Estranged Communities and the End of Mr. Muivah

Vikram Nongmaithem *

What next in Meitei Naga Relationship?

The current developments in Manipur and Nagaland and beyond after the unfortunate incident at the Mao gate where two young people died do not augur well for the future of the people of different communities in both the states.

While the divide and rule policy of the Indian is the fuel beneath the raging fire, Muivah's politics of brinkmanship coupled with the inept handling of the issue of his proposed visit to Somdal, his native place by the government of Manipur under Mr. Ibobi are going to be harbingers of chaos and anxiety among the people belonging to the different communities.

The current dispensation of the government of India reminds us of the story of the monkey distributing bread between two cunning cats. While the cats fought for greater share and got nothing the monkey got and ate everything that was there. Since Mr. Muivah is demanding all that seem to belong to the Nagas it is very likely that he is going get nothing.

He has been residing in foreign land for a long time and it seems he has lost grasp of the ground beneath his feet when he returns and finds himself on a slippery slope. After fighting for a long time, now he knows the Nagas want peace. But, who doesn't want peace anyway? The Indians, the Nagas, the Kukis, the Meieteis, the Americans and even the Jihadists and the Fiddayeen squads ? I think even Kasab wants peace.

While the incident at Mao gate is condemned by all right thinking people, many who think of themselves as intellectuals and leaders have used highly communal overtones in their sayings and writings in the wake of that ugly incident. Political protest in any form is often met with repression using force. Such incidents are more common in the valley than in the hills of Manipur but many in the hills do not seem to know that.

Kaka D. Iralu, a prominient Naga scholar of repute wrote the next day in an article in The Morung Express that seems to suggest that the Meiteis had come with weapons in large numbers and resorted to a full scale invasion on the Nagas at Mao gate. Here I quote his words, "The much undesired incident has happened and May 6, 2010 will go down in modern Meetei Naga history as a very black day. Shooting down 74 unarmed Naga men and women and killing two (some say six) is indeed an attempt at massacre. Some of the victims told me that they were even dragged out of their houses and shot." (What next in Meitei Naga Relationship, The Morung Express, 7 May, 2010)

As a Naga scholar of repute Mr. Iralu should know it better that it was the law enforcement forces of the government of Manipur not the Meiteis in general who were involved in that incident. The Morung Express is a widely read newspaper and people like Mr. Iralu should not degrade themselves by telling lies and indulge in hate campaigns. Way back in 2001 when the Indo-Naga ceasefire was extended without territorial limits in the stroke of a pen in faraway Bangkok eighteen precious lives were lost. Should the Meiteis blame it on the Nagas for that? Was it the Nagas who shot the bullets ? Certainly not.

Live and Let Live

Greater Nagalim is a dream, a dream that would be very difficult to realize. It is a dream Mr. Muivah forced upon the other Nagas to dream whether they like it or not. The territory of Mr. Muivah's dream comprise of the whole of the present Nagaland and large parts of the present states of Manipur, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Myanmar.

Therefore it is totally unacceptable to Mr. Muivah's neighbours on the East, West, North and South. Good fences make good neighbours. Where does Mr. Muivah plan to put up his fences? If the different communities in the Northeast are to co-exist in harmony all of them should know where to put up the fence and where to put up the gates? Clapping needs two hands.

The Milch Cow

The National Highways 39 and 53 are the arteries of the state of Manipur. The NH-39 often labeled as the lifeline of the state of Manipur in the geography textbooks of the schools should be relabeled as the weak and unfed milch cow. The NH-39 is actually the support system of a dying patient.

This stretch of the highway passing through the state of Nagaland is a hospital room with a dying patient which the doctor does not know it exists. Gun toting militants can come out any time during the day or night and putting off or on the life system as it pleases them. They rob buses, passengers and sometimes molest women. That is their business. That is their duty i.e. milking the milch cow.

The Big Boss

The Indian state is the largest democracy in the world. That is why when communism has been wiped out from eastern Europe and the former USSR which were bastions of communism during the Cold War era, the CPI (Maoists) are gaining a big chunk in the heartland of India. India is a unique democracy.

Presently it is heatedly debating whether the army and the air force should be used in its operations against the Maoists. The irony is that both the army and the air force have been used in the last forty years or so in Kashmir and the Northeast and in doing so it never hesitated. India is a country liberated from the colonial rule of a long period of two centuries using the weapon of non-violence and ahimsa. So it needs a lot of violence to sustain an independent and united India.

