Reading silence: How we can rearticulate politics today

Yenning *

A silence prevails over Manipur. This is despite the fact that there is a politics of noise exhibited in various forms by the rain-soaked, mosquito bitten denizens of the State. Well, if there is flood in the valley, then there is Japanese encephalitis going viral in the hills of Manipur. However, these destructive forces have not stopped the furious lots from indulging in the politics of noise.

Take for instance, supporters of JCILPS continue to shout, undertake fast or pelt stones for a new bill. Tribal bodies have not stopped taking advantage of a "slip" from the "communal valley dwellers" and continue to raise hell, this time over the alleged thrashing up of a tribal student in TG School and further, Joint Action Committee Against Anti-Tribal Bills and Outer Manipur Tribals' Forum have resolved to launch democratic agitations if the Central Government fails to resolve the issue of "anti-tribal" Bills by August 11.

And the champions of ST, pregnant with the idea that hill-valley divide can be mended only when the Meeteis are included in the ST list of India, continue to shout for the same and in fact plans to take out a public rally. Centenary Hall of the Manipur University reverberated with noise last week for 5(five) days in the name of public debate over the issue of protection of indigenous people of Manipur. Manipur Government always resorts to noise – mock bomb, tear gas and blank fire, etc. – to suppress the politics of noise and when cornered it thundered upon us a two-day close down creating a situation of "under siege" to diffuse the noise. Manipur, you'll certainly agree, is as cacophonic as a hen-yard and each one is content to be bloated with each quota of noise.

First Silence: Crusade against the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958

Indeed, there is politics of noise yet a silence prevails over Manipur. And the silence is over 2(two) issues. Let's begin with one issue that has in a way consolidated our social capital but in a way failed to capitalise as a political capital. Yes, we're talking about our "fight" against the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958.

If we're to go by social history, perhaps, you'd agree that the crusade against this black law (or its repeal) goes back to the troublesome 80s. The phenomenon of Meira Paibi gathered momentum in this decade and the lup among others epitomised as an unarmed legion of the Manipuri women that stood for the repeal of the Act as well as one that stood against the might of the Indian State. But spontaneity and passion was hijacked by NGOs and expert persons related with human rights who were fluent in legality, constitutionalism and most important of all, how the UN Human Rights bodies work.

Popular belief, by the turn of the second half of the 1990s, succumbed to the myth that UN or otherwise legal measures are the only panacea for our sufferings. Nevertheless, Panacea (the goddess of healing) or for that matter the UN has refused to extend their healing hands to us but in a way attempted to extinguish the burning resistance spearheaded by the womenfolk of this land. You can add, NGO culture is equally responsible for this state of affairs.

The tender social bubbles of the 1980s, however, refused to burst completely but in a way reproduced more. Pebam Chittaranjan and Irom Chanu Sharmila, for example, did not emerge out of a vacuum. They are products of the social milieu and were two smouldering bubbles of the same kind. While the former died for the cause, the latter lived for the cause (fasted for 16 years; forcefully nose-fed). But when on July 27 when she declared she'd give up her fast, get married and fight next year's assembly elections in Manipur, a silence fell over Manipur.

National media went agog to get our opinions adding a new dimension of noise to our already existing ones. They want to know: if Manipur's crusade against AFSPA has ended abruptly; if Sharmila is celebrating/placing her faith in the "democratic" political process of India; is it a tribute to India's democracy, so on and so forth.

Well, these questions, many of us found to be funny. Funny because the national media and for that matter writers who come down to Manipur to write about Manipur have never captured the "real" Manipur. One of our friends, when a writer who has come to Manipur to write about Manipur asked him about his profession, he replied, "I'm writing a book on writers who come to Manipur to write about Manipur". This is beside the point.

What we expected them to ask was, has the co-opting power of the Indian State succeeded in co-opting Sharmila; has the long period of isolation and imprisonment broken her down and finally, can electoral politics bring about any internal revolution and changes if one looks into the experience of CPI & CPI(M) in India, etc. But most important of all, why the silence in Manipur if Sharmila was so important?

