By Thounaojam Brinda
The resistance movement of Manipur has been gyrating in an ever increasing rate of violence and a widening class divide as in any another conflict zone. However, various measures are claimed to have been taken up and adopted by all players of this conflict towards bringing a solution to the same. The insurgent groups have multiplied tenfold and thus the issues exponentially. The state machineries as well the non-state ones (underground and its civil fronts/agents) have miserably failed to address the primary interest of the people. Since the war kick started, the resistance movement that followed that claimed to have been founded on certain revolutionary principles to free the people of the yolk of colonialism. The Indian State and the insurgents have been on this war that has been fought on the blood and sweat of the exploited mass who have been indoctrinated into believing that the State is a necessity. This is the psychological dependency that colonized people have on the colonial master. The silver lining in the cloud is that this is a phase. People have lost faith in the rulers. Not having any authority to turn to, they start questioning relevant matters. Out of the hopelessness and despair, when the churning of violence has separated the creamy layer from the supporting mass, the elites are sure in trouble with the widening class divide to pave way for the light at the end of the tunnel to light up the minds of the Lost People. Revolution has never stopped. It has passed several stages. We are at the hopeless stage.
The revolution has not lost on evolution. Times and efforts spent have been experimental. People have suffered and are learning from it. Neither Rome nor Manipur (geographical area connoted to the state name is not concerned over here as only the violence associated with the people of the region is analyzed alone). The failed methodologies, tactics employed in execution of revolutionary ideas and goals are lessons to be learnt for rectifying the mistakes and subsequent improvisation of methodologies and tactics. In fact, the militants operate on the same blueprint on which the state functions. These are not failures, but rather part of the movement. Corruption is a clear indicator of the depth of the mess the society is drowned in. A simple analogy is that a child cannot be made to write a thesis without having been taught to read and write. The disadvantage the exploited people is plagued with is economic wretchedness toxically divided by various divisions that are mere symptoms of corporate imperialism. We are at a stage where each is wedged by hatred and mistrust from the other and it is a proven time tested tool for any ruler to rule. We face one of the worse crisis today for having succumbed to the divisive ploys of the state. People are divided on every unimaginable reason a reasonable man can surmise and the people who consider themselves a member of that division think their problems are the most important issues that command immediate and minute attention. Peoples’ dissents, having been indoctrinated into incapacitated and dependent beings, have been more or less subdued by various means of repression. In the corporate war, the state has sold out the people and the militants have maintained a grim silence. Both are equally culpable. Forced evictions are rampant with unleashed powers of District Collectors for advancing corporate capital profit actively assisted by its own sponsored state. Herein in Manipur, the corporate invasion is actively facilitated at a rapid pace by puppet regimes with unprecedented militarization, militarized state police, racial genocide upon an impoverished and desperate mass.
The re-inception that claimed to be continuation of Hijam Irabat’s unfinished work has failed to achieve the milestones it should have recorded in its achievement books in terms of upliftment of the mass socio-economically while politically educating them. Partly digested ideologies which the insurgents have claimed to be the foundation of their revolutionary movement have proven to do more harm than intended as the proof of the old fable that half baked knowledge is most dangerous. The insurgents have degraded into militancy, much to the homology of the demand of some section of Meeteis to have the Scheduled Tribe status. The militancy became the biggest industry and the class divide widened by a failed system that has been perpetuated by a coalition rule of MLAs, bureaucrats, contractors and militants. As the people further sink down in the whirlpool of colonialism, we have fought over the commissions that we get out of the system as funds and as the retailors and buyers of finished imported goods. The centrally granted funds for being part of India have been the bait over which all groups have fought over and killed for. The revolutionary path is at its narrowest strangulation at the present. We are yet to fully realize the value of food independence and workers empowerment. This is not the dooms day. People have been resisting, people have been lied to, people have been misguided, people have been oppressed yet people will always win with the right information and knowledge. People will maneuver the oar with empowered peasants and workers. Organized establishments are required for mobilization. Class divide alone is not the perquisite condition for a fruitful revolution. Without an awakened public and a vibrant village economy, no revolution (guns/peaceful) can succeed in its true essence. A true revolution is all about uplifting and emancipating an oppressed mass from exploitation by devolution of power at the grassroot level. This needs organized force. Thus, beggars do not revolt in India.
