Anatomy of a blast !

Huirem Dayamoi *

Bomb blast at Moirangkhom, near Hicham Yaicham Pat, Imphal at around 6:20 am on 30 Oct 2013 :: Pix - Deepak Oinam

X numbers of labourers killed, X numbers of non Manipuris found dead : our everyday stale breakfast fodder ! At Moirangkhom, a few "Manipuris?" or "Locals of Manipur" were killed, and the fodder has suddenly become alive and unpalatable! This was not a mere blast! There's something very special about it! The anatomy of this blast is very different!

A group of Underground Outfits - under the name of CORCOM - has already denied its involvement in it! No other major or minor outlawed groups have yet come forward to claim "the responsibility or the lack of it"! The Honourable Home Minister of the state has spoken as much about why the public and the NHRC should be either accommodating or lenient or sympathetic about their perception and conception of and treatment towards his wards.

The incumbent DGP, who, instead of the government at the helm or any other very serious sounding civil organisations - has already done a laudable service to the people of the state by reminding the banks of the compulsory RBI direction to keep all the ATMs open for 24 hours, says that 'his boys' are doing their duty! The most Honourable Chief among the Ministers has done his may be very sincere exercise in Public Relations by appealing for help to the various and numerous Civil Organisations!

Every other social organisation and local club worth its name on paper have 'strongly registered' its protests and have "strongly condemned" such acts. Some have even 'appealed' to the yet unknown perpetrators - obviously an appeal to obvious criminals - not to repeat such acts in the future! Political Parties who failed to grab the seat of power, as is their wont, are blaming the O Ibobi led government for the very unsecure security situation !

Some, of doubtful wisdom, are demanding President's Rule without ever thinking twice that they are demanding self-disenfranchisement! And there are talks about the possible re-imposition of the AFSPA in the Assembly segments from where it has been lifted! And then, there are the families of those dead or killed or maimed!

Yes, the NHRC and the Guardians of Human Rights everywhere always seem biased against any and every establishment! But then, isn't the establishment or any establishment anywhere in the world the immediate sovereign? The establishment has everything at its disposal to fend off itself against any presumed or actual external or internal threat.

It's also not unusual that establishments the world over have hardly ever needed or will ever need the NHRC. It's the public which has always needed the NHRC and other Commissions of Human Rights in the past, and perhaps will always need them in the future too. Also, the NHRC is not a media house or a media channel which is duty bound to disseminate unbiased information! Its concern should be and is solely about violations of human rights or otherwise. And there is hardly any record either in contemporary or recent history to indicate that the human rights of the state or its organs have been violated by so and so.

Yes, the NHRC has highlighted the excesses of the Military, Paramilitary and the Police establishment! Though it's totally another matter, if at all any possible remedial or other appropriate measures based on the NHRC reports will be taken up anytime soon by the concerned organs of the government! And yes, it has not highlighted the may be non-existent physical, mental and other tortures under which the police and other personnels of the security organs of the state may or may not be carrying out their duties!

But then, the NHRC or others of their ilk hardly have any jurisdiction over unlawful elements and their unlawful acts and activities ! It's rather the general public, which should voluntarily and of its own volition realise and acknowledge in their hearts and minds, the immense pressure, mental torture and extraordinary circumstances under which the security personnels of the state must operate.

It's rather the general public which should voluntarily come out in the defense of 'our boys' who are trying to provide us with sound sleep that they are entrusted to provide! But then, this again is dependent upon the intent, actions and actual conduct on ground of 'our boys' and their masters and machinery!

This Blast, the Blast, is different! In its condemnation, it has created very strange bedfellows! Unholy alliances and unholy motives are suspect! It has fiercely renewed the private agendas of finger pointing! Some say that it may be a conspiracy by the establishment to blame them and bring on further stringent measures against them and against the public, and the establishment says that it may be a ploy by some to target its scorecard of the Sangai Fest and its well meaning and current Ambassadorship of Myanmar! There's also the very fashionable yet very possible pointers towards the outsourcing of terror, without ever hinting at who might have outsourced to whom?

