I and M

It is not a coincidence that one faction of the NSCN is known both by its president and secretary general. When we talk of NSCN (IM), we are pinpointing a faction led by Isaac Swu and Muivah—so, the I and M.

When we are talking about the other faction, we denote it by a K which represents Khaplang, who is the president of this faction. NSCN(K) is the proper name.

My point is NSCN(K) has also a secretary general in the person of Mulotoni. But we never say NSCN(KM).

When the NSCN(IM) was born and given this name, there has always been this tantalizing opportunity to play off the I against the M. This gaping hole has always been there in the NSCN(IM). Significantly, we must also not discount the fact that Delhi people have always the opportunity to play off Isaac’s community ie, Sema against that of Muivah’s ie, Tangkhul.

Now, Isaac Swu has come out against the talk (with Govt of India) handled by Muivah, albeit couched in diplomatic niceties. He was speaking in a UNPO meeting in Taiwan. He told the gathering that the present talk with the NSCN(IM) and Govt of India needs a third party involvement, which in turn would have to be nominated by UN. In effect, he was telling that the present talk is going nowhere and Muivah is to be blamed for that.

We must not forget to mention here that UNPO has nothing to do with the United Nations. Most of the time UNPO meetings are the gatherings of crackpots from all over the globe. In another sense, UNPO meetings are typically occasions of crackpots unlimited!

But that does not the dilute what Mr Isaac Swu has intended to put across by using the speech there.

As the talk drags on, the Delhi operatives will begin to wear down Muivah by playing Mr Isaac Swu against him.

I think that moment has arrived. Needless to say, I feel that it’s a sad moment.

How many days now!

How many days now!

For 6 days, we had to live without electricity!!

The transformer servicing at least 3 leikais (including mine) and some portions of Paona Bazar broke down on Ningol Chakouba day itself. They took 6 days to repair the transformer and we got electricity this afternoon only.

Well, for 6 consecutive nights, I learnt to cook my dinners in candlelight. That was a kind of endurance test!

And, for 6 nights I also learnt to go to sleep at around 10 at night and woke at around 6 in the morning. I’ve found out that that was a better routine for me.

But I also love to read late into the night. So, I’m going straight there!

Cheers!

HAPPY CHAKOOUBA!

I’m making this brief appearance only for wishing everybody a happy ‘Ni-ngol Chakouba’.

I’m also going to bed as soon as I post this. I’ve to rise early in the morning. There are so many errands to run and so many little things to ‘accomplish’ to make myself a perfect host!

So, again:

HAPPY CHAKOUBA!

Empty handed!

I thought I could do it after some straightforward meetings with some people. Unconsciously, I might have even thougth that it could be easy.

But, getting some still shots of the film ‘Nangsu Mouni’ is proving to be really a tough job.

I’m really in a mood for doing a review of the movie together with a detailed story of the ambient moods in BOAT during a typical ‘Special Show’ of a Manipuri movie.

I tried in the morning yesterday. Came back empty handed. Again, I tried in the evening. Again, returned empty handed.

So, I thought it’s entirely appropriate not to make a post on 21st October 2006. It symbolizes empty handedness!

Today also, I returned empty handed.

But, I’m thinking that my blog deserves a little story, even if it’s about returning empty handed!

I’m trying tomorrow again.

Body Mass Index

I found this in one those old newspapers scattered on my desk.

Body Mass Index (BMI) equals your WEIGHT IN KILOGRAMS divided by the SQUARE OF YOUR HEIGHT IN METRES.

If the index is between 18.5 and 23, your weight is ok.

If it is below 18.5, you are underweight.

And, if it is over 23, you are overweight.

I’ve just found out that mine is 19.5.

May be, I should try to gain some weight so that my index is around 20.5.

It was so cold in the open air theatre!

I’ve just returned from BOAT, an open air theatre.

They call it a ‘Special Show’. But it is more like a premier show. But the unusual thing is that they have to wait for several months for the regular screening of the movie to theatres because all the theatres are fully booked for several months at a stretch.

Last heard, it’s more than 70 new films waiting for screening at the theatres.

The name of the film I’ve just watched at BOAT is ‘Nangsu Mouni’. It has all the usual stuffs, mostly formulaic.

