Monday, June 10, 2013

TOI's idea of change is anarchist

The Times of India is (almost without doubt) one of the mightiest news publications in India has a huge marketing budget to promote the same idea to its readers. This, of course, has everything to do with the advertisment revenue that it earns from the four wheel full spread page and inappropriate placements of baby care products or food alongside captivating headlines that read like, "3 in 5 children in India are malnourished". But you know, that's all okay.
The Times of India is all about the latest in news and views of all current topics and burning issues that the youth especially like to be keyed in about. Never mind that the 18-25 age bracket know little about the depth of any issue, they must be given enough fodder everyday that energizes them enough to rant and be outraged about on Twitter and Facebook. Who wants to live in the adage of "old is gold" when it is small townish, slow, bureacratic and stuck in a time warp (as they targeted The Hindu in an ad war series last year that created much unnecessary furore) when you can wake up to The Times of India today.



The latest in their efforts to mobilize the country comes in their advertisement, 'I Lead India 2013 - I Will be the Change' where people suddenly pick up the chairs, couches and beds they were blissfully seated on and carry them while marching forward to build a collective bonfire. I, at first, thought this was an advertisement for Lori but even when they didn't throw ground nuts in the fire, it still didn't convey the message. Was the act of carrying your chair and burning it like having your cake and eating it? No. Or was it symbolism for getting off your behind and taking action rather than talking about it over tea and tweeting?
My problem is that TOI's wake up call comes at an imperfect time. The case studies of social media bringing people out in the streets of Tahrir Square, Jantar Mantar, Wall Street, India Gate are contemporary histories now. This isn't to say that they've been forgotten or that they haven't become user template guides to starting a revolution in your country. But whether it's respect to corruption in the system or rape of our women by the system and society, the revolutionary spark has come and gone.
For India, right now we're at that time of the revolution when follow up on the progress work of resolving the issue is critical. This, in fact, is the most challenging part since the onus to lead, self monitor and institutionalize the change in system against bureacratic resistance is mostly left to individual resilience. This is also the part of the revolution where groupies and social loafers are sieved out of the movement leaving the committed few to build the blocks.
Everyone can join a movement just like anyone can join a mob regardless of knowing what's really on the agenda (You could try speaking to a few of them in Gujarat). Taking to the streets and braving water bombs and tear gas shells is really the peak of the party but the actual hard work comes in the preparation to it and its cleaning up. The loud party, however, is the first critical step in taking everyone's notice to something that was paid little or serious attention to before.
But we've done that in the summer last to last year and just the winter that went by. Now is the time for the empowered individuals and bodies to continue to stand on their ground and sync their efforts towards this change.
The noise has been made TOI. So why are you still asking us to burn chairs?

Sunday, June 2, 2013

A stranger in the mist


The policewoman at the airport security check scans me with her beeper and asks where I was from. I looked surprised at the question given that anyone catching a flight to Imphal goes there because of one reason only – they belong there some way or the other. I, on the other hand, am one unique tourist, foreigner and outsider who doesn’t need an inner line permit.

Boys at dusk near Loktak lake, the largest and perhaps, the most beautiful lake I've ever seen anywhere in India.


It has been 6 years since I was last here, long enough to make me feel guilty about being so distant from my roots. However, as soon as I left the premises of the airport eager to see the changes in the capital city of Manipur, I felt like I hadn’t missed much in the last half decade. Barring billboards featuring a formerly unacknowledged sporting legend, the place hadn’t changed from its local ima (run by women) markets, plentiful kirana shops and the omnipresence of armed security forces posted at different city centers.

I carry the identity of an outsider everywhere I go – whether it is in the capital of the country, which groomed me to the harsh realities of the big bad world of adulthood in 11 years or the IT capital where I moved for greener grasses and a more metropolitan culture. I, often, am asked about either the troubled insurgent political situation of my home state and my stand on AFSPA and Irom Sharmila’s struggle or the souvenir I can bring back for cultural enthrallment and the exotic locales that remain unexploited in the little state, often submerged in the singularly misleading identity of the ‘seven sisters’ or the North East. But what do I really know about my state except for the few towns and villages where different variations of my extended family and tribal community live? Home for me had only thus far been the meaningless charade of meeting relatives who spoke in an alien language and failingly attempted to familiarize me with their way of life each time I visited.