A particular form of unity in a particular region of India is a threat to the unity and the idea of India whether it is the South, the Northeast, the Northwest, the Dandyakarna region, the North. It needs to divide people along lines of caste, class, sex, religion, ethnicity. India's post independence politics tells it all.

The Little Boss: the Coming to an End

Mr. Muivah's greatness lies with his diplomacy and patience but it seems to have dissipated. He ought to have been a little sensitive about what the Meiteis would feel about his decision to come to Somdal. Only nine years back the whole valley of Manipur erupted in flames over the phrase "cease-fire without territorial limits" which the NDA Govt. under Mr. Vajpayee uncannily agreed to put into writing in the Bangkok Agreement between the NSCN(I-M) and the Govt. of India and the consequence was that eighteen people lost their lives and the Manipur State Assembly building was gutted down in flames.

Only recently a Meitei SDO officer stationed at Kasom Khullen (near Somdal in Ukhrul district) and two other officials were killed in cold blood in which a high level functionary of the NSCN(I-M) played a big role. The NSCN(I-M) later handed over the killer after a long period of denial of the involvement of their cadres.

The way he takes his decisions in such a crisis is surprising He is now a confused man and he doesn't know what he is doing. He is old and he accepts the government of India's tactics of buying time. His plans for a roadshow in Manipur has been a non-starter from the beginning. It is no wonder to see why he has chosen to stay at Viswema instead of Kohima which is barely a few kilometers away.

In Kohima he has a lot of adversaries and he won't be able to stay in the limelight for long and probably may find himself as a non-entity there. Tribalism has long been the bane of the Naga political movement and there are more Nagas who oppose him than who support him. The Nagas want peace because they have been in a state of war for the last sixty years or so.

War brings sufferings. It is a totally false notion to assume that those who support the ongoing cease-fire and peace talks between the government of India and the NSCN(I-M) are supporters of the NSCN(I-M)'s agenda for a greater Nagalim. The NSCN(I-M) itself is a by-product of the Shillong Accord of 1975. Therefore, it won't be too presumptuous to say that even if Mr. Muivah comes to agree to an agreement with the government of India a militant faction might arise from a section of the NSCN(I-M) who oppose him because the Indian state will never allow Naga sovereignty.

The probable situation might be something like that of the time which gave birth to the NSCN itself because the agreement would be seen as a total sellout by Mr. Muivah as India will never accept the sovereignty of Nagaland because India is not India without Nagaland just as India is not India without Kashmir.

Mr. Muivah's brand of Christian Socialism is also totally unacceptable to the different tribes of Manipur and Assam other than the Meiteis (his constructed enemy) because he is seen as a land-grabber rather than a socialist. By simply adding a religious tag to his movement he has misled many Nagas for long.

Why else should a large number of Nagas and people of other tribes have died due to fratricidal and inter-tribal wars among the Christian brethren? Does he want to project the Meiteis as the common enemy to appease the cadres of the NSCN (K)? Is not the NSCN(K) adopting a more rational approach vis-à-vis the ground reality in the region and the current political climate?

Should all the Naga civil society and other Naga NGOs allow themselves to be hijacked by the NSCN(I-M)'s totally unrealistic agenda of a Greater Nagalim at the cost of peace with other communities in the region? Isn't it time for a reality check?

Today a number of heavily armed miscreants are on a looting spree on the national highways and state highways. If Mr. Muivah is the Prime Minister of the so called Nagalim why can't he stop these miscreants from daylight robbery from innocent travelers? Are not all these things law and order problems in his territory?

Why can't he control them? What has he spoken out against such incidents to deter criminals from doing those crimes right under his nose? What is his GPRN doing? Fiddling in the jungle? Why should a Prime Minister of a nation remain silent when all kinds of injustice are going on in his own land?

Peace talks with India against India may bring about many outcomes both positive and negative depending on the way things are perceived from different angles by different parties. Are all the Naga politicians in Nagaland and Manipur ready for that? What are the alternatives? One thing Mr. Muivah should always remember is: "If Mr. Muivah gains, other Naga politicians may gain too, but if he looses they have nothing to lose."

Hope Mr. Muivah does not fall from this tightrope walk. Where is your umbrella?