By Pradip Phanjoubam
Understandably, Manipur heaved a sigh of relief, at least because the arrested underground leader did not simply disappear without a trace, as many had begun to fear was a distinct possibility when no official information of his arrest or his whereabouts emerged after more than two months of his unacknowledged arrest in Lalmati, in Dhaka, on 29 September, as reported by the BBC website.
Against this backdrop, news that Meghen had been arrested in India by the Bihar police on 30 November from Motihari while trying to cross the border — though there will be few who believe it was not a cover up to avoid the legal complications for detaining someone for over two months without trial — is definitely welcome.
Theoretically, after more than two months of illegal detention, it would have become increasingly difficult, if not impossible, for those who made the arrest to acknowledge as much, thus making the usual resort to “unaccounted disappearance” or “fake encounter” killing to avoid further complications, seem a real danger.
Viewed in this light, the Bihar arrest can be seen as a strategy and acknowledgement of the Centre’s desire to continue engagement with the UNLF and its leadership, as well as other insurgent organisations, rather than end the effort abruptly in a fight to the finish.
Such a reading of the unfolding developments lends room for optimism. Indeed, if the Indian authorities felt there was no longer any need for such engagements, the UNLF leader would probably have simply “disappeared”, with the former maintaining that till 30 November it had no knowledge of the arrest.
Perhaps the masterminds of the counter-insurgency operations in India also had other considerations in mind. They were watching the response of the people in Manipur and, to a lesser extent, the Northeast, to the news of the arrest of an important leader of a powerful insurgent group. The mood on the ground was mixed.
There were no immediate shows of outrage, but as two months lapsed with Meghen’s whereabouts still obscure, general discontent over the issue being taken too lightly grew. This would have sent the message that if Meghen was made to disappear altogether, there was the distinct possibility of his being martyred and such an eventuality would have incensed the public mood. Meghen’s reappearance, even if in a “staged” arrest in Bihar, is welcome for Manipur has seen enough explosions of public discontent.
The question now is, which way from here? So far, speculation has been on what may have happened, hence an interpretation of past events and their possible causes. Reading the future is a different ball game. For one thing, there will be few in the state who do not want an honourable end to the problems facing Manipur. We do hope Meghen’s arrest and the events that followed will have served as eye-openers for all sides in the conflict that their readings of what constitutes popular aspiration is not always in congruence with what the people actually have as priorities in their wish list.
Let all the parties reassess their stances and on the new platform decide on the best way to proceed. In whatever decision taken by either or both sides to bring about a settlement to outstanding issues, whichever method this settlement is sought to be achieved — through continued violent antagonism or through democratic negotiations — let it be moderated by the new understanding of the people’s aspiration.
In making such an assessment, Ernest Renan’s provocative metaphor of the nation as a daily plebiscite in his famous 1887 lecture at the Sorbonne deserves consideration of the question: what is a nation? For, indeed, these plebiscites come up virtually at every turn of events. The ability to read the results of these, as evident in the constantly changing writing on the walls of every society, especially those torn by nationalistic conflicts, would be the virtual barometer to gauge how committed to democratic values and norms of problem-solving those engaged in the conflict are.
From this vantage, the underground United National Liberation Front’s recent annual statement, indicating it was preparing to go through the painful exercise of self-reassessment as well as a consideration of the changed mood of the people they profess to be fighting for, is significant.
Quite evidently, the UNLF’s introspective statement is prompted by the public response to the news of Meghen’s arrest. For the sake of an honourable settlement to Manipur’s problems, hopefully the UNLF and, indeed, all other armed opposition groups will be able to pick up the lesson and prepare to reinvent themselves so as to bridge the current gap between what they think the people want and what the people actually want.
From the idle talk at roadside tea stalls to concerns shared by vegetable vendors at the marketplace, to more articulate expressions of these same concerns in Shumang Lilas, proscenium theatres and now in the new and increasingly sophisticated medium of Manipuri cinema, the daily buzz has been unambiguous about this misconception of the general public’s aspiration. In more formal ways, the periodic Assembly elections, flawed and warped by corruption as they are, contain the same message.
Yet nobody for whom these messages are meant care to read them. Instead, they are rationalised, intellectualised and interpreted to mean just the opposite of what they actually say. In the worst case scenarios, they are simply dismissed as reactionary statements of the petit bourgeois who stood to benefit from the crumbs that fall from the establishment’s table.
Renan’s lecture has other lessons that could benefit peacemakers of all hues, including the established order. It says, for instance, that “where national memories are concerned, griefs are of more value than triumphs, for they impose duties and require a common effort. A nation is therefore a largescale solidarity, constituted by the feeling of the sacrifices that one has made in the past and of those that one is prepared to make in the future”.
Oppression, suppression, aggression, intimidation, humiliation, etc, rather than mitigating would only heighten the resolve to put up resistance.
The writer is editor, Imphal Free Press
0 comments:
Post a Comment