Militancy in Manipur: A Current Close-up Profile
- Part 1 -

Dr. Robbinson Moirangcha *

We do not worry about the "actual origin" or "original demand" of the Revolution. People with different sets of interests have different versions of what happened in the past, what went wrong or what mistakes were done. We need to make sure we have learnt our lessons from our past. That is all that matters for us. We just should not repeat those mistakes now and in future.

We do not see any point in sacrificing our present and future to the altar of some refuted and counter-refuted wrongs of the past. That would mean we have never learnt our lessons and are committing the gravest mistakes of staying fixated to the past about which we cannot do anything now. Timely awakening and action are the need of the moment.

We have had enough of this Mainland India bashing business. We blame Mainland India for everything while we keep protecting the sons-of-the-soil militants who, sorry to tell you the truth, better qualify as dacoits. That is the reason why we are now going to analyse the actual not-unknown-but-untalked-of profile of these dacoits, or militant revolutionaries as some may prefer to call. We do not mean to exonerate Mainland India for its serious historical blunders, but we also should try to understand the compulsions that made Mainland India commit a "blunder" like promulgating AFSPA 1958 in Manipur.

We at the same time like to question the relevance of "scholarly" articles written by three sets of people from the moral high grounds of human rights. First set is that of the Manipuris who possess some academic degrees and stay some 3000-500000 miles away and adrift from people back home in Manipur and who can never relate to the fear, the pain, the angst, the helplessness or the aspirations of the grassroots.

Second set includes the non-Manipuris who can never see what it is to be a common Manipuri in Manipur and hence can never understand the actual problem in practice. The third set is the selfish set of rogue intellectuals who have sold themselves to the militants and who have chosen to delink themselves from and benefit from the pain and sufferings of the common people. These people are being remunerated in cash, kind and favour to espouse the "ideology" of the militants.

These people who are crying hoarse about India's Human Rights abuses need to come up with the ways in which these militant organisations are doing for the up-keep of the common man's human rights and why they have not said a single word about the human rights record of these militant organisations.

Profile of Cadres:

(1)The Adolescent School Drop-out: (majority)

who joins militancy, initially just for the thrill of instant power that comes with holding a gun or a grenade or with belonging to a feared regiment, and who later on learns the hard way that he cannot leave the militant organisation in any way, and who then manages to climb up the ladder of hierarchy and becomes the most ruthless militant himself. The immediate impulse for this young boy to join militancy comes from a minor verbal scolding by his father, inability of his parents to buy him a pair of branded jeans or bike, expulsion from school because of failure in examinations, fight with another boy has stolen his girlfriend (to teach them a lesson!), fight with the neighbours, or rarely inability of parents to pay school fees or simply because of bad company.

(2) The Revengeful Hot Head:

who join militancy to avenge the death of one of his relatives in one of the police firings. His relative may be an innocent civilian, a hardcore militant or anyone. All he needed was a psychological counselling by a counsellor, not a brainwash by the militants.

(3) The Local Don:

who has always had very little to do with all things sensible, be it books or school or civilized manners or the virtue of hard work. He has always had things by virtue of his sheer aggressiveness and heavy-handedness. Local people prefer to avoid having to do with him in any way lest they should end up ruffing his feathers! His appetite for power and money has just grown by leaps and bounds with time. He knows nothing of nor does he care a damn about Human Rights. He thinks UNO is a "country"!

(4) Semi-Educated and Unemployed :

who has somehow got a degree, has yet managed to end up being just over-literate, was looking for jobs, was afraid of writing examinations or has written many examinations and attended interviews but never got lucky because of million reasons that may include genuine reasons like inability to pay bribe.

(5) Over-ground Sleek Entrepreneur:

who stays over-ground, but derives power and influence in the community from his association a militant organisation, plays mediator in ransom negotiations, acts as an agent among the people, bags government contracts through his "contacts" and makes riches.

(6) The Weird Brain:

who has studied a lot of books, but has the nag of interpreting things in weird ways and who is very proud of and obsessed with his ideas in a "frog-in-the-well" way. He has actually never made an attempt to think beyond himself and his interests. That is why he never wants to run a practicality check on his ideas. And, the reason why he is not bothered by the fact that the common people are being massacred by his armed dacoits and security forces and the state is crumbling by sheer dint of his ideas and machinations. Things are not being helped by the fact that he is staying far away from the common people ensconced in the comfort of a king-size life in a far-off corner of the world. His only outlet will be the annual video speech clips where he will talk in a monotonous tone and with an animalistic and lacklustre pronunciation with a pathetic reasoning on why we need freedom from Colonial India!

(7) The sundry:

Many of the present hardcore militants joined militancy as orphaned pre-adolescent kids who fell prey to the bad influence. They will talk of their achievements with an ignorant and foolish pride. Things have come to such a pass now that some parents (alas!) are taking pride in their newfound "power" by virtue of their son's association with militant organizations! Little do they know that what people actually have for them is actually an abominable hatred.

A relatively new phenomenon is that of some middlemen brokering the recruitment of cadres for the militant organisations. Militant organisations are paying middle men 2000-10000 rupees per recruit depending on the potential of the recruit. We need to appreciate that this business of extortion is a 500 million dollar business by some informal estimates.

To be continued....)

An RMI Feature: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rmi_manipur/