Sound of silence
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: April 06, 2011 -

When push comes to shoves, then it is natural for a man or a society to react with the same force, if not more intensely, but how does one describe a society or a man who keeps on taking all the shoves and kicks, as if everything is fine.

Pacifist is a term that may come somewhere close to the description we have just given, but let's also remember that such a description can also fit in conveniently with cowardice or indifference to what is happening around one's life and one's world.

The average man and woman of Manipur have been kicked, butted, punched and shoved around from two directions, the State and non-State actors for ages and it is something of a surprise that the people have been silently taking on the role of the shock absorber with such calm efficiency.

With each bullet they shoot to snuff out the life of someone, with each demand letter they serve on the people, each time they detain someone or abduct an individual, each time they announce a diktat and expect the people to fall in line, the core value and philosophy on which the insurgents first took up the guns to wage a bush war against Delhi, gets eroded.

What is stupefying is the simple fact that none of the insurgent groups seem to have come around to the idea that no people or group of people can be kept chained to a herd mentality forever and the emergence of numerous splinter groups have only muddied the water and created more confusion.

Power lies in the barrel of the gun, so observed Mao, the man who is synonymous with communist China today and this seems to be working fine here too, for it is the fear of the gun and nothing else that is stopping the people from coming out on the roads to tell these self 'appointed sons of the soil' to go and fly a kite !

Today extortion is no longer about only demanding money and taking it, but it has also become the license which can be issued to either kill or leave someone alone. It was not so long ago that a tower guard of mobile service provider Aircel was shot to death and though there is no official version on why he was done to death, the huge monetary demand imposed on this private enterprise and the killing of one of its employees, is too significant a happening to be brushed aside as just another coincidence.

We can apply the same yardstick to the murder of the Reliance mobile tower guard on April 4 night. This is not all and there are examples galore that we can cite. If the ULFA, including the hawkish Paresh Baruah group, sees it necessary to apologise for what happened at Dhemaji years ago, in which scores of school kids were killed in an explosion just on the eve of Independence Day then where do we club the bomb blast that killed and maimed many just in front of the police commandos quarters some years back or the bomb attack at the ISKCON temple which killed many including children and maimed many others some years back on Krishna Janma ?

The stories of excesses and atrocities committed by State actors, including the para-military forces and the State police commandos are well known to everyone and their real image or identity have been highlighted to the world at large. However the same cannot be said of the non-State actors, who continue to bleed the people dry and run the affairs of the people as if it is their fiefdom under the garb of some high sounding patriotic names.

If a rotten apple can spoil a crateful of apples or if a drop of poison can poison the whole content of a water tank, so can the presence of some pseudo-revolutionaries erode and defile a movement that is based on some ideology, whether one agrees with it or not.

Mao may be right to a certain extent and power may lie in the barrel of the gun but like anything else in this world, there is also something called the law of action and reaction. What goes up must come down ! In other words, how long can the guns, these elements wield, keep the people under the grip of a fear psychosis and paralyse them spiritually, emotionally as well as physically ? If this realisation does not dawn on those "self appointed sons of the soil," then Manipur can expect to see more blood being spilt and waves of hatred to sweep across the vales and hills of this land locked State.

And it is also high time that the people start questioning why they should remain so quiet and patronise the culture of the herd mentality before it is too late. We say this because a people brow beaten into quiet submission through the barrel of the gun and threats and intimidations can never hope to join the race of development and success and become a proud member of the comity of Nations.

This is all that more true in this age and time when the demand of the day is tapping human resources and an economy which is knowledge driven. For a people to keep her tryst with destiny and march on, conquering all obstacles on the way, it is imperative that the children and the youth are assured an atmosphere, which encourages a questioning mind and which refuses to merely kow tow the line handed down by some elements who wield a weapon that can kill.

The first step towards this great march would be for the adults of society to open their mouths and speak out their thoughts without fear or biases, for nothing much can be worse than what Manipur is going through now.

The longer the silence is maintained as if it is under a conspiracy hatched by some who stand to gain by the silence, the deeper will Manipur sink into the abyss of stagnancy and rot. It is time to tell these elements that they cannot take the people for a ride any longer by abusing the term revolutionaries.