Mon Dec 8, 2003 3:56 pm
Subject: We have a dream ..... of manipur 2020 !

We have a dream ..... of Manipur 2020 !

When we ask yourselves what we can do for manipur, visualize the GRAND AMBITIOUS dream of not just a few years ahead but for the next 30-50 years and leaving the momentum behind for our legacy to be continued by the next generations.

It is the operating at different levels of this vision that interpreted my call to "Bring it on" as a millitary challenge ! Now what could be more dumb than that ! Though it was flattering imagining myself as RAMBO with ripped abs, bulging arms, war paint on my face and a stinger missle launcher slung across ! That is the prevaling DUMB strategy that I am trying to end with this push to create an intellectual thinktank.

Yes I am pushing for a REVOLUTION - BUT AN INTELLECTUAL one. The very fact that one cant visualize a group of overseas resident influential and rich entrepreneurs and professionals and educated politicians bankrolling another group of smart lawyers taking on these cases and other discriminatory attitudes and policies to the indian courts in a legal challenge IS the very VINDICATION for our current vital need to invest in creating this intellectual pool from our brightest young students who will be in "PRIVILEDGED POSITIONS" in the future and who can not only visualize that goal but believe in their ability to achieve that.

But the fulfilling of this intellectual revolution does not happen with prayers, fate or luck but need to be seeded, groomed and mentored. Nor does it happen overnight miraculously but over a long patient period with resolute visionaries and patrons willing to make painful sacrifices by consolidating our limited financial resources and single mindedly sticking to this long term and labourious objective of breeding manipuris who in the next 10 years can be in influential, successful and priviledged positions to end this bullying to which currently all we can fight is by sacrificing lives as martyrs in demonstrations !

Even an Egghead realizes the need for the crucial social ambulance but since these social ambulances already exist, should we create more ambulances ONLY by placing all our eggs ( coundn't resist the pun !) in one basket or should we siphon our resources to ALSO INCLUDE strategies that will in the future instill FEAR of retribution on the perpetrators specially given that LACK OF IT is the PREDOMINANT reason for the crime in the first place. ANd by that I mean the sexual and other crimes by the indian army jawans which has been going on regularly with almost total impunity is brought about and encouraged MORE FROM their perception of our peoples' weakness and inability to retaliate, reinforced and emboldened by heinous laws like the Special Powers Act and our spineless politicians, than the mere predatory sexual urge of a corrupt male.

As I said before these unscrupulous vile perpetrators need to have a constant fear of a severe punishment to suppress their criminal urges. This is not the first rape/molestation case by the indian army in the last 50 years of indian rule in the north east. How many of them have been punished and how severe were their sentences ? Have any of our leaders had the power to pursue and enforce a severe punishment on these perpetrators that gets noticed by the rest of the indian population or media outside our state ?

So instead of a Rambo, imagine these rich overseas based powerful professionals shouting "Bring it on". I know it is difficult imagining that and I wont be surprised if members are laughing as a ludicruous idea and that is exactly the response of the indian jawans comitting these sexual attrocities knowing how many before him has got away scot free or with a slap on the wrist. I doubt if even the few jawans that got convicted in their millitary trial ever get to serve their full sentences once outside the north east and when the heat of the local media attention has died !

Let us not preoccupy and lose ourselves COMPLETELY within a myopic mindset thinking and operating only at our current limited possibilities. Because if we do, we operate on the backfoot and do nothing to PREVENT or DETER these atrocities happening again. Let us lay the grounds to slay the BEAST rather than REMAIN helpless tending and comforting our continuous stream of its victims.

It is only the people who lacks foresight and self belief to set this big ambitious goal that sees this as an ELITIST strategy. It is the rationale I mentioned earlier of the "trickle down economy". Emotions should not cloud a rational mind pursuing the grand goal when one operates with very limited resources. I would much rather contribute towards the creation of our own CEC Lyngdoh than to feed hundreds of orphaned children now. If we have many rich patrons like some of the overseas indian ethnic groups with an inexhaustable kitty it is a different equation. But that is a luxury we do not have and so we must invest now in strategies that will allow us in the FUTURE to SUSTAIN such noble humane acts.

