Saving Beleagured Manipur

Dr Mohendra Irengbam *

The Frost performs its secret ministry
Unhelped by the wind."
[Frost at Midnight. Samuel Taylor Coleridge]

Manipur should have a new religion for all. 'Status quo' is Latin, quipped Ronald Regan. Then, saving Manipur will be as simple as pie. It seems that Modi Bhagwan is not going to help Kukis and Meiteis in saving Manipur as he thinks that we cannot help ourselves. Which is true.

I remember reading the proverb 'God helps those who can help themselves' in my early school years. I believed it to be true then. I did not know who said it. It is like saying, only when you eat, God will stop you feeling hungry. Much later, I knew it was Benjamin Franklin who popularised the proverb. With due respect to him for such obvious words of wisdom, I find the corollary that 'God does not help those who cannot help themselves' to be true as well.

In the ongoing ethnic crisis in Manipur, we do not need a self-proclaimed god like Modiji, to mollycoddle us like babies. We can sort this out ourselves with some basic and simple rationale.

That Prime Minister Modi overlooks the suffering of humanity in Manipur, as he has been accused in the parliament by many MPs for his maun vrat in the civil war in Manipur, and more succinctly, by Mahua Moitra, a Trinamool Congress MP from West Bengal.

Mahua Moitra said Manipur is Modi's biggest failure and she lambasted him over the violence in Manipur and questioned the Prime Minister's absence from Manipur. She began to shake Narendra Modi government by her fiery eloquent speeches 'for turning misfortune and propaganda into a cottage industry and emphasising that the republic [India] was not created by cowards who hid behind authority, hate, bigotry, untruth, and dared to call it. courage.'

She browbeat Modi, saying, "We will see the end of you", in response to the President's address in the Lok Sabha. Modiji literally ran away as quickly as he could from the parliament, when Mahua invited him to stay and listen to her, and not to be frightened.

I was spellbound by Mahua's graceful oratory with great skill and a root sense of flow, and densely packed with facts and figures in minutiae. I had never come across such a rhetoric since I read, "Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears. I come to bury Caesar, not to praise me" – the first lines of Mark Antony's funeral oration in the play Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare.

I watched Mahua criticising Modi so forcefully, and with sarcastic barbs, saying, "Modiji mentioned so many words starting with 'M' except Manipur, such as Musalman, Mullah, Madrasa, Mughal, Mutton, Mangalsutra, in one breath.

In her fiery speech in parliament on June 25 2024, she challenged the government on various issues with facts and figures, and delivered with such a flow as if she was reciting a poem. As a matter of fact, she did recite a poem in Urdu, which she quoted from Rahat Indori, who was a professor of Urdu language in Indore University, and later, lyricist of the Bollywood comedy film 'Munnabhai MBBS'.

She quoted aloud, Agar Khilaaf Hain Hone Do, jaan thori hai. Ye sub dhuaa hai Asman thori hai". In English: If they are against, let them be, this is not life; all this is smoke, not the sky. The moral is, for us, if Modiji is against solving the strife in Manipur, let him be.

Then she leaned on her enemies (BJP) while talking to journalists, Mei janti hung ki mera dushman bahut hai. unlogongne 'vastaharan' shuru kiya hai, ab Mahabharat ka raan dekhenge. In English: I know I am not short of enemies. Those [BJP] who have started 'vastraharan' [the undressing of Draupadi by Dussasan in the Mahabharat] will now see the desert of Mahabharat.

This, she was referring to her accusation of 'taking bribes for questions' in parliament, by A Bihari BJP, MP Nishikanta Dubey (whom she called a 'Bihari Gunda'] and being expelled from Parliament [insulted] on December 8 2023 [without proof and with option for her to challenge in court].

I watched Mahua, without blinking an eye, when she criticised Modiji with sarcastic barbs, such as that, "Modiji mentioned so many words starting with -M- except Manipur, like Musalman, Mullah, Madrasa, Mughal, Mutton, Mangalsutra in one breath.

I have brought Mahua in this dissertation, as she, as a non-Manipuri MP, spoke passionately about Modiji's lake of enthusiasm in the civil war in Manipur, and she helped to expose the prime minister's present state of mind and lack of powers of reasoning and debating.

It was really a treat to listen to the exciting rebuttal speech by Mahua Moitra, while it was amusing when Rahul Gandhi speculated about Modiji's state of mind since he proclaimed that he was not biological like us human beings.