What the national media fails to read is, the silence is not so much out of respect for Sharmila. To the Manipuris, Sharmila did not emerge out of a vacuum. As explained above, she's just another bubble who has contributed in her own way but one who is bound to burst someday. Call it celebration of being alive and the everydayness, call it a tribute to Indian democracy or a starry eyed-woman blindly lost in love, she was just another bubble, so in a sense replaceable, who in her own way made the political landscape of Manipur known to the world. And we respect her decision to quit her fast.

Second Silence: Integrity of Manipur & the Hill-Valley Divide

The politics of noise has covered up this poignant issue for a very long time. Reading of the hill community is that the valley is so much dependent on the hills and by virtue of which the valley people especially the Meetei does not want the hill communities to be parted away. Just as the national media failed to read the meaning behind the silence on the part of the Manipuris, the hill brethren has also failed to read the psyche or rather the silence of the Meetei all these years. Perhaps, it is because the valley community has never openly declared the hill communities as enemies.

If the Meetei has never treated the Haos on equal footing (in spite of giving ritual sovereignty which is informed by statecraft), it is precisely because the Meetei has always treated them (silently) as enemies with whom there is always the possibility of conflict. Perhaps, there never was an open conflict between these two communities in the recent past but as the prevailing situation indicates, there is always the insipid, disinterested condition worth taking into stock. This does not mean, conflict is to be celebrated and embraced. But understanding the reality that there always will be conflict between enemies is the foundation of politics. To be political one, needs to discern who the enemy is or who is a friend.

NSCN-IM and its frontal organisations including the United Naga Council (UNC) have been political in this regard. Starting from the Naga People's Declaration held at Senapati on July 1, 2010, NSCN-IM and its cohorts openly started using the word "communal" towards the Government of Manipur as well as the Meetei. Open declaration of the valley people by the NSCN-IM as its enemy despite the fact that the valley dwellers have been celebrating the ties of unity and oneness with the hill brethren for ages is a political move which needs to be appreciated. At least they are being political.

Then recently, as a fallout of political machinations by NSCN-IM during and aftermath of the drafting and passing of the 3(three) bills related with ILP, few communities in Churachandpur have started imitating the political language of NSCN-IM. Other than trying to pacify the bristled nerves or silently imposing counter-blockades, the valley people have not uttered a word worthy of throwing against an enemy. They still cling on to an imagined worldview, speak about co-existence and brotherhood which is so un-political as well as non-political to the uninitiated. But a profound reader is bound to realize the undercurrents of the form of the political that we are addressing here.

Postscript

Silence is a powerful form of politics. The silence that prevails over Manipur amidst the cacophony of din thrown up by the politics of noise is to be read by deconstructing every strand of thread that seemingly ties them together. This small space has limited the entry into such terrains, take for instance, how silence is produced as a mode of political existence.

We may note that people are actually talking, and all the brouhaha coming up simultaneously along with the production of various sites of silence may not however be completely overtaken only by our understanding of silence and its signification process. To put it precisely, it is through the signifying work of silence that everybody gets to know of why it is happening and what is happening. Silence is in this sense not non-communication or remaining unarticulated as a subject or a position to enunciate its subjective being.

So "deconstructing every strand of thread" itself already acts as a "speech situation" and this is what we want the reader to understand in order to articulate a politics in which we could find ways to resolving possible or actual conflicts, especially on issues concerning community identity, cultural forms of popular resurrections etc. Be it the silence over Sharmila's decision or the silence over reality of hill-valley enmity and the silence of Meeteis regarding the same, the forms of silence need to be seen as a well circulated political language.

Thus, silence has carved out a domain in the political existence of our society which we may approach correctly if we want to experiment with new kind of politics by respecting its potential uses that it can offer. Then, there are a couple of questions that we may engage probably in our ensuing editions.

How is silence circulated in spaces where Habermasian logic does no longer apply? How can we claim that this is what you are silent on and we know that this is what you trying to articulate even when you do not speak? The point is: Can we be silent? Or Are we?