I put my foot down this time, telling my mother I was grown up enough to choose how I spend my limited paid leave. She humored my appeal to be treated like an adult and neatly sifted through the pages of Air India in-flight magazine to design an itinerary for my trip. My parents don’t exactly fit like puzzle pieces in their home state anymore despite having grown up here and having links to the community in each town and city that my dad was posted to while serving in the Indian Army. The Army takes you places, exposes you to diversity and development and mainstreams you into the great Indian aspiration of earning a 6 figure salary in a prominent metropolitan with an annual vacation abroad. This while people in Manipur still struggle with power and water supply, unprecedented curfews in the city every alternate week and the looming threat of insurgent terrorism or exploitation at the hands of those pledged to protect them, both the militant groups and the Army.

As I travelled past the old familiar towns and districts, I noticed the many billboards of the Indian Army, many of which boasted of their welfare work for the local communities. Much has been written about the inhuman atrocities committed by armed forces personnel under direct and urgent instructions to weed out militants with unparalleled power and immunity in their line of work. I sat and drank tea at an Assam Rifles base perched atop a hillock at Loktak lake, the largest freshwater lake in the entire North East, that was formerly occupied by militant forces. The hospitable commanding officer, who has extensively been part of many operations in the state, talks about the many areas his dispatch had conquered from the militants. It would have been contentious to ask about the details of these operations in my circumstances as a guest (and him knowing that I work as an online journalist) so I refrained for the better wisdom of knowing he would hardly reveal anything worth a quote.

I’ve always wondered about the diplomatic positions of people who grow up outside of their homes that are declared unfit for peace. I’ve always been somewhat in the grey about the challenges Manipur has faced, especially when AFSPA has been the most notable one in the last decade or so. Vicariously knowing the realities through close cousins and relatives at home, I’ve rarely heard of incidents relating to any harassment by armed forces personnel themselves, however.

On the other hand, an uncle’s car being “borrowed” at gunpoint by militants and people being routinely subjected to extortions when they open up a new shop or built a new house is commonplace, at least in Churachandpur district of Manipur. What I most closely and disturbingly know about is how militants disturbed the peace in my own extended family some years back when my grandfather (who is no more with us) was taken by militants and my uncle was subjected to such torture, that he hasn’t mentally recovered from it till today.

The violation and loss of those who suffered in the hands of the Army must not be dismissed away as collateral damage. But to my mind, AFSPA has been a convenient scapegoat for the Central Government to focus mainstream media’s attention away from the many inconsistencies in the system – whether it is the widespread corruption, project development lags and a dysfunctional tourism to pin point only a few in a list of problems piling up. The presence of AFSPA does make life uncertain in Manipur but its full departure will not restore the state back to its normalcy, forget glory. Not when a rising number of militant groups are all independently asking for a separate state when, much like Maoist groups, are just asking for attention to their problems long tucked away from the nation’s bigger challenges – corruption in T20 and naked mannequins, to name just a few of the gripping ones.

People in Manipur have more than accepted corruption, not just for better standards of life, but the only way to survive. A handful make it to the cream of the Government services (and are lauded to infinity), most others bribe their way into positions at district councils while a few others venture out to work in various sectors ranging from hospitality and BPO to academia, journalism and even entrepreneurship in rising metropolitans. But the degree of resilience is a lot to ask from everyone to either have the resources or assert their identity in mainstream societies. Instead, a place in a militant group aiming at a revolutionary coup, that coercively commands respect among the commoners, becomes all too lucrative a career option for the youth in the absence of a career day at school or college.

Sex, drugs and rock and roll is how Manipur's glaring issues of HIV rates, western idealism and misguided youth is often romanticized. 

AFSPA is yet another shame of an excuse by the Government to justify its lack of concern for a region that largely comes under the scheduled tribes and castes. Yet it isn’t the cause of all things wrong in the society and system today in Manipur. If anything that must be blamed, it is the Government that cares more towards maintaining its status quo authority through more than a decade than delivering any of its promises for systemic improvements. When you don’t have the necessities of water and electricity and are neglected and treated like a stranger in your own land, you will feel like shooting somebody…anybody!  

Maybe we need to start questioning the ‘divide and rule’ governance of the various sects and tribes that has been costing the people of Manipur since the ethnic conflicts in the 90’s aside from the collateral damage conducted by external forces.


A torrential hailstorm, that occurred a month back, wiped out houses and uprooted trees in many districts of the state. The losses people suffered and the status of Government compensation is not the kind of news that would interest mainstream media or Abhay Deol.  Why? Because Manipur's problems would become akin to any other state, like Bihar, when it is Indian media’s very own Congo war. 

Manipur trends only because of AFSPA because its real problems are not news worthy or social media virality. 


Disclaimer: This is an overdue post of my homecoming in Manipur (April 2013) and must warn that my analysis of the socio-political situation is still pretty much from the perspective of a native outsider looking in.