From ambushes, encounters to bombs : Trajectories of the armed movement
- Sangai Express Editorial :: November 27 , 2013 -

From guns booming across the hills and vale of Manipur, from staging ambushes and engaging in direct gun fights to now bombs, the insurgency movement in Manipur has passed through a series of phases.

However each stage or strategy cannot be strictly compartmentalised, for in the decades long war of insurrection, all have tactics been utilised, but the recent trend shows an increasing reliance on bomb blasts or IEDs.

On the other hand, the armed movement and the accompanying CI Ops too have moved beyond armed confrontations with propaganda through the media being increasingly used as a means to convey a message or a point.

So for every statement which underground organisations issue to drive home the point that they have taken up the guns to over throw, what they term the ‘colonial rule’, the security forces on the other hand have been relying on the Military Civic Action programme, obviously to earn the trust and goodwill of the people.

Interesting it is to study the different trajectories that the armed movement and the counter measures adopted by the Government of India have traversed down the decades.

Along the way, it has also become clear that in as much as the armed groups have been able to float their own frontal organisations under different names and nomenclatures, the security forces too have been falling back on its resources to blunt this, if the recent warning issued by the CorCom against ‘mob justice spearheads’ is anything to go by.

The agenda of both sides is simple enough.

Win over the trust and confidence of the people, for ultimately the question of the armed movement gaining momentum and drawing to a logical conclusion or fizzling out rest on the perception of the people. Logical in every sense of the word.

Whichever way the wind blows, the price that people of Manipur have had to pay between the battle of ‘liberation’ and ‘maintaining law and order’ cannot be measured.

Not an absence of a scaling machine or gadgets to measure, but because of the sheer complexity of the issue at hand.

Complex it certainly is, for here stands a Government or Delhi interpreting the armed movement as a secessionist movement while to the armed groups, the question of secession does not arise.

The argument of the armed groups rests on the premise that Manipur was never a part of India and hence its struggle to regain the ‘lost sovereignty’ of the land cannot be interpreted as a secessionist movement.

Two lines of thought running parallel to each other with no meeting points in sight, at least as of today.

Yet on the other hand, the issue may not be that complex as it has been made out to be.

Why not go back to the merger agreement, ‘annexation’ is the term used by the armed groups, and then proceed with a political dialogue on the basis of this pact ?

Certainly Delhi would not be conducive to the idea of going back to the ‘merger agreement’, for to them it was a deal struck legally and within the bounds of accepted covenants. But there should certainly be no harm in exploring this idea.

If a ‘dissatisfied brethen’ message from the then Governor of Manipur, SS Sidhu could galvanise the UNLF, one of the major outfits, to respond positively to this observation and come out with the plebiscite proposal, then there is no reason not to believe that a meaningful gesture from Delhi would not meet with positive responses.

At the moment it is bombs and perhaps it is time to ask why no claims are made when bomb explosions take a heavy toll on the civilians.

The latest examples are the bomb blasts at Moirangkhom and Nagamapal.

The people are entitled to an answer here.