To conspiracy theorists with more fertile minds it may be a totally new genre of terrorism motivated only by revenge or only by boredom etc.Yet, whatsoever may be the truth, the undeniable reality of the moment is that the Blast is an Unpinned Grenade thrown on the face of a very lethargic, very numbed, very afraid and a very spineless and unempathetic public on the need for it to support - morally, ethically and in deed, the currently enstranged Police and Security establishment of the state !

The question of deserving or undeserving does not arise here at all! Dear Sir, the Minister of Home for the state of Manipur, we don't need an NHRC here! The Blast is an immediate challenge to the senseless senses of the general public, for its own sake, to give timely, authentic and voluntary intelligence inputs to the rarely sincere authorities of the state! The DGP's boys have hardly failed! It's the 'intelligence' failure of the Public!

The anatomy of this Blast is different! This blast has thrown up talks of the ominous AFSPA and its imminent reimposition in certain areas! But then, it'll be a 'blind' public and a 'blinder' establishment that should talk about the AFSPA and its relevance here. AMCOCA ( Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act ) in Maharashtra could not prevent a 26/11! And all the good old acts and an AFSPA have not prevented recurrent bomb blasts and broad daylight gunfights in Jammu and Kashmir.

The failures have been not because of the lack of an AFSPA, but it has been inspite of and despite an AFSPA! Except having naturally imbibed the spillover effects and the afterglow of AFSPA by having lived and acted in tandem for decades with the Armed Forces, and perhaps having come to mistake the AFSPA to be their own bullet proof cocoon, with all the unbridled power of friskings and combing operations than current in the Israeli Gaza Strip, the State Security Establishment has nothing to do with AFSPA!

And AFSPA has nothing to do with the State Police Force and its intelligence gathering capacity! The basic foundation of any effective intelligence network for the protection of the Public and the nation lies in the voluntary participation of and cooperation by a fearless Public! AFSPA was not, AFSPA is not and AFSPA should never be the compulsory remedial weapon for the intelligence failure of the state security establishment!

Indeed, the anatomy of this Blast is different! Yet, the real difference will be when those at the helm sincerely try and effect a behavioural change within the security establishment and when this change is reflected in the actual ground conduct of its personnel! The real difference will be when the whole system of the security machinery of the state comes out of the shadow of the afterglow of AFSPA and the security personnel shed their birthright of arrogance and trigger-happiness and desist from the habit of treating anyone and everyone as a suspect and when those in power ends utilising the whole or part of the security machinery for their own private agendas and private gains.

The real difference will be when the establishment for once represent the trust and wisdom and will of the larger public and act for once as how a state should act in a federal democracy and leave the dependency on an AFSPA or the Centre for matters that's best understood and best executed by a state!

The real difference will be when the public becomes fearless, vigilant and proactive in matters that concern its own welfare and safety and security and cooperate with the state on its own volition in matters of such need and urgency! And whereas it's a matter of reasonable doubt, whether the usual suspects, the various underground outfits - either by giving conclusive proof to the public of their non-involvement or by not suddenly declaring an xyz cadre of theirs as a deserter whose conclusive involvement is found at a later stage - will be able to exonerate themselves from such suspicions and allegations of the establishment or not, the real and immediate concern now should be on how best to identify and apprehend the yet faceless culprits and bring them to book and award them befitting and exemplary punishment: by a voluntary and urgent cooperation between the served and its servant, between the public and the establishment! For, "security, without the consent and willing cooperation of the person sought to be secured, is an exercise in futility!"

Or are we and our collective conscience, yet again, going to make this blast just another blast ? Only time will tell. But time waits for none and it didn't wait for those killed at Moirangkhom or elsewhere!

And it will wait neither for us nor for our children!!!