If in 10-20 years time, we produce a CEC Lyngdoh, the inspiration and self belief alone instilled by that successful role model would sow the seeds to produce another 10-20 more CEC Lyngdohs from our people in the next generation. And a CEC Lyngdoh will be better able to bring these jawans to justice and more important instill fear in them to prevent future attrocities than endless bands and lives being sacrificed as martrys in demonstrations. We have constant complaints against "bands" but that is the only way our hapless people have to counter against any attrocity - raw people power has to be used as there is no one in authority with the political might to protect us currently.

One constantly hear of rich entrepreneur NRIs returning to their villages in Gujarat or Panjab or Karnataka and giving away millions for humanitarian causes. Let us focus and invest now in strategies so we can also have our rich influential philantropist in the future instead of forever being stuck in this weak bullied exploited state where all we can cough up towards any cause from our diaspora is miniscule amounts. That is the same logic of compound interest pushed by financial people to encourage saving however small EARLIER than to wait to start storing a much bigger amount years later.

However the biggest drawback to commiting to this goal as I raised before is our understandable innate selfish motives. It seems a lot more NOBLE to extend a SYMPATHETIC helping hand to one who even after receiving the aid is going to remain less priviledged than oneself. But when it comes to EMPOWERING someone else get to a more priviledged position than one's family members and even oneself, that help naturally comes a little more reluctantly !

Currently in IT we have an advanced skillset and many in this field are contributing towards the community. We would love to see experts in other fields of science and agriculture and other knowledge coming up with ideas that can work around the LIMITATIONS of manipur. Things like setting up simple cheap labs and workshops that can provide work experience, ideas and knowledge to the people back home. Fortunatley IT is more software dominant which is pure intellectual knowledge that does not cost much if one is willing to contribute that for free or use open source or even pirate !

Other fields like setting up labs and nurseries and teaching institutes deal with much costlier and elaborate hardware infrastrucutre so hey are big bottlenecks to our miniscule financial resource. But the intellecual contribution in the form of white papers from the experts in the various fields can be made available to the rest of our populace and leaders back home who can adopt and implement them.

The setting up of the research labs is very impoprtantas a few experts can guide the entire population and help us leap frog our knowledge acquisition and development. WE need our scientists studying and informing the public the impact on flooding from our jhum cultivation and deforestation. What are the new crops and breeds we should be looking into. Is the water we consume safe or polluted. How much of our insecticides have got into our food chain and causing us to fall ill or killing us. All developed nations went through this blind development path only to realize later of the harms they wrecked upon themselves in their ignorance.

But we have the advantage of historical hindsight, science and knowledge to avoid those if only we have our own research scientist who can be the independant watch dog for our population as the corrupt and greedy politicians and entrepreneurs will collude together putting their financial gains above public safety and more equitable distribution of income opportunities. And we do not need truckloads of rockets scientists to put this in place but just one giving the OPPORTUNITY and the infrastructure to the others who are interested to learn in that field. Setting up the research labs will automatically spawn the scientists.

But more than the philantropic drive to help others should be this ambitious challenge of being able to transform for the better the lives of millions and I hope that appeals to our diaspora of educated experts in the various fields ! Say once internet cable arrives in imphal and computers are affordable, how exciting and fabulous would be the opportunity to teach the entire population of manipur by seating with a web cam anywhere in the world ?

Is is good that our members espouses different causes as that leads to a multi pronged approach to our development strategy where members with different beliefs and priorities adopt projects that they identify with more. In the past I have forwarded many of my correspondence with organisations to instill confidence and inspiration for others to also take up the task of soliciting assistance as that is very important. So the leaders in our forum must take the INITIATIVE to draft the mail instead of waiting for a consensus as that if required can still be done later.



Date: Tue Dec 16, 2003 3:45 pm
Subject: Religion and intellectual development

Religion is undoubtedly the most powerful tool to control people and hence the most dangerous if manipulated by the wrong people specially in a predominantly uneducated society like ours. With more people in the western christian countries turning agnostic and athiestic, schools have now started switching to a more secular "spiritual classes" instead of the previous "bible classes" much like our "moral science class" in india.

If you read the links on the indian mutiny in 1856 I sent earlier, it was what prevented the earlier british policy of converting hindus to end a religion that was too entangled in superstitions and discrimination. After the mutiny was suppressed and control of india was taken up directly by the crown from the east india company, western education was introduced by the setting up of the first indian universities as the british saw that western education was a better option to improve the plight of the people rather than forcing christian values through religion.

