Moments with Kishan

By Sanjay (Xonzoi) Barbora *

In one of those tragic examples of synchronicity, I woke up with a desire to send my old friend and comrade, Thingnam Kishan a nasty mail for not keeping in touch. Just then, his cousin called me from Imphal to say that he had been missing for three days. In a matter of minutes, we were all trying to connect dots and trace him. I did not worry much, for Kishan always had an anarchic streak in him. One would not see, or hear from him for years and suddenly he would pop up like some genie, waving agitatedly and trying to string together a coherent sentence from the recesses of his fertile mind. I assumed this would be another such moment. That when he appeared online, on gmails chat window, he would tap out furious apologies and explain just how busy and chaotic his life had been.

His cousin called again in the afternoon. She choked back tears and said that his body was in the morgue. This was February 17, 2009. He had been missing for a few days prior to the day his friend identified his body, head bludgeoned with a spade. With him were five of his colleagues, three of whom were killed in a similar manner. News from Manipur poured in and as most of us who had known Kishan tried to come to terms with the brutal murder; we were also confronted with a possible communal polarisation. Had he been alive, he would have screamed as only he could: Not in my name! No man no communal mobilisation with me as the dead helmsman.

We liked those words. Back in the 1990s when he, a few other friends and I scrounged for money for a decent meal to break the monotony of hostel food, we addressed each other with all sincerity as comrades. We were not affiliated to any student organisation from the tolerated Marxist groups. Even the radical left eyed us with caution and with good reason perhaps. Kishan and the rest of us were unpredictable and without an iota of puritanical discipline that is asked of South Asian Leftists. We were satisfied to be in the fringes, organising study groups to discuss Capital (Volume I, always Volume I because we never went beyond the chapter on value).

As we dissected the true meaning of the chapter adhering to our ideological proximity to Lenin and Mao Kishan would happily announce that he preferred to be non-aligned, throw caution to the wind and declare his preference for ideologies closer to the Black Flag of anarchism. There is something not quite right with the vanguard thing, he would say, without bothering to qualify, much to our collective dismay. But over the course of the day, he would participate in our world of helmsmen and great leaders, with the abandonment of an unruly but brave child. What cemented his place in our rather amorphous collective was an unwavering commitment to everything related Manipur. He would sift through information, discussions and debates, in ways that made sense to his world that was centred on the complicated political and cultural landscape of Manipur. Sometimes, he would be the first to laugh at his simplistic readings of history but they came from such a deep conviction that we let it pass.

We had lost touch, like all college and university friends do. I met him again a few years ago on a hot day in Imphal. It was one of those brief meetings, so charged with energy that it yields a plethora of ideas, making distances and time seem immaterial. I wanted to congratulate him on editing his cutting edge journal on critical issues in Manipur. He was not satisfied and wanted to write more. We discussed the need to move away from the given script of exclusionist political mobilisation and the selective use of history in garnering power. He spoke of shared histories, shared visions and a need to transform the current political discourse in the region. To this effect, he suggested that we work on the epistemic break in the movements and mobilisation on the issue of autonomy in Manipur.

It was a bold idea. It hinged on the kind of negotiations that went into the making the first Constitution of post-British Manipur and comparing them to the kind of deliberations that followed the merger with India in 1949. As usual, we had not idea where this though was headed and if indeed it would help us move away from the received scripts that act as political manifestos in Northeast India. Then, characteristically, he went off the radar. I heard that he was agitating with other colleagues for regularisation of jobs in the public service commission, including Manipur University. He resurfaced again last year, calling from Faridabad of all places, following yet another tragic loss of life that had our dispersed collective in tears and momentarily blinded by grief. While the rest of us called one another and cried angrily about yet another extra-judicial execution of an acquaintance in Manipur knowing that justice would never be done. Kishan alone sounded firm and resolute about the course of action he was going to follow. He had joined the civil services, he announced, much to my confusion. Surely he, of all people, would recognise the fallacy of the argument that one upright person can make a difference to a corrupt system. But he really believed and it was his old uncomplicated conviction at work again.

I suppose if he were corrupt, he would be alive today. I wonder if he knew just how circumscribed our political horizons have become? Kishan was far too smart to not understand that alternate political voices in the so-called Northeast have been hemmed-in by a combination of Machiavellian statecraft and greed. Having said that, he was optimistic enough to believe in the eventual triumph of the human spirit. For me, I shall always remember my wild haired friend and remind myself that he would not approve of complacence and self-indulgence. He would want me to pick myself up and believe that something good can come out of the worst tragedies. I shall never stop trying.