakhangba ascended the throne of Manipur in 33 AD. Doing so would not only help protect the oldest heritage site of Manipur but also help in bridging the chasm of the emotional divide between the Manipuris and the mainstream Indians. It would be in the interests of the Indian nation if India does such symbolic acts as the removal of the armed forces from the
'Kangla' to do away with the feeling of alienation that most Manipuris have.
Post September 11, 2001 the world, it appears, has changed. The war against terrorism led by the United States is slowly yet drastically remaking the world order today. Even the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam) supremo, V. Prabhakaran has come out in the glare of the world media to talk peace after twelve years of recluse in the jungles of Jaffna (Sri Lanka). The world has realized the futility of sporadic war. Bin Laden's terror camps have been bombed and smashed into smithereens. Speculation is rife that the world is not going to tolerate any form of terrorist activities. In such a changed atmosphere, Manipur still stands where it was. Future prospects are very bleak but human beings cannot be forbidden to hope how high and difficult to attain the hopes are. It is time our own patriots, too, work harder towards creating a society where the economic conditions of the toiling masses are on par with the rest of the civilized world.
(Courtesy: The
Imphal Free Press)
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