There was a time when I, like many other students studying outside the State, used to defend, justify and rationalise the so-called freedom movement of Manipur. I pounced like an angry beast at the slightest mockery of the insurgents of Manipur. Friends in the North India used to call me the ambassador of Manipur’s freedom warriors and I accepted and even insisted on calling me by that name. This was during my college days.

But I was not a hard-core believer in the armed movement. Indeed, I wore two masks. One for my mayang friends to whom I was a torch-bearer of the insurgents and another one for my Manipuri friends among whom I was known as the resident critic of the insurgency in Manipur. I see no paradox in these two seemingly antagonistic stances.

I saw insurgency as my passport to Manipuri identity, which I needed to assert in the confused cultural milieu of cosmopolitan Delhi. Yet, insurgency was not without its own chinks and that’s why I was also an unforgiving critic of the same in the manner of a family member pointing out the foibles of another member—without malice.

That distinction has now gone. Now I wear only one mask—that of an ambivalent observer at home and afar. I no longer raise my voice and clench my fist when outsiders ‘accuse’ our insurgents of appalling crimes: rape, planting landmines, ethnic cleansing, extortion, percentage-cuts, kidnapping, mindless killings and increasingly mercenary eliminations.

I neither refute nor endorse this entrenched perception of the insurgents’ acts among the outsiders and among the Manipuris. I have developed a Zen-like forbearance and detachment when it comes to discussing the depravities and virtues of the armed movement in the State.

Maybe I am biased and have already decided that this whole guerrilla warfare business is doomed to fail. I ask myself as do many others: can a motley bunch of armed men in the jungles ever win against a nuclear power and a potential superpower.

OK, let’s talk of conventional warfare. Do our brothers have the ammunitions, spirit and the strategy to fight a full-fledged ground battle of 10 days with the Indian army? The answer to this, as Shajik Tampak, has shown is a big NO. It’s no longer an armed insurrection; it’s becoming a hide-and-seek trick.

Whenever there is the criticism of the armed movement in Manipur, apologists of the insurgents make odious comparisons with groups like LTTE and PLO. I think this is a poor comparison. LTTE has formidable firepower and airpower that can match offensive for offensive with the Sri Lankan army. PLO can strike at Israel’s heart at will as are the Lebanese militias who recently drove the Israelis out of Lebanon despite the former’s famed intelligence gathering capabilities and raw power.

I also know only a fool would look at a political problem through the lens of military might alone. By this line of thinking, it doesn’t matter whether insurgents are wimps as far as military might is concerned. What is important is sustaining the movement at an ideological level and garnering the support of the masses.

On this count too, I find our insurgents floundering and slipping. The biggest enemy of the insurgency in Manipur is not the Indian army. It’s within.

The generation gap between the insurgents’ leadership and the new generation is widening. The former was bred during the era of Merger Agreement; the future pillars of Manipuris are raised in the confines of call centres and shopping malls, the symbols of globalisation.

Young people of my generation grew up in the 90s absorbing the predominant ideas of free will against imposition, democracy against monarchy, globalisation against stifling regulation and competition tempered by social justice. These values stand in stark contrast to the regimented ideas contained in the red books of the insurgents.

What probably adds to the woes of the septuagenarian leaders of the armed movement is the rising cost of running it? Though there must be cadres who are as dedicated to the cause of the movement as are the leaders themselves, it would not be wrong to assume that many of them have also joined the ranks of movement for the lack of an alternative vocation and a livelihood.

This economic distress has led to the increased need for extortion (or taxation as it is referred to) to keep the hearth in the camps lit and to warm the cockles of cadres. Unfortunately, extortion (without accountability) by the very nature of it is a fountainhead of resentment among the affected people and you can hear it expressed louder and louder in conversations in roadside tea-stalls and in serious discourse among the university’s professors.

The core affairs of an armed movement are to win the support of the people by reinforcing the ideological foundation and waging a continuous war against the establishment.

The secondary function—rather the secretarial staff’s function—is to raise funds for sustaining those campaigns. These functions seem to have swapped their respective places and what we now see is the pre-eminence of fund-raising over waging war—both at the ideological level and military level. It’s not far to seek the reason why we now have dharnas against the excesses of the insurgents with pretty much the same charges that we used to level against the State forces. It’s a wake-up call. People are beginning to lose faith in the movement.

Militant groups should do a soul-searching and look itself in the mirror and the best way of doing it is by taking an internal survey to find out what percentage of its cadres are educated, urban (or rural), employable and would choose to remain a cadre if offered a Govt job. The result would be interesting.

As the generation gap widens, the collateral damage will keep mounting and might turn the tide against the armed movement. Insurgents should recognise that there is the real danger of the movement collapsing under its own weight of internal contradictions. And it has certainly seen its heady days.

So what’s the way out? I think the time is ripe for a dialogue with the Government because a better or a perfect time may never come for the insurgents. And dialogue should not be viewed as a zero-sum game. Both sides can win.

Manipuri insurgents say they are wary of talks with the Government citing the experience of the ULFA and the NSCN. I don’t agree with this stand. Without giving talks a chance at first-hand, one should never jump to conclusions. And let’s stop comparing with others.

Like any developmental model touted by a confused economist, any conflict-resolution model suitable for other groups elsewhere should not be a model for us—hook, sinker and bait. A solution should grow from the soil of Manipur, not from Nagaland, Assam or New Delhi. And because every problem is unique, what didn’t work elsewhere may work here and vice versa.

The bottomline is: people yearn for peace, and we need to respect that sentiment. The sooner, the better.

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