The only thing that attracts me is that it is produced by Kamala.

Right now, Kamala Saikhom is the reigning leading lady in Manipuri cinema. Most of the leading actors are said to be working at more 20-25 films at any point of time!

Especially for Kamala, audiences here have good rapport with her. There is a lot of demand for her films. She must be also working at 20-30 films right now.

Why should she want to produce a film at this moment? At any rate, a production by a reigning star is news.

I’ll do a proper review of the film.
But at the theatre it was cold and I was starving.
I’m rushing to the dinner table right now!

How time flies!

Once in a while, putting Imphal as it is, is absolutely repetitive and tiresome.

Just as I’m feeling right now, because last night I got such a low voltage of electricity that I could not turn up my computer. I didn’t phone or otherwise made any contact with, the utility people because I thought it might be a major breakdown.

This morning, I also found that there was no change in the status. At around 11 I went there and meet those people. I was taken buy surprise when they accusingly informed me that substantial number of consumers might be using electric heaters for cooking purpose. I never do that. May be, one of my neighbours, who has several college going students in his rented rooms, might have several heaters in use as well.

But I took the fullest advantages of the situation. I jumped into bed early and rose quite early also. Early in the morning I went out to meet several people whom I would have no chance of meeting them after 8 in the morning. They seem to be always on the move. Energetic types.

I also went to meet two of my sisters and formally invited them for the ‘Ni-ngol Chakouba’, which is on the 24th of this month. There is bereavement in the family of the third sister and so, it is not proper for her to come for the festival. Another of my sister is in Delhi, settling there permanently.

Last ‘Ni-ngol chakouba’, I promised myself that I should not to fail to send some gifts for this sister in Delhi. Now, it’s only some days to go for the festival and I already know that I would not be able to keep my promise.

Remembering that promise, last ‘Ni-ngol Chakouba’ is still very fresh in my mind.

It’s a wonder how time flies!

A peep into the bandh mela!

It was pretty late in the morning when I woke up. But I was greeted with that sense of serenity where you feel like you just have a brush with palpable tranquility, peace and heightened well-being.

On the flip side, I also sensed like missing something.

So, I asked myself—‘Why, it’s so quite!’.

I even went out to what was previously my gated driveway and peered out through the keyhole towards the streets if something was actually wrong. I was still in my sleeping ‘outfit’ and even a little bleary eyed.

One of my friends have just finished constructing his furniture showroom ‘incorporating’ my driveway. Thus he got his ‘fair-sized’ showroom and he reasoned that the arrangement ok as I’m still living alone. Now, there is such demand for space.

By the way, he got teak furniture from Burma. They come in completely knocked down packages and they assemble them in a small workshop, also in my place. They say Burmese finishing is not so fine and so, they are going to redo the finishing all over again before they are ready for sale. Burmese teak is really gorgeous.

That’s a little digression.

Coming to the point, I didn’t forget that it was a bandh today also. Actually, today is the second day of the two consecutive days of bandh ‘feast’. May be, it’s a bandh ‘mela’!

To be a little precise, yesterday’s bandh is a bandh of ‘first among equals’ because the call was given by the umbrella body of what we call the valley-based insurgent groups. They were protesting what they termed ‘the forcible merger’ of Manipur to the Indian Union on the 15th of October 1949.

Today’s was by Apunba Lup in protest against the Govt of India’s handling of the continuing fast unto death by our ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’.

Judging by the ‘quite’ factor in the morning, today’s bandh beats the bandh called by the insurgents hands down.

Is this the case of people losing respects for the insurgents?

Or, is it the case of our society’s resounding support to the ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’?

About that SPARK

As I planned some days back, I sat down through the most of the evening and produced the following write up trying to understand the likelihood of ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’ providing the spark for emancipation of the oppressed people throughout India.

Whatever its weaknesses, Indian National Congress is the embodiment of the very basic national characteristics of India, like secularism, unity in diversity, non-violence etc. Now, this party is becoming irrelevant in what we call the heartland of Indian nation, namely, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar , Madhya pradesh etc. It is not the case of it being suffering a periodical setback in this area. It is widely reported, and generally accepted as a present day fact, that it is already becoming irrelevant in these parts of India.

