Memorandum to Union Minister (Home), Government of India

November 10, 2016:

Open Memorandum
Written by Pu A. Lenthang, Kumpi
to
Shri Rajnath Singh, Hon’ble Union Minister (Home),
Government of India,

First and foremost
To uphold Justice and usher in peace
Please
Settle the long pending case of
NSCN(I-M) criminal & genocidal Acts of
1. Murdering 905 innocent citizens
2. Uprooting 360 villages, taken their land
3. Displaced 100,000 people in their own land

Before what your honour is quoted as saying “The initiative to resolve the Naga, (NSCN:I-M) issue, for once and all, to the greatest satisfaction of Naga people has good progress in the last two years,” published in the front page of “Sangai Express” daily paper on November 6, 2016 with the beautiful photos of yourself, Hon’ble Prime Minister with the leaders of NSCN(I-M) Mr. Thuingaleng Tangkhul along with his deputies whom the Government tagged with “outlawed, banned and terrorist,” on page 33 in the book written by Shree Padmanabaih, former Home Secretary of India Government, is to be finalized and settled as promised.

1. It is to be appreciated your taking initiative for resolving NSCN(I-M) case, although there has never been heard about the condonation of the genocide, massacre, criminal acts of the NSCN(I-M) has ever been made in the proper Court of Law in the country.

2. It is also to be gratifying to read your statement of post-mortem crownation of whom have been decorated as freedom fighters, persons like “(L) Jadonang, (L) Gaidinliu,” in the same region.

3. Are your honour pretending to forget or conceal the greatest and longest freedom fighters and their unspeakable sufferings of thousands, and loses on account of Anglo-Kuki war that started in 1761? Atleast the history of the last war 1917-1919? For your patient reading of the following few historical recollections written by the Research Scholars is quoted in the following three short paras –

(1) “When the Great War was fought in the European theatre, its tremor was felt furiously at the other end of the globe. An earth-shaking event broke out in the sleepy highland massif of Northeast India in 1917 during the high noon of the First World War. It was the most memorable moment in the history of the Kukis that shattered the eastern highland of the British Empire or at the heart of its ‘Crescent Empire’.

(2) “The flames of freedom against imperialism have shaken the whole ranges from Naga Hills in the North to Chin Hills in the South and from North Cachar Hills in the West to Somra Tract and Chindwin valley in the East. It turned the Kuki country upside down, the sleepy hill villages into fortresses, the enraged peaceful population into freedom fighters, the land of freedom into battle fields, and the land of honey and milk into scarcity and poverty. The fighting and the last war went on for more than two years (March 1917 to May 1919) and the wanton destruction caused to lives, properties, finance, and culture was so great that the Kukis could not rise up again. More than eighty six Kuki villages had been raged to the ground, fifteen villages have been deserted forever, 112 villages have been mercilessly punished and forced to surrender. About 1600 muskets have been confiscated, several hundreds of leather cannon (pumpi), and several thousand pounds of gunpowder were destroyed. Hundreds of songkhai and songpel (stone-trap fixed on the tree or on the cliff above the enemy’s paths) and other weapons of destruction have also been destroyed. More than six thousand combatants, about eight thousands transport coolies and non-combatants, two provincial British Colonial governments (Assam and Burma) and one princely state (Manipur), all under the supreme direction of the British Colonial Government of India (GOI), took active part in suppressing the Rising.

(3) “With the mounting brutalities of the British forces against the civilians, some Kuki leaders eventually surrendered to defuse the inhuman atrocities of the armed forces, to save lives and properties. They were imprisoned in different jails in India and Burma. But that was not the end of the War. Many Kukis refused to surrender and continue to fight until they were overpowered and captured by the British forces. They fought to the last and many of them sacrificed their lives. The War was brutally suppressed by the mighty forces. The Kukis did not stop fighting the British; the low-profile everyday forms of resistance went on until they took up arms again in the 1940s when the Japanese and Indian National Army (INA) came for help. When the leaders (mostly the chiefs) were no doubt great and influential, they were not the only Kukis who fought the British. Thousands of Kuki fighters took up arms against the British forces and fought on different fronts. Many of them sacrificed their lives in defence of their freedom against British imperialism; some of them died in prisons.”

Many more historical records of the Kuki freedom fighters in thousands, when needed, will be revealed as recorded. The history of Kuki freedom struggle can never be hidden or concealed. God knows the truth. How long new Governments of India and Burma, born in 1947, 1948 can conceal the historical facts? Careless dealing of the Kukis freedom struggle, namely Anglo-Kuki war will bring out the facts of this war history: The unspeakable sufferings and losses are still in the minds of the Kuki people in the same region of wherein the unrevealed talks are kept going on and on!

It is, therefore, prayed to your honour to sympathetically settle first the pending case of the massacre of 905 innocents, armless, women, children, pregnant women, aged and invalid, 360 villages uprooted, lands seized, and 100,000 people displaced still having found no place to settle themselves down, therefore before your honour’s promise “to settle NSCN(I-M) to the greatest satisfaction of the Nagas alone,” by the pressure of NSCN(I-M) whom the respected former Home Secretary described and tagged NSCN(I-M) as terrorist in his book “Does violence get a mandate?” page 33, is to be finalized and settled to the satisfaction of all communities, indigenous, inhabiting the region together with the NSCN(I-M) and other Nagas. We want peace as of before 1947 and 1948 to abide in the UN guiding principles made in 1945 by 51 nations of the world including India.

This reminder is the minder of more than 60 Memoranda submitted to the outgoing five Prime Ministers and the incoming Prime Minister, namely –
1. Shri Narasimha Rao
2. Shri H.D. Gowda
3. Shri I.K. Gujral
4. Shri Atal Behari Vajpayee
5. Shri Manmohan Singh
6. Shri Narenda Modijee

The open memorandum is submitted to your Honour in anticipation of your Honour’s immediate restoration and ushering in peace and social harmony in the trouble torn region to avoid possible indangering of International Peace and Security in the whole region, partially called the North East India, in its context. Because the North East India and North West Myanmar region is the home of various tribal landlords, indigenous, living together peacefully from (1) pre-British advents, (2) during British umbrella Government, (3) we want to continue the same Peace and Security without any communal wall built up amongst us. Any hasty action for one single community among thousands of communities will be just like to put fire to the fuel. Please understand the North East India in its contextual reality with sympathy and preserve International Peace and Security.

Released by
KUKI INPI
P.O. Haflong, Assam,
India