Modiji continued to be battered by many educated MPs, who interrupted his speech after the Presidential speech, in a chorus, by shouting Manipur, Manipur, Manipur. I was great to see two excellent orations from Manipur [never in the 72-year-old life of the Indian parliament, by Prof Bimal Akoijam in English, and Alfred Kann-Ngam Arthur in Hindi.

I was very disappointed as Modiji, instead of replying to the criticisms, absented himself from the parliament. Perhaps, he had other ideas or was in a state of mind known as 'superego' according to Sigmund Freud. Knowing that the prime minister has an ego about the size of the Manasarovar Lake near the Kailash Parbat in the Himalayas, I would think that Modiji's conscience is made up of two systems: the conscience and the ideal self.

The prime minister's present frame of mind has become speculative, especially after he said in a rare interview to News 18, "Until my mother was alive, I used to think I was born biologically. After her demise when I look at my experiences, I am convinced that I was sent by God. And my energy is not biological. God just keeps making me do things, but I cannot dial him directly."

In a rare interview, he tells NDTV news channel, as the Indian election nears its completion, that he believes he has been chosen by God. "I am convinced that 'Parmatma' (God) sent me for a purpose. Once the purpose is achieved, my work will be one done. This is why I have completely dedicated myself to God."

Modiji, according to him, is like Jesus, who claimed he was sent by his father God, from Heaven, to save the world from sins [John 6:38].

Rahul Gandhi made a mockery of him about his 'direct line with God'. Mahua Moitra taunted him, by her sarcasm that "BJP should have consecrated idols of Modi in temples instead of Lord Ram."

The suspicions of the state of Modi's mental equilibrium became feral when in another interview with ABO News on May 29 2024, he said that Mahatma Gandhi was unknown until after the biographical film 'Gandhi' by Richard Attenborough, which was released in 1982 [sic. while he is famous in his lifetime]. This of course is far from the truth.

By coincidence, I have very recently been reading a book by Joy Williams, titled Ninety-Nine-Stories of God (2016). In the book, the American lady wrote about a confused, half-demented Creator [God} who stumbles from one vignette to another, trying to remember what he could have had in mind the other day.

Williams, a Politzer Prize winner, talks about a celestial gathering at a dinner party, which included God, OJ Simpson [ an American football player who was acquitted of the murder of his wife. One of the most celebrated murder trials (1994-1995) in American history], Chekhov [Russian fictional character in the Star Trek Universe], a South Korean scientist, mystics, artists, a war correspondent, a German shepherd breeder, two boys with BB guns [air guns], and a rabbit named 'Actuality.'

There, they discuss a host of topics of day-to-today human experiences. She captures the absurdities and oddities of mankind in their preoccupation with a supreme being. Modiji's experience shows such a vignette, though comic and aphoristic, but a general truth, in a memorable way.

I was not amused when one MP Deepak Sharma, representing BJJ party from Delhi, sneering at Modiji on 12 August 2024 with the sardonic remark
महफिल में अकेले क्यों दिख रहे मोदी | राहुल पैरों के नीचे से दरी खींचने जारहे?

Bhari mehfil me akele kyong dikh rahe Modi? Rahul' peiron ke neeche se daree khingchne ja rahe? In English, why Modi, you seem to be alone in this crowded gathering? Is Rahul trying to pull the rug from underneath your feet?

Well, I cannot help agreeing with Sharma, Modiji looks forlorn and depressed with all the despondency gathering in his heart. mayusiyo ka majma hai in ka dil me. He has not been looking as 'happy as a jaybird in a cherry tree,' as he had been at his state reception ceremonies, while he was gallivanting internationally, from one country to another.

The change in Modiji's persona began naturally, when so many voters abandoned him in the last Lok Sabha election (2024). The BJP lost one in five of its seats in parliament. He had to relinquish several cabinet posts to allied parties to maintain parliamentary majority. Again, it is a vignette of human experience. About one out of every six adults will have depression at some time in their life.

It is quite sad. But for me, Modiji Bhagwan is maujon ki rawani hai [flow of ecstasy]. My mind keeps leaping up to the possibility that after so many puddinghead questions in the Rajya Sabha, one day in the near future, he will become a saviour of Manipur like Jesus.

Howsoever downhearted I may be, it is now time for me to go to the intent of my essay. The purpose of this dissertation is to synthesise a theme from my memory caravan that we must help ourselves without a soulmate from outside.

