Cycle of Life
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: December 28, 2010 -

In a few days time we will be entering a fresh year, 2011 and while a new beginning is always something to look forward to, a new year may not come exactly fit this, given the fact that another 365 days have been added to our age, which in other words mean that we are inching towards our final resting place by another 365 days.

However, human that we are, and with the God given gift which enables us to close our eyes, minds and hearts to the harsh reality of lives, and allow us to let our hair down once in a while, is a soothing comfort. This irony of life is best exemplified during a funeral or cremation process.

Just listen to the local folks or leikai members who have turned up for the cremation or funeral service and one is bound to see quite a number of people huddled together and indulging in mundane conversations, at times even letting out a loud guffaw, which in a sense goes against the very nature of the moment.

Such type of behaviour is now a given and though society may not actually endorse it, nothing is said against this. To top it all, it wouldn't shock anyone to see country made alcohol being passed from one hand to the other, inside the cemetery itself.

We have just quoted some of these examples to demonstrate how the human mind has been able to shut itself from the harsh reality of life, the inevitable death and other hurdles we may face in life's journey.

And so it is, that we welcome the coming of a New Year with new hopes and aspirations, hoping that January 1 will usher in a new chapter in the lives of the common people. This is the cycle that has been repeating every 365 days down the centuries or at least after the world adopted the Gregorian calendar.

It will not be long before we step into the second decade of the new millennium, and perhaps it would be interesting to have quick flash back at the ten years gone by. To call a spade a spade, the first year of the first decade of the new millennium was year of shame, deceit, heart burns, blood and gore and the widening of the divide between the people on either side of the Lim divide.

The Bangkok Declaration of June 14, 2001, opened the gate of the long years of frustration of the common people. It came at that point of time, when the State was under yet another President's Rule, after the political netas made a fool themselves in front of the entire world, with their trade mark horse trading, back room politics and all sort of intrigues that bordered on the ludicrous.

The Bangkok Declaration sowed the seeds of the June 18 Uprising and we saw how the then Speaker of the Assembly was dragged out on the street and had to face the ignominy of publicly being humiliated. The State Assembly was burnt, as were the offices of numerous other political parties that day.

The BJP's office was saved, as it was located near a petrol pump retail outlet. This was how we stepped into the first decade of the new millennium and ten years down the line, the question still remains whether we have exorcised that ghost or not. This is important for we cannot do away with the fact that the present is the fruit of the past and future will be the fruit of the present.

If 2001 was about the Bangkok Declaration, the June 18 Uprising and the deepening of the divide between the hills and the valley people then 2003 was the year of the people cutting across communities and religious beliefs coming together unitedly under the shadow of the decomposed body of Baby Lungnila Elizabeth.

This was a lesson that was unfortunately not digested or else Manipur may not have witnessed the 52 days economic blockade of 2005, the growing air of suspicion between the hill and valley dwellers, and the deepening divide between the people on either side of the Lim divide.

And talking about the first decade of the new millennium, who can forget Th Manorama, who was battered, raped and shot dead in custody after she was picked up from her residence the previous evening sometime in July 2004.

This led to a never seen outpouring of public outrage and the citadel of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act was shaken with such force for the first time.

The nude protest at Kangla, MU students getting thrashed at the gate of Raj Bhawan, the months long state of paralysis, the visit of the Prime Minister, the setting up of the Justice Jeevan Reddy Commission to review the provisions of the Army Act, and the handing over of Kangla to the people of Manipur after evacuating the Assam Rifles unit which was the 17th Bn and responsible for Manorama's death will remain an important chapter in Manipur's history.

Other than this, the last two years of the first decade of the new millennium saw the State forces at its worst, the first being the July 23 BT Road incident in which police commandos were caught on camera accosting Sanjit, shoving him inside Maimu pharmacy and then coming out with his lifeless body with the cops claiming that he was killed in a shoot out.

It is not yet clear, who fired the gun that killed Th Rabina, the young pregnant housewife, but logic tells us that it could not have been anyone else other than the suspects, whose names are whispered about. Now coming to the last year of the first decade of the 21st century, nothing seemed to go right.

From April the air was already thick with tension over the proposed visit of Th Muivah and it took a firm Chief Minister to put his foot down and block his way to Manipur.

This set off a kind of chain reaction and though the opposition to the election to the ADCs was cited as the reason for the 67 days economic blockade, it found no takers, at least among those who could exercise their mental faculty. The May 3 Mao incident in which three students were killed was a tragedy and justice must be delivered soon.