I hope I. Hemochandra goes to the 15th Lok Sabha
(Personal views)

By Ningombam Bupenda Meitei *

"War is a bloody politics but politics is a bloodless war." was once told by my Tamil chemistry teacher in my class when I was in school.

After a few years, my college Chemistry Teacher of an International Repute particularly in Germany and U.S besides India told me about one politician who happened to be from a political family from my state. The politician happened to be studying History long back in the same college where I went to study Physics by then.

Never did I have any moment with him nor with his family members except his younger brother who gave me 50 out of 50 in Civics when I was in my primary school. His younger brother taught me Civics for some months when I was in class 5 but since then, we had lost contact with each other.

Very lately, I came to know that the same politician who is also an alumnus of my college has all set to go for an election from an inner constituency from Manipur in the national party which is almost loved and aspired to join by almost all of the politically charged Nehruvian students of the college except a few like Arun Shourie and Chandan Mitra who both are in BJP and Indrajit Gupta, a former Union Home Minister from CPI and Sitaram Yetchury from CPI(M).

The politician from my state whom I am referring here is none other than the son of the former Deputy Chief Minister and a famous politician from Manipur, I. Hemochandra.

Had his father not died in the air crash, I am very much sure that the people of Manipur would have elected him and made him the Hon'ble C.M of Manipur with a record track in the political history of the state. It is not at all surprising for a person like Shri Hemochandra to be a loyal Congress man in every endeavours of the Congress life like Shri. Rishang Keishing did by being alone in the Legislative Assembly in the Opposition once upon a time, the only chapter in our world's political history when the Opposition comprises of only one man from the grand old party of India, the Indian National Congress Party.

That speaks about the principled life of Mr. Keishing and indeed his gentle decline of the offer from L.K. Advaniji to woo his vote against the Indo-US nuclear deal as reported in the national news. Mr.Hemochandra as I have heard and seen on some media seems like a gentleman who doesn't professionalise politics for his bread and butter but who really commits himself for the development of the state besides his persistent questioning of issues related to his constituency in the state assembly.

Definitely, if he is elected, I am very much sure that the people of Manipur will feel very highly represented and their voice being heard effectively on the floor of the House of Lok Sabha because I believe that he is a good speaker not only in Manipuri but also in English.

I do accept that our MP in Lok Sabha from our state sometime become speechless and they mostly speak in the zero hour when there is hardly any MP in the House and even when there is another MP in the Chair instead of the Hon'ble Speaker. The question is why do they do so? The obvious reason is known to all of the people of our state irrespective of whether they are the students of English Literature or not.

I do agree that its highly impossible to converse or speak in Victorian English but someone like Hemochandra who is educated in the most prestigious college, founded by the Cambridge Brotherhood from Cambridge way back in 1885 and who recieved his education from such a liberal English environment of British legacy is more likely to be alive with some sparkling and magnifying ideas in the form of questions or replies if he becomes a Union Minister in the coming Lok Sabha.

I very well remember my days in the college where I had the opportunities to have an interaction with political personalities like Mr. Shashi Tharoor, Mani Shanker Aiyar, Kapil Sibal, Virbhadra Singh, Ved Marwah, S.S. Siddhu, Sandeep Dixit, Sachin Pilot, Montek Singh Ahluwalia etc. simply because they also have studied in the same almameter where Mr. Hemochandra has once studied and they used to come informally to remember their old memories.

Besides these personalities, I did have a good time with diplomats like Mr. Shyam Saran, the former Indian Foriegn Secretary, Aziz Ahmed Khan shaab, the former Pakistani High Commissioner to India and with a few diplomats from Iraq who even invited me to their embassy though I humbly declined their informal courtesy.

Besides so many world intellectuals and professors from China and from the Western Hemisphere, I did meet with several different personalities so simply in an informal manner only because of being inside the most prestigious almameter in which Rahul Gandhiji too studied.

The place of western liberal thought which indeed took part in the India's Freedom Struggle and where Mahatma Gandhiji stayed after his return from South Africa can't fail to produce a truely committed and socially acceptable energetic politicians like Hemochandra and so many other younger politicians both at the national level in New Delhi and even in UN, New York in the form of Shashi Tharoor and the Commonwealth too in the form of Kamalesh Sharma, the present Secretary General of the Commonwealth of Nations,London.

The final decision has only to be taken by the President of the Indian National Congress, Smt. Sonia Gandhiji about the candidature of the MP from the inner constituency from Manipur. I have full faith in Smt. Soniaji as an apolitical individual and I am very much sure and I do hope that a politician with the 21st century's vision who is also a product of the great almameter will not only win with a thumping majority but also find so many stephanians inside the Lok Sabha like it used to be in the last 14th Lok Sabha.

I wish Smt. Soniaji to give a green signal to Mr. Hemochandra who is not only a stephanian but also an elderly (in stephanian days) to Rahul Gandhiji, the Prime Minister in waiting as the former was a senior to the latter being in the same Arts block as we used to say in our college days, the distinction between the "Arts" and the "Science".

I am very hopeful that his candidature having been nominated by the Hon'ble Chief Minister of Manipur,Shri.O.Ibobi (who by no way is related to me and whom I didn't meet despite being given a chance to meet him in his CM's office in my school days) will definitely have a bigger weight with his sincere calibre which he learned and was groomed with the other fellow Congressmen in his stephanian days.

I personally have not met with Mr. Hemochandra and I don't fully endorse the principles of any party yet as I don't formally belong to any political party and I am not at all a political science student.

I have written which I expect from an old Stephanian from my state like what I do expect even today from Shri. O. Nabakishore, IAS , Shri. R.K. Dinesh, IAS , Shri. Geoffrey Ningthoujam, IAS who all have once upon a time spent their moments in the residence of St.Stephen's College.