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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
