Thangkhanlal Ngaihte for The Statesman
May 29, 2007: When on March 23, 2007, a peaceful rally by students from Manipur hills at Parliament Street in New Delhi ended in violence and more than 150 agitating students landed up in the capital’s Tihar Jail, I was among those who cynically took comfort in the belief that the blood and the jail will at least ensure that the issues they have been rallying for will now get the attention and publicity they deserved. As it turned out, we were wrong.
The rally was organized to demand action from the central and Manipur government on the ‘forcible abduction’ of over 400 Kuki villagers in Chandel district to Myanmar on March 13, and to bring attention to the landmine threat in the district which had claimed as many as 33 victims since 2001. The rally was organized after a similar protest march at the same place on March 5 failed to yield any positive results.
As it was, the rally was broken up by a combined force of the Delhi Police, the CRPF and RAF with water cannons, teargases, rubber bullets, stun grenades and police batons. In its aftermath, the police went berserk and actually rounded up anyone who look like a ‘northeasterner’ from the area. Racial abuses flowed freely. More than 20 agitators have to be admitted to AIIMS with serious injuries and 157 people, including many girls, eventually landed up at the Tihar Jail. Those arrested were charged with all sorts of crimes, including IPC 394 and 395, relating to voluntarily causing hurt while committing robbery and dacoity!!
What impact does this unprecedented event have subsequently?
Well, the national newspapers identified the agitators as ‘Kuki activists’, and not as students. Most reports emphasized on the two or three police personnel injured in the scuffle and less on the horrendous brutality unleashed on the students. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) refused to intervene, despite appeals by civil organizations like ‘Action 2007’ which proffered eyewitness accounts of police atrocities on the day. None of the erring police personnel were penalized and no inquiry made to ascertain the appropriateness of police action. Even as the jailed students were released on March 27 on bail, the cases brought against them are yet to be quashed. A delegation that recently met the Delhi CM, Sheila Dixit were told by the latter that while she cannot interfere directly, she will try to ‘soften’ the cases laid against the students, some of whom missed their university examinations due to their incarceration. In the din, no one seems to even remember the landmine crisis in Manipur hills or the abducted civilians which gave rise to the inflamed situation in the first place.
But a careful appraisal of the circumstances reveals that all these neglect and deprivation are not surprising at all. The people in god-forsaken states like Manipur have all along been tamed and their energy sapped by sheer neglect and suffocation.
Since around 2000 AD, the Kuki Chiefs’ Association and other organizations in Chandel district of Manipur have regularly petitioned state and central authorities to deploy enough security forces, restore order and flush out militants operating in the area. On October 11, 2001, the Chiefs’ association first sent a ‘SoS Petition’ to the state Governor’s Advisor (It was President’s Rule then) for help against atrocities by the underground United National Liberation Front (UNLF) on civilians. The association followed it up March 3, 2002 with a petition to the Manipur chief minister to deploy adequate security forces in the district and highlighted the pitiable situation. Another petition came to the union home minister on November 15, 2002 which was followed by yet another memorandum to the chief minister, Ibobi Singh on April 3, 2003.
On August 8, 2003, the Chiefs’ Association again apprised LK Advani, then union home minister of the ‘horrifying situation’ prevailing in the district where as many as 4326 villagers were displaced as a result of inter-UG rivalries. The association prayed for the deployment of the Army and make mention of the nexus between the underground militants and elements of the Myanmarese military junta. Then, the Kuki Movement for Human Rights (KMHR) sent a memorandum to the Prime Minister on May 4, 2005 wherein the situation was set out in detail. The memorandum contained pictures of the persons killed in landmine blasts; names of civilians shot dead; list of affected villages where jhuming cultivation stopped; and list of houses burnt. The memo categorically blamed the Meitei outfit, UNLF, for these atrocities and accused it of plotting to snatch and occupy tribal land. It was in the backdrop of these numerous petitions, all of which went unanswered, that the twin rallies in Delhi were held.
The UNLF have also been accused of planting landmines in the neighboring Churachandpur district too–which had claimed about 25 victims during 2004-07–and of terrorizing the tribal people. There also seem to be overwhelming evidence against them as the local people identified them. However, the outlawed organization simply denied the charges and termed them as handiwork of the Indian security forces. The UNLF and KCP, another Meitei outfit, were also accused of mass-rape of Hmar women in the Tipaimukh area in Churachandpur district in January 2006 which prompted about 1000 villagers in the area to flee to Mizoram. The Justice Rajkhowa Commission set up to probe the incident is yet to submit its report.
One thing that stands out in sharp relief is that the central government–not to speak of the state government–simply did not have the time to wrestle with these crises in these desolate borderlands, at least not until they threaten the ‘national security’. The fact that the ubiquitous militant groups can still operate freely and impose their rule and taxes openly testifies to the failure of the AFSPA which have been in operation for the last 50 years.
The media too played its part in stifling these voices of desperation from reaching the national mainstream. As Rahul Bedi, India correspondent of the Janes’ Defence Weekly, who have frequently been to the area told me: ‘The problem is that nobody cares. Your 10 or 20 dead people don’t mean a thing to Delhi. For the media, trouble spots like Kashmir sound much sexier’. At the state level, even as the landmine toll mounts and hundreds were displaced from their homestead, the Imphal-based newspapers somehow never have time or inclination to peep in and give a thorough report on it till now. Which is not really surprising, again, as Thangzamang Haokip, Secretary of KSO, Chandel says: ‘Not to speak of Imphal newspapers which are not interested anyway, even our own vernacular newspapers dare not touch the subject for fear for their lives’.
Speaking in the Parliament on April 28, 2007, Dr. HT Sangliana, the MP from Bangalore made a passing reference to the criminal cases still lying against the 150 students jailed on March 23. He appealed to the union home minister to intervene so the careers of these students will not be imperiled. A week later, on May 5, Manipur’s IFCD minister Phungzathang Tonsing visited Moreh border town where about 600 displaced villagers are housed. He brought with him a truck load of rice and blankets. It was the first time the state government actually acknowledged that there is a huge crisis going on there.
Yes, these are peanut measures. The government–at the centre and state–are just content to let the situation simmer and the steam built up inside the pressure cooker. Sooner or later, the pressure cooker will burst, as it often did in the past. Then and only then, will the government came alive and rush in–with guns and funds.
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