For this article about saving Manipur, I have gone a bit about Modiji who is loquacious where speech is not required and taciturn where a timely word or two could matter much, and Mahua Moitra, a secular and fearless lone warrior, to draw the attention of the readers that, our beloved prime minister is most unlikely to come to Manipur or solve its current problem from the comfort zone of Delhi. This grim scenario suddenly wrenched my thoughts.

Which brings me to the title of this essay. I emphasise this piece of writing is not my advice to anybody. It is simply an expression of my personal views in trying to defuse the present imbroglio of the ethnic strife in Manipur.

My ruminating mind focusses on the meaning of the word UTOPIA, in the context of solving the present ethnic clash in Manipur. I have heard about this word from my college days, but I never paid any real attention to it as it refers to something that I did not understand. Ther are many books written about it. I remember reading two of them: Utopia by Thomas Moore (1576) and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932). The meaning of Utopia remained for me as something that is not obtainable.

Utopia means "no place" in Greek. It was coined by Thomas Moore in his novel titled 'Utopia'. It refers to an imaginary place or society that has near-perfect qualities for its members, especially in terms of its laws, government, and social conditions.

Utopia refers to what is impossible to achieve, because perfection cannot be attained as everybody has different ideas in which they believe. Human beings cannot be perfect because they are free to think and form an opinion about everything around them. Besides, utopias are dangerous as their pursuits can cause profound distress and suffering to those who happen to be standing in their way. This is something we now see in Manipur during the present civil war.

Let me take a couple more examples near to home: (1) Meitei insurgents who had been fighting for an independent Manipur, while Manipur they know, is struggling to keep it standing. (2) Another is NSCN(M) that is combating for an independent Nagaland, with a separate flag from India and a separate constitution, grabbing portions of land from Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.

Their dreams had bogged down, because they are utopias, in respect of the federal Indian government in Delhi, which will not part an inch of 'Indian soil' if it can help it. It is not for nothing that that the Government of India has deployed 50,000 Indian soldiers to defend its border with China since the scuffle in the Galwan Valley that took the lives of twenty Indian and at least four Chinese soldiers. It has not forgotten that the Chinese had taken Aksai Chin from the northeast corner of Ladakh.

The ghost of utopia against these insurgents' reaching their objectives is always looming large in the horizon, with India's standing army of 1.4 million, who are paid to sacrifice their lives if required, in protecting the shape and size of India. And, Indian government is immortal, while Meitei, Naga or Kuki insurgents are mortal.

In my educated guess, I feel that the Kukis and Meiteis need a solution, as quickly as possible in the present mayhem in Manipur. That is for sure. And this is not World War III in which one party must win, by destroying the other. Which means that the two warring parties must come together to find a congenial solution, where the snake is killed without breaking the stick.

Aiming for a perfect political and just social society by the Kukis is a utopia, because the Meiteis, the Nagas and other thirty-three small tribes like Kabui, Kom, Maring, Thadou and others entertain different ideas in the concept. Thadous and Paites, Koms and Marings for instance, do not want to be Kukis and so on. Thus, hypothetically speaking, a proud Kukiland will have to partition it to bits and bats. A utopia.

But, if the existing political and socioeconomic status of the Kukis are subsumed inappropriately by the majority Meiteis, this can be sorted out by talking across a table. This is equally in the interest of the Meiteis, if they want to live in harmony with all the fellow tribes, and for Manipur to prosper. That Meiteis are a tribe is academic history though it may not be that clear in popular history.

The proposition thus entails a happy medium. A satisfactory compromise, take some and leave some, short of a utopian solution. The danger of utopianism comes from its political tendency, in pursuit of 'the ideal of moral equality'. This is the doctrine that it is desirable for everyone to have the same amounts of income and of wealth. A utopia.

The simple moral for me is that, UTOPIA is likely to end in DYSTOPIA, which again, is an imaginary place, where people are unhappy and usually afraid because they are not treated fairly.

The maxim is, 'All is well that ends well' [Wm Shakespeare]. So, let us try to live in a climate of concord and tolerance, despite our many human and godly shortcomings, with mutual concessions and compromises.

Instead of being despaired and deluged with negative criticisms, we should outmanoeuver them like Taylor Swift's current pop music mania "Shake it Off".

Well, how does it grab you? Forget Modiji for the moment. For Manipur, he is Like a Catholic priest who sits in a confessional in the church, without speaking a word. Of course, it is doddle for me. I am only musing.

I rest my case.