But the most revealing part is that the party itself has no clue as to what went wrong with itself in this part of the country. They have not been able to find a theoretical underpinning to explain away the reason why it’s being irrelevant there. The best it could do is to field a young MP of Gandhi-Nehru lineage in the political arena down there, in the hope that he would come up with a magic wand by himself.

To my mind, it indicates the continuing revolt against those who are steering the caste system. I also believe that it has been simmering under the surface since many centuries back and so, it would try to rise to the surface. What it lacks is a robust leadership who can channelize those simmering energies to strike at the weakest link in the system and break though it.

But a pertinent question arises here. If it has been simmering for several centuries now, would it have any plausible reason to be able to find that leadership any time now?

How is that the political situation there fails to throw up a robust leadership for so many centuries now?

Now, let’s look at our own National Highway no 39. The army troopers posted along it do not prevent Naga insurgents from collecting taxes from the vehicles plying on it. In mast cases, the insurgents have been openly collecting their taxes from their own checkpoints, which are just near the army’s outpost. Some even are operating from the very outpost of the armymen.

I’m not pointing an accusing finger to Naga insurgents. It is the same in the case of Meitei insurgents ‘extorting’ money in Imphal valley. Security forces are aware that the ‘extortion’ is there but they let it continue.

There may be a hidden agenda behind such policy of the security forces but we can proceed without even trying to explain that. The important issue here is that they are letting some agencies break the law without impunity under their respective jurisdictions. As an organized security agency of the Indian state they are doing not anything to uphold the rule of law.

In ordinary situations, it should be construed as a pure dereliction of duty. And, in the absence of disciplinary actions for this dereliction of duty, there must be some ‘side effects’ on the troopers themselves. I’ll repeat—in ordinary situation, there is absolute possibility of the troopers themselves infected with the virus of corruption and insubordination. If this situation is let to continue for some times, there may even be possibility of the troopers challenging the civilian authority and of attempting to take control by coup.

But this is not happening in India. That’s why I called it not ‘ordinary’.

The Indian army has a doctrine of accepting insurgency upto a certain level, which is being pre-calibrated by it so that the insurgents would not attempt to break through the established civil administration. We can well imagine what would become of Naga insurgency (for that matter, any insurgency, be it Meitei,Assamese or Tripuri) if they are let to simmer ( meaning, letting them collect their taxes freely or letting them move around in full military fatigues with assault rifles etc) but forcefully kept just beneath the breaking out point, using occasional peace talks and, if necessary, occasional military operations, for another 50 year. In India’s heartland this policy has been continuing for centuries now and we all can see what its effects are.

Looking from this perspective, two questions arise:

>> Would this doctrine of acceptance of limited rebellion effectively curb the emergence of a capable leadership?

>> Even in the case the leadership actually does come up, would it able to present an alternative social order to the caste system?

These are really difficult question to answer. But for our purpose, we can proceed even without attempting to answer them.

It’s because the doctrine of acceptance of limited rebellion have already done enough damages to the Indian polity, even if it, so far, manages to withstand the stark corrupting effects on the security personnel. With the security personnel looking the other way, enough laws of the land has been broken on the daily basis that the confidence of the citizens in the strength of such laws is severely put under test.

But, more importantly, mini rebellions across the breadth of the country has been kept simmering for such a long time now that basic founding principles of the Indian nation is severely undermined. See how Indian National Congress, which, by the way, happens to be the depository of those principles, has already become irrelevant there. This has been not only happening in the periphery like Manipur but in the very heartland of Indian nation, where the majority of the people populate and from where the majority of the seats to the parliament are elected.

If such basic principles are undermined by the majority people living in the heartland of the Indian nation, which, by definition, should serve as the centripetal force of the Indian nation, then any number of scenarios can evolve out of it.

For example, vast majority of these mass of people in the heartland have not yet afford the proverbial two square meals a day, have no proper roofs over their heads, no medical facilities, no electricity, no roads—the list is simple endless. In the situation where the basic founding principles of the Indian nation are being undermined on the daily basis, they, under some forceful leadership, may demand that the pouring in of money to NE States and other backward stats as current account subsidy be stopped so that they may utilize them for their foods, roofs, medicines, electricity, roads etc.