I have made several posts on religion as I believe religious knowledge and losing the "religious schizophrenia" is a very crucial catalyst to a person's intellectual development.
http://www.e-pao.net/epSubPageExtractor.asp?src=news_section.Manipur_Diaspora.Imminent_religious_challenge_facing_the_meiteis

This link explain the common roots of Judaism, Islam and Christianity
http://www.ethicalatheist.com/docs/three_religions.html

and this exposes the flaws
http://www.ethicalatheist.com/docs/religion_and_science.html



Date: Wed Jan 21, 2004 4:31 am
Subject: Economic and Intellectual development PREREQUISITE even for nationalist

It is human nature to fight to restore one's erstwhile independant status but it takes time to build up which depends on the intellectual base of the native people and their ability to garner support across the native population for the freedom struggle.

Economic woes do tend to promote nationalistic sentiments but even a prosperous economy fuels nationalistic movements. The only two ways where such nationalistic sentiments do not materialise is when
1. the native population gets overrun by the foreigners like in the americas and tripura and
2. when each ethnic group gets an equal political voice like in a federal system in the current European Union parliament.

A millitary fight against a colonising power is bound to ALWAYS fail as the very reason why the natives were colonialised in the first place is because of the millitary might of the colonising foreigners. The only exception to this rule is when the natives can manouever to get an ally that is millitarily more superior to the colonisers.

Indians were still a bunch of uneducated underdeveloped people in 1857 when the indian mutiny took place. This millitary fight to end european colonialism took place after 100 years of colonial rule and was crushed with horrendous brutality like many others in history including the massacres of naga and mizo villages by the indian army.
http://www.stormfront.org/whitehistory/hwr46.htm
All those courageous but FOOLHARDY warriors that are idolized today contributed less towards the coordination of triggering the fight than the main and probably SOLE INTELLECTUAL character Azimullah, Nana Sahib's Muslim secretary.
http://www.eiu.edu/~historia/1999/sepoy99.htm
The educational and political reform introduced by the british after the mutiny created universities imparting western education and the Indian National Union which led to the Indian National Congress (INC) which seeded the CRITICAL intellectual base development producing the next crop of freedom fighters that did not fight the colonisers militarily but intellectually.
http://www.kamat.com/kalranga/freedom/inc.htm
http://www.kamat.com/kalranga/freedom/timeline.htm
http://www.kamat.com/kalranga/itihas/tilak.htm
http://www.lcsc.edu/modernchina/u3s3p3.htm

The opposition against indian rule in manipur began at the very start of the indian annexation as we had our educated people but more because our people had witnesed and learnt the indian struggle to end british colonialism. However millitary struggle against the indian army only began in the late 1960s
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Congress/4568/memorandum/
The armed struggle continues till today and though it has served to give the people courage to stand up for their separate identity, it remains an exercise in futility as far as its goals of achieving independence are concerned. But most important, it has crippled economic development in the state that has made it a weak entity that will NEVER be able to demand independence from a country as strong as India aligned to superpowers of the world.

Looking back at history with hindsight, the current leaders of the naharol organisations must realize the need for this essential intellectual and economic development before pressing for their premature independence. Successful fruition of a secessionist movement to an independent countries happens only then and there is no cut off time as we saw in Africa even in the late 1970s,
http://www.stormfront.org/whitehistory/hwr65.htm
and then in the soviet union, Yugoslavia and East Timor. Ruminating over this crucial message could lead these leaders into accepting a political solution where they can join the mainstream political movement and channel their intellect and resources into building and growing the intellectual and economic base of our people. This will lead to a win win solution for both pro and anti nationalist in the state as it is inevitable that in Manipur we will have people who prefer the status quo under indian rule and those that wants to reassert their lost independence like Indians during British rule.

http://india_resource.tripod.com/loyalism.html

However in Manipur's case the independance struggle equation is slightly more complicated than that for the Indians from british rule. The overwhelming Indian population against the british applies in reverse for Manipur and there is a very realistic risk of Manipur's demographics ending up like tripura's given the enormous mayang population compared to that of the native Manipuri population. We already saw the dynamics of the Manipuri demographic changes in the decline in the valley population growth compared to the hill population in the last census mandating 4 valley assembly seats to be transferred to the hills in accordance with the population shift. This population shift is an inevitable part of history.

http://www.stormfront.org/whitehistory/hwr67.htm

The more affluent and educated manipur valley resident population will continue to opt for smaller families to improve the quality of life while the less educated and subsistence farming population of the hills will continue to have larger families as they do not have the constraints of finding jobs nor land and with better healthcare, their mortality rate will continue to diminish.

