Theatre of the absurd in Manipur
Pradip Phanjoubam
THE Manipur government has gone ahead with the dangerous idea of militarising the civil society. In a cabinet decision which will go down in the place’s history either as a necessary but bitter pill or else as a blundering act aimed at encouraging lynch mob psychology, chief minister Okram Ibobi and his ministers have decided to arm citizens embittered by the atrocities of various militant organisations.
According to official reports, 300 volunteers are being recruited from Heirok village, 30 km from Imphal, and another 200 from Lilong Chajing, 15 km away. They will be given .303 rifles and paid Rs 3,000 as monthly stipend plus allowances, and put under the supervision of the Manipur police.
The two villages have been witness to unprecedented public outrage over unprovoked killings by militants during March and April, and have been demanding arms to fight off future attacks. According to official sources more villages have been shortlisted to be similarly armed.
It is too early to predict what history’s verdict would be, whether it ultimately is seen as a final reckoning, when those who have taken the public so much for granted are paid back in the same coin, or else the decision becomes the last straw in the slide towards the ultimate brutalisation of a society already on the verge of insanity.
Ibobi Singh better be absolutely sure of what he is doing. One hopes earnestly this decision was not prompted by a weak leader’s desperate need to put up a tough front to hide failings, or to show “results” in his report card to his bosses.
The situation has put a large section of the public in two minds, betraying the complex feelings they have towards the issue. Ordinary peace-loving men and women, much as they hate violence, have also come to equally hate the lawlessness in which they have always ended up as bully victims. But while this vacillation reflects an understandable human dilemma, those who have anointed themselves leaders of society are supposed to be above this. It is an admission by default that these leaders have not performed their duty of providing security to life and property of the state’s citizens and now want to “outsource” this onerous responsibility to the embittered public.
The word “outsource” in the cae of the Manipur government has a very ironic twist. Indeed, much before globalisation and the BPO business began making an impact, Manipur has been, by compulsion, breathing this spirit.
The joke is, if ordinary citizens in this beleaguered state want constant electricity, they have to buy generators. If eggs are wanted for breakfast, keep a coop full of poultry; if milk is a must-have, raise a milch cow; if water is a priority, dig a pond; and now, if security is a crying need, the government’s advice is for them to keep lethal weapons and learn to kill. Theatre of the absurd, but this is Manipur’s reality. A reality in which a profound “absence” (of a government) has become the defining criterion of law.
This then is the bittersweet story of a people left to fend for themselves and to do a vital job that should have been the sole responsibility of the government.
The cases of Heirok and Lilong Chajing are also two immediate demonstrations that the legitimacy of the establishment, or its challengers, cannot be sustained by appeals to “nationalism” alone. In the end, “nationalistic” legitimacy will have to rest on actual guarantees of quality of life.
So if arbitrary executions, detentions, intimidations, mistaken murders are sought to be justified in the name of “nationalism”, or dismissed as “collateral damage”, the only casualty ultimately would be the awe with which the same brand of “nationalism” is held.
Interestingly, Manipur has seen the public say no to these “nationalistic” atrocities regardless of which side of the battlefront has committed them. It would not be very wrong to say that the show of public outrage at the sudden spurt of arrests followed by custodial executions in 2004 (the final victim being Thangjam Manorama), marked by the naked protest in front of the Kangla Fort while still occupied by Assam Rifles, and the defiant stance at Heirok and Lilong today where the public are actually ready to go to war over unwarranted killings by militants, tell the same story.
The policy of arming civil population in an insurgency-ridden situation is not altogether without precedence. The experiment is currently being carried out in Chhattisgarh but much before this, Manipur was witness to another incarnation of the same policy in the shape of the Village Voluntary Force founded by Major Bob Khathing, a highly decorated soldier and administrator in British India as well as independent India, and a minister in the first Manipur cabinet, while it was still a sovereign state when the Manipur constitution came into force and the kingdom transitioned into a constitutional monarchy.
Major Khathing’s VVF was founded to resist the Japanese onslaught into Ukhrul district from Burma during World War II. The VVF survived long after the war and was again put into action during the height of the Naga insurrection. While the force was known as VVF in the Manipur hills, it was called Village Guards in the erstwhile Naga Hills. Most of the VVF volunteers were later absorbed into the Special Service Bureau.
There is another complication obfuscating the debate. This new war has an added incentive. In one go, 500 low salary jobs have been created, and in a job-famished state, it will not be a surprise at all if more villages begin clamouring for the benefits of the new policy. Much of the outrage, such as that seen in Heirok and Lilong, would then have acquired a mercenary hue. The distinction between combatant and civilian, too, would have considerably blurred.