Then, the proverbial spark may well come from one of the states which suck in such current account subsidies, like Manipur, where there is open revolt against the injustice by a young lady, known as ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’.

Fourth World blogging.

For my last post, I spent more than one hour finding that Burma link. During the search I found out some Burmese blogs. I could read one blog only but I would read more of them. From that blog I could also find out a list of Burmese bloggers.

I went all down to her Technorati profile. Reaching there I wanted to see her fave blogs and as I clicked the link, I also found out that she wanted me to add her as my fave first. I’m not blaming her for wanting that but that set me off to a thinking jaunt.

Is any opportunity to garner up enough links to blogs published from these parts of the world of ours?

Is it practical for our blogs to expect enough page views to make it feasible to monetize them?

I don’t particularly like to sound divisive but they are metrics of the First World blogs. I really feel good that many bloggers over there can live off by blogging alone. It’s a very welcome news. But here in this part of the world, we should be always on guard not to be bogged down by these metrics.

When I first came to know of blogs, what stuck me most was the possibility of it becoming a tool to bypass the barriers put up by editors, directors, politicians and, above all, by political boundaries and meet an ordinary citizen anywhere in the world. Through blogs we can feel the nuances of the ordinary lifestyles of any citizen of any country provided there is no language barrier. Personally, I find there are language barriers in cases of Iranian and French blogs. If we overlook such minor drawbacks, blogging is a revolutionary tool for ordinary citizens of the whole world to reach out to each other. Never before in the history of mankind have an ordinary citizen in his disposal a working to tool to meet face to face with his/her counterparts anywhere in the world, unhindered by the barriers put up by the power that be.

Today, I’m reminding myself that I should be more focused on this characteristic of blogging. At least for some to come, we should not be unduly worried about links and page views.

That said, I want everyone of my new post to ping on Technorati and Weblogs. That’s still to come because it entails messing around with hypertext and I’ve so little time. Another feature I want to add is the enabling of bookmarking of my post. Still to come!

Now, I’ve several months of blogging experience. On most days, I start writing stories in my head by around 7 pm. By that time, I started asking myself—‘What interesting things happened to me today?’ or ‘Is there anything I can share in my blog?’. In other words, it is personal auditing on a daily basis. It may sound a little too harsh on myself but it is proving to be good for me.

Last but not the least, as I grew up an activist, some parts of me will always have that activist streak. I simply can’t help it. So, on a personal scale, I’m terribly enthused at the idea of , at least, a simple story of a simple citizen living in this place Imphal going up as a digital etch for the whole world to see, that too updated on a day to day basis. It fulfils some parts of my personal yearning. But I’ve also pinched myself to remain as truthful to myself as possible on a daily basis and not to off to a tangent to start promoting an agenda for my place by making up stories. I will never do that. I’ll keep Imphal as it is. With warts and all. With it bandhs (now both 15th and 16th bandhs!). With its erratic internet and power supply. Like last night when it went out at around 7 in the evening. On my fourth telephone call at around 9 at night, I was informed that I had to go without electricity that night because they had just found out that there was a major repair at hand, which they could mend only when their offices open the next day.

Well, that’s re-stating my blogging ethics. I should do this on regular basis from time to time.

Not satisfied

I’m not satisfied with myself when I’ve tried to reason that ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’ might well be the spark that will ignite the revolts of the suppressed people across the Indian subcontinent.

I’m still convinced that I’ve some very important points to make.

I've found it a little tricky to cogently put it down in a crisp prose. But my only consolation is that it’s a tough topic to begin with and still tougher to put it into a presentable form so as to convince others.

We will have a bandh on the 15th and I’m thinking of sitting through that day to make my point.
Now, let me try to tell you that those ‘intangibles’ which I find them so difficult to put into words have actually a lot of remarkable consequenses around us.

Let’s try this news. Indian military have already supplied tanks to the Burmese army. They are in the process of giving them warships (small ones?). Inida’s navy chief made a secret visit to Burma recently. That news was dated 4th Oct and carried by Indo-Asian News service. I cannot give you the link because subcsription is required.