Technical, tactical and strategies of the methodologies and claims that have been claimed and seen to have been adopted have been moronous mostly. Errors have been repeated beyond the understanding of a common man, distracting issues, failure to work under dynamic stratagem that encompasses all the exploited people from all divisions and sections of the society. We may be broken and amended thousand times, but no balkanization should take place for the benefit of the ruling class. Various nationalisms that have evolved in the region have reproduced ailed offshoots that have been distracting the real issue, the emancipation of the oppressed people. This is substantiated by the fact that the socio-economic sufferings of the exploited class has increased many folds and people are not safe from anybody. With the vanishing courtyards and the concrete and steel gates framed by burnt bricks and corporate limestone, the national character of the people is at worse shame. Corruption pervades its tentacles shamelessly and ruthlessly with the impunity provided by a well greased corporate state. Corruption is a manifestation of the capitalist system which itself is intrinsic and inherent. The system ought to be targeted without using nationalism as a reason for the resistance or revolution. Marxist class divide is useful in diagnosing the problem. Stockpiling of military and nuclear weapons only proliferate violence. The oppressed people under this system have to resist and defeat a nuclear power whose cabinet is of corporate approved projections and whose polity is decided by the sponsor multinational corporates. Succumbing to divisive game ploys of the state has made the enemy bask in the glory of its effortless success. The rulers are at the most advantageous position when the subjects are distracted by symptomatic issues. This is the reason why the sufferings of the mass have increased and the number of militant groups have multiplied and so the issues. The heart of the matter is not targeted. Distractions and propagandas are manufactured according to convenience and with money. There is always time for improvement and change but achievement of the goal is delayed by conscientiously made repeated mistakes that have been capitalized by system supporters. And the conflict resolution is behind the schedule. The Scheduled Tribe status demand of certain group of Meeteis and the contested three Bills in relation to the Inner Line Permit will hamper the revolution process and it has come to a volcanic situation now, especially with the sleeping intellectual lot. What is it the people need and what methodologies of strategy and tactics to be deployed for the right ends are to be decided by an informed public opinion.
History is a continuous process. There has been no interregnum between outgoing and incoming regimes. It has been puppet regimes all along. Some bad and degree of brutality increased with each new. The regimes are also makeths of the system so much so the militants and common people are. Regime change may bring temporary relief but it is not a solution that will bring the complex conflict with myriad ethno groups into a final solution. The war has been protracted and the vanguards of the interests of the people have fallen victims to waylaid ideologies and the industry of violence. The symptoms that the people have suffered have been bad and worse recently as the state is a failed one by its own inherent drawbacks. It has aggressed its violence on the indigenous population who is ill equipped than the all powerful and ruthless state. The deceived treaty, the inherited colonial structures and mindset, the indigenous genocide that got unleashed by the state atrocities and militancy with the fratricidal war poisoned for the last blow by the toxic chemical war. Drug is going to be the last nail on the coffin of the indigenous as generations have been wiped out due to the violence and chemical war. Youths are euphemized and drugged by the system that has waged this failed war on drugs as the state is a main player in this drug business. The drug lords have turned out to be regime blood and elites only. Silence is consent too. To a reasonable individual, it perturbs to think how can a state who can kill as many as it wants not know the owner of the crores worth of drugs seized from Tulihal Airport, Manipur! These are the jokes fed upon the people who have succumbed to an all pervading state and its puppet regime. With the sizeable generations wiped out, who will carry on the genes and torch of resistance and revolution. Who all will be considered part of the society of the indigenous must be decided and their opinions robbed in before any embarkment on any step that says it is for a common interest. As much as the civil bodies have collapsed or been strangulated, being an inherent defect in any capitalist economy, the ability of people to endure hardships out of exploitation is also running dry. Whether mob or otherwise, people will vent their displeasure over the state of affair. This is a trying time for authorities. Authorities have failed and let the people down. Youths today have primate roles to play in bringing about the desired change. We, the present generation, are as much responsible for our history as much as we are accountable for our acts and inactions to our future generations.
People have been suffering throughout our history but on varying degrees. Instrument of Annexation has been the point of discord for valley based insurgents. The hills too have had their grievances. Targeting whole meetei community for any ills the tribals suffer and meetei chauvinism (not all) are the ills upon which the enemy basks in the glory of the effortless success of its gameplan. No underground group (hill or valley) has raised a voice on resource plunder while Scheduled Tribe status is considered the most critical issue. Ideologies are the foundation stone upon which strategies and tactics are to be formulated customized to the specific need of the conflict. We have been using same blueprint of protests with no success so far. This is when repetition of error becomes a conscientious mistake made with an intended vested interest. The ideologues are hazy and so the methodologies adopted for achieving the proclaimed purpose have miserably failed. The state is responsible for the security of life and property legally and it is put here that the armed resistance movement that has born out of this conflict is morally culpable of the violations of human rights taking place in this conflict. This is for the simple reason that the armed resistance was incepted to emancipate the people of the yolk of imperialism. They too have failed just as the state has. Valuable time and energy are lost in the process. Revolution is delayed. Unlike in the dictum justice delayed is justice denied, delayed revolution will not suppress the oppressed people indefinitely.
Encirclement from the periphery. What does this dictum imply? Does this connote only the advancement made by armed rebellions tactically? Who live and represent the periphery and what is their role in bringing about a substantive change? When fighting a nuclear state, which have stockpiled military weapons in Manipur making it a military industrial complex Indian state have succeeded to establish, what are the feasible approaches towards toppling the system? Is it time to go beyond resistance? What options are left for the people will decide the means deployed for revolution. People are to be given choices, free and transparent choices instead of being manipulated for ends of capital and power accumulation of the ruling class.