Delhi, do you hear us ?

Kongbrailatpam Rajeshwar Sharma *

Tough times bring tough leaders to the fore. As a result of the current violence in Manipur, tough men and women came forward to protect not only themselves and their properties but also the territorial integrity of the State and its history. The people of Manipur have been going through a tough time since May 3, 2023.

During this violent period, more than two hundred people have died, hundreds of houses have been burnt down and more than sixty-thousand people are rendered homeless. Hundreds of temples and Churches have been destroyed. In spite of the violence, the people of Manipur have called for unity and peaceful coexistence.

And yet the people of Manipur have been kept in the dark for more than a year now as to why Delhi imposed a buffer zone between the valley and the hills. Any Government worth its salt would have stopped the "partition". It would be an indelible scar on the federal structure and democratic features of the Constitution of India.

Not knowing who runs their Government, the people of Manipur have been empowered to ask pertinent questions. This empowerment to ask questions is what Shruthi Kumar called "The Power of Not Knowing."

On the 23rd May this year at the Harvard commencement speech, Shruthi Kumar, a young Harvard graduate and "the eldest daughter of South Asian immigrants", gave a speech that went viral not only on social media but also in print media across the United States. Her speech took the audience to the Great Plains of Nebraska (Name of a State in the USA) where she grew up "alongside cattle ranches and cornfields."

Although she was the first among her family members to attend college in the United States, Shruthi and her parents did not even know how to apply for college. The sentence "I don't know" was the reply when she asked them how to apply for college. It made her feel powerless but she did not give up. Nor did she admit defeat.

During her intellectual journey from Nebraska to Harvard, Shruthi Kumar found herself redefining the feeling of not knowing. She discovered "a newfound power in how much I didn't know." It is the power that enables the people to ask questions like why it happened, how it happened and what the causes of any violent event were.

Had Charles Darwin been born with the knowledge that diversity in plant and animal species is a consequence of natural selection, he would not have wondered why there is diversity. It is the power of not knowing that made him wonder. As a student of history of science, Shruthi Kumar, during the course of her studies at Harvard, used to ask "what is missing. What documents are not in the archives. And whose voices are not captured in history."

So she dived into the deep bottom of sea of silence to retrieve the missing documents, to find out those whose voices were not heard, and to see the unseen hands that pulled the string. She learned from her undergraduate course that "silence is rarely empty. Often loud." So was the Maun Vrat (Silence) of Modi on Manipur.

It is a time of "enormous uncertainty." No one is sure of what will happen tomorrow or next week or next year. In her speech, Shruthi Kumar said, "our jobs uncertain. Our safety uncertain" the cloud of uncertainty looms large everywhere. It is ubiquitous. The safety of the villagers residing at the foothills of Manipur is as uncertain as it is in America where guns are carried even by school students.

So are the lives of the people of Manipur who are at the mercy of the armed militants. On the other hand, no young man or woman in Manipur is sure whether his or her university degree can give a respectable job.

This uncertainty has trapped young graduates in the dilemma of Hamlet-to pay or not to pay. Not only is the future of the young people uncertain, but the future of the political leaders is also uncertain. Like the young graduates, particularly after the debacle in the last Lok Sabha election, they are also trapped in the dilemma-to leave the lotus or not to leave.

As the course of the modern history of Manipur is riddled with economic blockades and violent attacks from various militant organizations, Shruthi Kumar did not find that her undergraduate course at Harvard went smoothly as it should be. It was disturbed by Covid and the war between Hamas and Israel in the Middle East. No country is immune to violent terrorist attacks. Israel is no exception to such attacks.

A violent attack was carried out on the 7th of October 2023 by Hamas at a weekend music concert in Israel. In the attack, more than seven hundred Israelis were killed and hundreds were kidnapped and taken to Gaza. In retaliation, the Israeli Government declared war against Hamas.

With the intention to eliminate Hamas, the Israeli air force raided and bombarded Gaza City. Since then, the war has been going on. Schools and hospitals are not spared in the Israeli air – raid. According to the Palestine Government, so far 40,000 men women and children have been killed in Israeli retaliation.

These violent events echoed on the other side of the Atlantic across campuses in the United States. Massive protests were staged by both pro-Palestinian and pro-Jew students at universities from the east coast to the west. Thirteen pro-Palestinian students at Harvard who took part in the protest against the Israeli atrocities were punished.

As it is here in Manipur, "our freedom of speech and our expressions of solidarity became punishable" said Shruthi Kumar in the middle of her speech that went off script. She was deeply disappointed by "the intolerance for freedom of speech and the right to civil disobedience."

To express her solidarity with the thirteen undergraduate students who would not graduate, Shruthi Kumar asked the authority of Harvard if they considered the petition made by more than 1500 students and 500 staff and faculty members who were "overwhelmingly against the unprecedented sanctions." She shouted twice, "Harvard, do you hear us ?"

Here one might see similar situations in what has been happening in Manipur. In spite of hundreds of petitions to the Prime Minister to intervene and stop the violence in Manipur, Mr Narendra Modi has kept mum or rather stepped aside as if it was not his duty. Perhaps the Prime Minister and "we don't know what it's like to be ethnically targeted. Maybe we don't know what it's like to come face to face with violence and death."

Had he listened to the wails of the people of Manipur and intervened immediately, hundreds of lives could have been saved and the violence could have been nipped in the bud. Not knowing why the Prime Minister did not intervene at the beginning of the violence in Manipur has empowered the people of Manipur to ask a pertinent question whether Manipur is a part of India or not.

Like Shruthi Kumar, the People of Manipur have been asking, "Delhi, do you hear us?"