Mind you, all these were done in hush hush manner. Don’t you think they are all something to do with the ‘inatangibles’ we are trying to define?

Update: Here is a link.

The play of the elements

My last post was essentially what had come to my mind on that day. But today it made me think more about the subject.

Well, I’ll admit that it would sound megalomaniac to most people! Manipur is such a small landmass with such a small people populating it that it should not shoulder any burden whatsoever of ‘giving light’ to anybody. It has enough problems of its own and it will need to pool all its available resources to focus on solving those problems.

That said, we must not also forget that now is the time for the global attention on what is to be done to finding ways for the free expression of the aspirations and the wishes of the Fourth World people.

To go swiftly to a non-controversial selection of a Fourth World people, let’s focus on Kurds.
Kurds are dispersed in Iraq, Iran and Turkey. All the three countries want their respective Kurd populations to be just they are right now—loyal minorities.

But the whole world, including the three nations of Iraq, Iran and Turkey knows most emphatically that the Kurds don’t like to be dispersed widely in three separate political entities, thereby robbing them of their rights to collectively decide their own destiny.

Now, all of the world’s attention is sharply focused on Iraq. And, so much has been written about how the imperialist British divided the Kurds by artificial lines and throwing them into the boundaries of so lenient three separate countries. At the moment, Iraq is in the process of constituting all over again from scratches. What the international community is going to do to undo the wrong done by the Brits 5 decades ago?

More pertinently, what’s the Kurds themselves going to do at this crucial juncture? The central power binding the Iraq as a nation has been smashed by the US military and the Kurds themselves have a reasonably strong armed forces ( as do the Shias and Sunnis, which are called the sectarian militias). Now is the historically most appropriate timing for expressing their aspirations and rights.

At this juncture, one astounding thing crops up. The Kurds cannot point to a ‘ Kurd way’ to put it in contrast to ‘Shia way’ or ‘Sunni way’ or, for that matter the ‘Iraqi way’. To say that staying in Iraq is preventing them from freely expressing their aspirations and wishes, they need to put the ‘Kurd way’ and the ‘Iraqi way’ in sharp contrast, convincing everybody about the incompatibility of the two living inside a single country.

But, where is the ‘Kurd way’? They try to find it in their pre-Islamic heritages. But the fiery swords of the foot soldiers of Mohammad cleanly swept them off the face of the earth. They cannot pick up a single thread, besides the name of their pre-Islamic faith.

Now, you replace the word ‘Kurd’ with any other name of a Fourth World community and you can well understand the dilemma they are in. I’m not saying that what you collective call the ‘Dalits’ or ‘Adivasis’ qualify as a nation or nationality (as in the case of Kurd) but their dilemma is the same as that of the Kurds. I also think that it is for the ‘dalits’ or the ‘adivasis’ to say it for themselves—it’s not our right to opine that they qualify for it or not.

Unlike the fate of the Kurds, Manipur’s society has those intangibles that make it possible to point out that there is the ‘Manipur way’. But the most profound and defining situation is that Manipur’s society have those intangibles side by side with the continuing revolt against the system (see my last post). You need to have these two elements in parallel so as to make any forceful historical statements.

Isn’t the intersection of the lines of these elements that produce such unpredictable situations, like the emergence of our ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’?

I mean to say that the play and interaction of such elements with the developments continually presented by the dynamics of history will likely to produce many situations which may serve as the SPARKS for the other Fourth World communities.


PS: This evening I saw Film Forum, Manipur (kind of Apunba Lup of the film fraternity of Manipur) putting posters in theatres proclaiming—‘ We support you, Nura Temsing-nabi’.

Nura Temsing-nabi, be that SPARK.

If we are deep into a deadend ( my last post), what’s there for us in the future?

I’ll speak out my mind.

Everybody knows that the building blocks of the basic village units of the Indian heartland are injustice and injustice and more injustice. And the command strucute of this injustice unlimited is the caste system. This centuries old structure is surprisingly resilient.

Because of its resilience many well meaning people are lulled into believing that this system might well have serve a perpose. If not, why its staying power for many centuries?

To my mind, it’s not serving a purpose which is compassionate. It’s a cruel system.

