By Patricia Mukhim
UNLF chairman Raj Kumar Meghen in Guwahati on Friday.
After the Wikileaks and the transcripts of the Niira Radia tapes, the former having created a major political quake worldwide and the latter throwing out of gear the entire edifice of what is respectfully referred to as the fourth estate, we in the Northeast are now grappling with the modus operandi in which different rebel leaders from varied insurgent outfits are “arrested” in Bangladesh and brought to India.
The Union home ministry believes we are all naïve tribesmen who have no idea about espionage and the operational part of security. But having been part and parcel of what some call the “national” movements and what India terms sub-nationalism, since 1947 we are pretty clued in to the functioning of the country’s external and internal intelligence agencies — the RAW and the newly constituted National Investigation Agency (NIA).
R.K. Meghen, alias Sana Yaima, is Manipur’s most enduring nationalist or insurgent depending on which lenses we use to define him and whether we are in Imphal or Delhi. Given that Meitei civil society has been demanding clarity on Meghen’s arrest/surrender and his whereabouts ever since BBC broke the news on September 29, it had become too hot for New Delhi to continue to feed an intrusive media with cock and bull about Meghen’s mysterious status.
India’s obsession to secure territories in the Northeast which had been made to sign the Instruments of Accession under duress and New Delhi’s propensity to forget past histories and to coerce those who are part of that history to also abandon their political lineages and move forward into the “mainstream” of Indian political thought and discourse are highly problematic and painful for the ethnic communities of this region. These communities lived relatively non-competitive and non-accumulative lives at the time when India decided to lay claim over their territories and impose a modern constitutional framework which till today is ill-suited to our needs.
Today, arguments emanating from the centres of power in Delhi and the state capitals of the Northeast whose rulers have been completely co-opted, that putting back the clock is not feasible reek of forced “patriotism”.
Everyday, we have seminars, some state-sponsored, others more ambiguously postured, which shoot down the notions of sovereignty. Somehow, we are made to feel that the dialectics of nationalism in this region is diametrically opposite to that of India’s vision. Why? Is it really so difficult for us to imagine a situation in the future when India breaks, simply because it has never really allowed the Northeast to decide its fate, but, held its sway over the region purely with military might? The future of countries is uncertain and boundaries are not sacrosanct but largely tenuous.
And no country can extract loyalty through coercion or force people into citizenship. These are all imbibed over time and only if people are able to exercise their free, prior, informed choices and consent. This is something alien to New Delhi.
The United National Liberation Front (UNLF), the oldest Meitei insurgent group embedded in socialist ideals, was formed in 1964 under the leadership of Arambam Samarendra Singh.
The objective of the outfit is to achieve independence and establish a socialist society. It was termed a secessionist organisation when it raised the battle cry for independence as far back as 1953.
The UNLF is the outcome of Meitei nationalism and a riposte to the manner in which Maharajah Bodh Chandra of Manipur was enticed to come to Shillong, put under house arrest and coerced to sign the Instrument of Accession on September 21, 1949. Under threat that if he did not sign Manipur would be integrated by military might, Bodh Chandra signed the Merger Agreement as well.
Manipur thus became an integral part of India on October 15, 1949.
The official ceremony to end the 2,000-year old kingdom took place in Imphal on October 15, 1949. The Manipur administration was taken over by New Delhi.
It needed only a battalion of the regular Indian army that was brought and stationed at the Kangla Fort. The battalion was meant subdue the Meiteis in case of political protests. Ironically, at that critical juncture, the Meiteis raised no objection to the merger which according to Mohendra Irengbam, a leading Meitei intellectual, had reduced Manipur to a shameful Part C State.
It was Athiko Daiho, a Mao from Senapati, and a few others prominent tribal leaders who objected to the merger. Mao formed the National Naga League in September 1946 for separate Naga-inhabited areas. But Mao could not sustain the movement and was soon won over by India.
The rise in Meitei nationalism in recent times has its roots in the real and perceived long-term neglect of Manipur’s development by successive Indian governments. It is also a fact that the Meiteis as much as the other ethnic groups of the region are emotionally distanced from India and its nation building processes.
A strong anti-India stance is adopted by many or all of the insurgent outfits of Manipur which are nearly three dozen in number, by banning the viewing of Hindu films and reverting to the indigenous Sanamahi faith. However, it bears mention that Meitei nationalism remained more or less contained and would perhaps have tapered off subsequently had it not been for the Naga expansionist policy and the fact that New Delhi appeared to support this idea of “Nagalim” overtly or covertly. Altogether 18 Meiteis died as a mark of protest against the extension of the NSCN (I-M)- Delhi ceasefire into the Naga-inhabited areas of Manipur in 2001.
Today, Manipur resembles a military cantonment. Recently, the defence ministry has ruled out the revocation of the draconian Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act which is as much as saying that it does not care about Irom Sharmila’s 10-year fast or the cry of people from this region to remove this obnoxious piece of legislation. At present, there are more than 64,000 security forces in Manipur. The Assam Rifles plans to expand its battalions and so do the other paramilitary forces like the CRPF and IRB.
In the words of a Meitei, there is one soldier for every 16 Manipuri.
Certainly, this is not how a nation guards it liberty; not by making its own people feel imprisoned in a security cage. This has only succeeded in further alienating the people. Who wants to be checked and searched every 100 metres and to be seen as a potential suspect until proven otherwise? Often, even that chance of proving one’s credentials is taken away by the dreaded army act. If the security forces don’t like someone’s face they can build up a slew of charges against the person. This was what happened to Thangjam Manorama.
It is against this background that the return of R.K. Meghen is much awaited. It has become an opportunity for catharsis for a people under siege and an open show of defiance against the state and the horrors it represents.
Officially we are told that the NIA court would look into Meghen’s acts of omission and commission. But unofficially we know that the Indian state would get a commitment of a “peace dialogue with Meghen. For now we can only wait and watch as things develop in the Manipur valley on Sana Yaima’s mysterious appearance at Motihari in East Champaran Bihar”.
(The writer can be contacted at patricia17@rediffmail.com)
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