(The author is editor , Imphal Free Press.)
THE Manipur government has gone ahead with the dangerous idea of militarising the civil society. In a cabinet decision which will go down in the place’s history either as a necessary but bitter pill or else as a blundering act aimed at encouraging lynch mob psychology, chief minister Okram Ibobi and his ministers have decided to arm citizens embittered by the atrocities of various militant organisations.
According to official reports, 300 volunteers are being recruited from Heirok village, 30 km from Imphal, and another 200 from Lilong Chajing, 15 km away. They will be given .303 rifles and paid Rs 3,000 as monthly stipend plus allowances, and put under the supervision of the Manipur police.
The two villages have been witness to unprecedented public outrage over unprovoked killings by militants during March and April, and have been demanding arms to fight off future attacks. According to official sources more villages have been shortlisted to be similarly armed.
It is too early to predict what history’s verdict would be, whether it ultimately is seen as a final reckoning, when those who have taken the public so much for granted are paid back in the same coin, or else the decision becomes the last straw in the slide towards the ultimate brutalisation of a society already on the verge of insanity.
Ibobi Singh better be absolutely sure of what he is doing. One hopes earnestly this decision was not prompted by a weak leader’s desperate need to put up a tough front to hide failings, or to show “results” in his report card to his bosses.
The situation has put a large section of the public in two minds, betraying the complex feelings they have towards the issue. Ordinary peace-loving men and women, much as they hate violence, have also come to equally hate the lawlessness in which they have always ended up as bully victims. But while this vacillation reflects an understandable human dilemma, those who have anointed themselves leaders of society are supposed to be above this. It is an admission by default that these leaders have not performed their duty of providing security to life and property of the state’s citizens and now want to “outsource” this onerous responsibility to the embittered public.
The word “outsource” in the cae of the Manipur government has a very ironic twist. Indeed, much before globalisation and the BPO business began making an impact, Manipur has been, by compulsion, breathing this spirit.
The joke is, if ordinary citizens in this beleaguered state want constant electricity, they have to buy generators. If eggs are wanted for breakfast, keep a coop full of poultry; if milk is a must-have, raise a milch cow; if water is a priority, dig a pond; and now, if security is a crying need, the government’s advice is for them to keep lethal weapons and learn to kill. Theatre of the absurd, but this is Manipur’s reality. A reality in which a profound “absence” (of a government) has become the defining criterion of law.
This then is the bittersweet story of a people left to fend for themselves and to do a vital job that should have been the sole responsibility of the government.
The cases of Heirok and Lilong Chajing are also two immediate demonstrations that the legitimacy of the establishment, or its challengers, cannot be sustained by appeals to “nationalism” alone. In the end, “nationalistic” legitimacy will have to rest on actual guarantees of quality of life.
So if arbitrary executions, detentions, intimidations, mistaken murders are sought to be justified in the name of “nationalism”, or dismissed as “collateral damage”, the only casualty ultimately would be the awe with which the same brand of “nationalism” is held.
Interestingly, Manipur has seen the public say no to these “nationalistic” atrocities regardless of which side of the battlefront has committed them. It would not be very wrong to say that the show of public outrage at the sudden spurt of arrests followed by custodial executions in 2004 (the final victim being Thangjam Manorama), marked by the naked protest in front of the Kangla Fort while still occupied by Assam Rifles, and the defiant stance at Heirok and Lilong today where the public are actually ready to go to war over unwarranted killings by militants, tell the same story.
The policy of arming civil population in an insurgency-ridden situation is not altogether without precedence. The experiment is currently being carried out in Chhattisgarh but much before this, Manipur was witness to another incarnation of the same policy in the shape of the Village Voluntary Force founded by Major Bob Khathing, a highly decorated soldier and administrator in British India as well as independent India, and a minister in the first Manipur cabinet, while it was still a sovereign state when the Manipur constitution came into force and the kingdom transitioned into a constitutional monarchy.
Major Khathing’s VVF was founded to resist the Japanese onslaught into Ukhrul district from Burma during World War II. The VVF survived long after the war and was again put into action during the height of the Naga insurrection. While the force was known as VVF in the Manipur hills, it was called Village Guards in the erstwhile Naga Hills. Most of the VVF volunteers were later absorbed into the Special Service Bureau.
There is another complication obfuscating the debate. This new war has an added incentive. In one go, 500 low salary jobs have been created, and in a job-famished state, it will not be a surprise at all if more villages begin clamouring for the benefits of the new policy. Much of the outrage, such as that seen in Heirok and Lilong, would then have acquired a mercenary hue. The distinction between combatant and civilian, too, would have considerably blurred.
(The author is editor , Imphal Free Press.)
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