The longevity of the system may well be due to the ingenuity of the power that be of those steering it. They are so ingenious that they have been able to shield off the crushing world wide criticism of their system, as was in the case of the Apartheid in the then South Africa. Essentially, the caste system is out and out apartheid in its functionality.

The reigning cliché is that one of the magic weapons used so dexterously over the centuries by the power that be is corrupting any leader who emerges to lead occasional revolt against the system. They quietly let in the leader into their surreal worlds of the ‘power that be’ land and charm the rebellious edges off him.

But it must be just that—a cliché. It cannot be the satisfactory reason why all the revolts have failed. To my mind, the crucial factor behind such failures must be the inability of the leaders to provide a tangible social system to replace the caste system.

For example, what is Mayawati’s model social system to replace the hated ‘manu vaadic’ one? Look to BR Ambedkar or to the Dravidian upsurge in Tamil land, you cannot find the vision of the alternative social system.

Now, look to Manipur. It occupies a unique position. Beyond its eastern boundary, they did not try to supplant the caste system. Look to Burma, Thailand etc. In a sense, it’s the last frontier. But in this last frontier there had been systematic resistance, and then revolt, against the caste system. The crucial factor is that they have the alternative social system to firmly oppose the caste system.

And, it has been very systematic and relentless. Look at the ‘Maichou Taret’. We will find that nearly 300 years ago they initiated the resistance against the coming caste system. Besides this initiation, they left behind enough treaties and books to outline the contours of the opposing social system.

In this sense, Manipur provides the only society in this subcontinent which has the living revolt against the caste system. For any other society trying to revolt against it, they can get a ready model from Manipur.

Looking from this perspective, it will be no wonder if our ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’ comes to provide the crucial spark for other revolts across the Indian subcontinent, all of which have been waiting to happen for several centuries now.

You never know. ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’ may well be that SPARK.

Dead end

So, the prime minister visited dengue patients in AIIMS and he had no time for our ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’. It brings into focus the dead-end we are confronted with right at this moment.

We are in very unusual situation. We are not alone; in fact, most of the NE States are in such situations. We have no tax revenue. We are living on the current account subsidy pumped in from New Delhi.

This unusual situation has given birth to an equal unusual class of people here. They are born attuned for pocketing the subsidies from Delhi. They are now even leveraging insurgency to get more money from New Delhi. Unfortunately for the ordinary people here, this unusual class is also the political class here. Their main business is raking up their brains for innovative ways for pocketing this subsidy.

The irony here is that the political class in New Delhi is counting on such people for the feedback of the ground realities in the state. Naturally, the Delhi people have already lost contact with the aspirations and wishes of the ordinary people here. There is absolutely no hope if they continue to depend on such people. Personally, I have some opportunities to watch some of these people who are the emerging leaders of such class from a very quarters and I can assure you that they are worse than the present crop of leadership.

So, we have to continue living with the dead end for considerable time into the future.

Interestingly, I read the weekly column of Mr Sanjoy Hazarika in the Statesman today. He wrote that doctors actually gave only 3 days to the ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’ if she refused to eat after the discontinuation of the nose feeding. Only 3 days! That tenuous!! It’s extremely worrisome. Mr Hazarika wondered how they managed to put her in an air plane for nearly 10 hours of flying into Delhi.

I don’t know how he got the data here. I can’t tell you about the authenticity of the data either. I came to know of it from Mr Hazarika’s column.

Mr Hazarika concluded that any doctor in New Delhi would not recommend to any government agency for transporting the ‘Nura temsing-nabi’ to Imphal. Alternatively, any government agency would shy away from the job in the absence of a clear and official recommendation from a reputed doctor.

It seems that New Delhi is also sitting on a pretty tricky situation.

PS: Don’t you notice that I’ve been using name ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’ all over the place now? I can again tell you that I don’t like putting Sharmila on a pedestal. Still, I like these two words—they are so elegent.

