It is now being increasingly recognized and scrutinized among the academics around the world that democracy is now an all-encompassing term and one can use it in any context one wishes. The state may call itself serving democracy, but indulge in anything that violates the classical tenets of democracy. The irony is that it would not be called abuse or misuse of democracy. Democracy is now the political counterpart of marriage of convenience. It has lost its character, content and original meaning.

Or If At All:
If democracy at all has any of its classical values inherent in it, how does one explain Malom, Manorama and a soul fasting for more than full six years now! It is here that I want to ponder on the value of life (I think I am right in supposing that Manipuris too should possess life which commands some value both in absolute and relative terms) of a Manipuri.

It was the winter afternoon of November 2000 when the entire population were looking forward with gaiety to the Ningol Chakkouba of only a few days later that the Assam Rifles proved their “bravery” by gathering TEN innocent people in a bus stand and emptying the magazine of their guns in that “encounter”. This incident produced Sharmila.

Sharmila started her fast on a wintry night two days after the “encounter” and at the same village, Malom. When she first started the fast, everybody in the locality thought of her to be some cranky mad girl, and some even volunteered to bring a bullock-cart to throw her away. She was the target of ridicule from all including a manager of a bank from the locality. My wife and I were the only support she had at that time. In fact, the chadar which she used that night and many years after that was the one my wife, Jayabati, gave her the night she started the fast. We salute her courage and feel vindicated of our decision of supporting her despite all the odds against us.

Now this is beside the point. What really intrigues me is the promptness with which the army top-brass everywhere, Imphal, Kolkata and Delhi, came out with wonderful versions of encounter accounting for that incident. Their versions were being broadcast in right earnest through all the electronic and print media. It took years of Sharmila’s fasting to discover what actually happened at Malom. It is only now that there seems to be some universal agreement, in the sense of even the government rediscovering the truth, on the absence of “encounter” at Malom on that winter afternoon.

Value of Life:
Well if I say value of life, it may sound a little philosophical. So let me just call it the price of life. Do we recall the price paid for each of the TEN killed by the Assam Rifles on that day – let me write the whole figure to make it look like big - Rs. 1,00,000 each. Well that is it. What more can we ask for – that is the price They have fixed for each life of Us.

Now let us compare the price of a Hindi-speaking soul recently killed by ULFA in Assam. Well it runs in multiples of the figures our soul is worth; I have even lost count of the total – it is really big. I am in no case trying to rationalize the killing of Hindi speaking people, for killing in any case has to be condemned and avoided. Besides, we should also be astonished at the level of reaction, involvement and engagement the killing of Hindi-speaking persons invited. I just cannot help comparing for, to a person trying to understand the social phenomena in a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural country, every action has to be interpreted.

Sharmila’s Fast:
Sharmila’s fast for six years in the far eastern corner for the last six years did not draw any attention from the Indian side. It is only now, after her base has been shifted to the Indian capital Delhi that she is getting the attention she deserves. But the treatment she gets there from the organs of the state is absolutely unfortunate. Even the court readily accepts the police version that she is not under arrest there, and says the medical records need not be open. Well this is also a court in a democracy, but it seems to have a different yardstick when it comes to a Manipuri. So it is just a Manipuri girl fasting, and the value of her fasting cannot be equated with the value of an Indian fasting.

This Takes Me:
This takes me to the question of how a policy perspective, once adopted, has a tendency to persist, and particularly so, if the policy turns out to be one framed and adopted by a majority for and on a minority. This also is one of the points I discussed in my recent talk at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) at their International Institute.

People around the globe, so mesmerized by the recently acquired economic strength of the country, are shocked by the fact that India has a kind of legislation like the stupid 1958 one being imposed now on the people. It is this legislation which has finished so many Manoramas with impunity in this democracy. The security oriented policy for the region, evolved during the period of absolute ignorance about the region, has generated a vested interest over the years that prevents from any rational policy for the region being evolved. Even the Prime Minister, who is a student of rational science, has failed to prevail upon this vested interest. So the price of life in Manipur has to continue to be lower than the price of a life elsewhere in the country, Sharmila or no Sharmila. But Aesop said: “It is wise to turn circumstances to good account.” (620 BC-560 BC)