8 MARCH MOBS: Threatening Communal Tension at Lamka

- Dr. David Vumlallian Zou

While condemning the brutal murder of Pu T. Vungkhanthang, it is sad to take note of the mob frenzy that followed it. In a well-governed state, the criminals involved in the brutal murder should have been pursued and punished by the police. Indeed, we pay our taxes to the state whose duty is to protect the lives and property of its citizens.

The violent Sunday incident of 8 March 2009 poses many disturbing questions about the safety of the Zou community in Manipur. Given the official allegiance of UZO to the Zomi Council, this event is most unfortunate – and rather unexpected! But strange things did happen under the volatile local conditions of Lamka. On second thought, a mob violence of the kind we witnessed should appear less shocking.

To begin with, current events reveal the great danger to which the little ZDV faction can expose the whole Zou community. How should we deal with the deviant ZDV boys who indulge in extortions and criminal activities? Who patronises the existence of this faction? If we cannot beat them, is it possible to co-opt them into mainstream Zomi arena? Factional division is the besetting sin of the Zou people; this propensity to split up has been lamentably reflected in our unending religious schisms and recent organizational rivalries. To a large degree, these internal divisions drain away our energies, crippling our strength to meet unexpected emergencies.

The mob frenzy on Sunday also throws into relief the fragility of our Zomi brotherhood and solidarity. Our affiliation to Zomi Council still seems to be determined by political expediency rather than ideological commitment. In spite of the formal political unity at the top, there is so much distrust and social antipathy at the grass roots level. There is a big gulf between the rhetoric of political unity at high level and the ugly reality of communal tension boiling from below. As long as the life and property of a particular Zomi community gets threatened at the slightest excuse, as long as a whole community gets blackened en mass due to individual acts of crime, or as long as indignities are heaped on the head of a particular section of the Zomi family, then the basic human instinct for collective survival or the universal law of desperate self-defence will have to take over eventually. How I wish this cruel decision never offers itself in future!

Under existing circumstances, the present strategy of rehearsing a common Meitei threat to collective Zomi interest is no longer enough. To meet our internal crisis, it is imperative to initiate Confidence Building Measures between different Zomi communities. It is too risky to neglect this vital public sphere, healing process and reconciliation for the project of building our collective identity.

After all, a political movement cannot go very far without firm roots in a cohesive society. Here the distinction between political unity and social cohesion is most instructive. At present, there is too much emphasis on the nationalist Zomi to the neglect of the communitarian Zomi; too much stress on a political community at the cost of Zomi civic society. Nation building cannot come before community building; or at least, they should go hand in hand in a fine balance.

Note: This article is exclusively written for ZouWorkshop Discussion Forum and re-published with the permission of the author.

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