This is not a pro or anti nationalism article but an honest dissemination of complete historical information to stimulate informed intellectual debate free from propaganda and biased, hidden or distorted information and history. Hope that will lead to our own deliberation of our issues other than the irritating condescending articles written by mayang indians about the issues of north east insurgency still treating us as a bunch of ignorant illiterate natives much like what we saw in the british attitude of the indian natives decades ago.



Date: Tue Apr 13, 2004 3:21 am
Subject: Why NE is secessionist with higher per capita income than UP and Bihar

You have to look at the non existence of a private sector, the arrears in the state govt's salaries and the number of unemployed youths in our own leikai as a better economic indicator than per capita income. Also the mayangs have their well entrenched hindu caste system where the lower caste accept their unfair discriminated downtrodden and opportunity deprived life as a predestined fate. But given the fairly egalitarian social system enjoyed by the NE, the population living in poverty will be driven by the socialistic sentiments to reclaim what they see as their right to an equal share of an opportunity specially when that opportunity is limited, shrinking and becomes the sole preserve of the rich.

Moreover the mayangs of UP and Bihar wield a strong if not the strongest power in the running of the country and see no benefit in seceding. It is the same reason why the poor amongst the meities do not want to secede from manipur while our hill based minority ethnic groups do.

Every minority will eventually demand a fairer distribution of political rights till they eventually achieve independence or a greater share of political power. Each of the ountries that broke off from the soviet union or the balkans enjoyed a much better economy and equality of opportunity, freedom and rights than the the NE enjoys within India. Yet they claimed their independence. So when the NE achieves that level of intellect as these new countries have, the population's innate desire to have a greater say in their own affairs - "swaraj is my birthright" - will be shared by a greater number of the population and be impossible to suppress.

It is not a question of if but of when. This may not necessarily translate in terms of total independence and may end up in a european union parliament model where the smallest country is ensured an equal political power as the largest european country. A similar model prevents the french speaking quebec region seceding from canada. The North east states' currently negligible 3 out of almost 800 members of the indian parliament is a joke and our isolation from the rest of the world with our foreigner entry restriction and infrastructure that hasn't much changed since those built during the necessities of World War II, is a result of it.

I wish the current separatist leaders who are educated realises the fact that it serves their primal goal better by putting their effort in funding and bringing forth an intellectual revolution than their premature, futile and dumb armed struggle. This is especially more so in the current post sept 11 climate where the international coalition against terrorism has legitimised each country's suppression of their minorities. But most important the armed struggle only serves to further hamper our intellectual and economic development and hence prolongs this inevitable eventual date of our achieving a more equal swaraj.

Of course history has a biggest role to play in this but I was trying to highlight the fact that our poverty in an egalitarian society is not to be dismissed. Many people dismiss history and the past but it is a blunder to do that as that is the best indicator to give us an insight into the future and prepare ourselves for it. We have seen many instances of attempts of history and the past being distorted or wiped out but that only works while the population is uneducated and weak but keeping a population uneducated and weak can only be delayed but not perpetuated for ever.

Loss of one's own independent country enjoyed for many centuries is not something that can be easily convinced to the whole population as something best forgotten specially when you end up as a voiceless underdeveloped isolated minority in the country of a dominant different race with a large share of uneducated discriminatory population.

This is even more reinforced when jobs and intellectual development opportunities are available almost ONLY to those that can overcome the barriers of a costly education and a job in these culturally and linguistically different distant cities leaving the majority of the local population to a frustrating unemployed life .

We see that in manipur itself where the dominant meiteis previously discriminated the other hill based minority ethnic tribes and some might argue still does to this day. But the equal share of political rights and reconciliation has somewhat repaired that rift and only a similar redistribution of political rights and reconciliation by India and not military suppression is going to cool the secessionist sentiments within the NE specially as the intellect of the NE population grows in the coming years.