Apunba Lup in New Delhi

Like you all, I had also read about the camping of the 4 coordinators of the Apunba Lup in New Delhi. (Apunba Lup is the apex body of 32 civil societies’ organization and it’s spearheading the agitation for the repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers’ Act 1958, which gives the power to shoot to kill any man or woman to a simple non-commissioned officer in the Indian Army. This Act is the direct descendent of the Act of the same name which was promulgated by the colonial British regime in Delhi with the aim to crush the movement by MK Gandhi, who asked the Britishers to leave India in a special sitting of the Congress party in 1938 in Bombay. The movement was known as the Quit India Movement, which ultimately brought independence to the Indian nation).

Today, they sent out a press statement. Surprisingly, most papers either ignored it totally or failed to cover the most significant portion of it.

To my mind, the most significant portion is when they made their intention known to all that they are trying to agitate for the cause of the ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’ together with the international community. Note the key words are ‘ the international community’. I’ve fond out that only paper reported this significant portion.

So, Apunba Lup is looking for a completely new vista for their future agitation.

Another interesting corollary is that all these developments clearly show that the ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’ is already becoming the Symbol, as I told you in yesterday’s post. Read this with news item that Hurriyet Conference ( of the Kashmiri’s movement for independence from India) leadership took all the trouble of coming to Jantar Mantar in New Delhi and meeting the ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’. What do you see? The Symbol in the making, isn’t it?

On other side, the political class of New Delhi is treading quite cautiously. They are trying to quietly to put the lid on the ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’ episode, without further attracting attention, international or otherwise.

Today’s papers carried the news of 3 nurses and 3 lady homeguards literally airlifted to Delhi. Apparently, these 5 ladies were the constant acquaintances of the ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’ when she had been kept arrested in a hospital room and inflicted forced nose feeding for the last 6 years.

Outwardly, they were flown in for further assisting the ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’ in another Delhi hospital. But quietly Delhi’s rulers are executing superb move to create a condition for airlifting the ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’ to Imphal, together with the 3 nurses and 2 lady homeguards when the time is ok. Because, the 5 ladies are State government employees and when they report back to duty in Imphal, they will force the ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’ to accompany them.

It will be interesting to see how the Apunba Lup make their counter-move.

The switchover

I’ve switched over to Blogger beta. That’s why there is flurry of changes in my blog template.

You can make a lot changes without having to come face to face with html! It’s a great idea. They even have a drag and drop tool.

But apparently, they have forgotten to incorporate the global timestamp tool. Now, I’ve to manually fix my timestamp.

What about my picture? For some time now, I’ve this uneasy feeling that I’ve been spewing out really strong opinions without disclosing fully about myself. Whatever one wants to say something he/she should do it openly. The possibility of remaining anonymous in a blog is not a license to say any irresponsible thing. Posting a picture of mine is my way of saying that I’m taking responsibility for whatever I’ll be talking ( as well as I’ve already written ) here.

BTW, I’ve not that long hair now. I cut it off.

Nura Temsing-nabi

‘Nura Temsing-nabi’ is the honorary name, being touted for Irom Chanu Sharmila.

Are the Asians more prone of inventing such names? Like, “Mahatma’ for MK Gandhi and ‘The Great Helmsman’ for China’s Mao.

The emergence of this name is not even a week old. It is a matter of some days down the line when the name came to appear in the media. I even saw many people nodding approvingly after the reading the name in the papers.

I, all along, fancy myself to be a keen watcher of this society. But the emergence of this name escaped my notice when it first came into being. It was after some buzzes created by it that I came to notice it.

Are there some groups who are intentionally trying to create the name? Or, is it just the spontaneous appearance?

I don’t know.

And I want to keep this way. Because I want to continue to marvel at how some very significant things continue to happen under my own nose—me, not having an inkling of what’s brewing up. It totally humbles me.

That said, it may also be an attempt to put Sharmila on a pedestal. And, I don’t like such attempts.

In related matter, I told you in my last post that Sharmila was a quite a regular girl in that reading room crowd. Did she manage to notice the book, ‘Gandhi’s Truth’, by Erik Erikson, which was in that room? Erikson neatly brings the Mahatma down the pedestal and lucidly present to us the famous, MK Gandhi as he is. I mean, the real MK Gandhi as the consummate politician.

If I don’t like this exercise, then why should I keep talking about it at all? Because, I like the words forming the name. They are so elegant. Anyone knowing Manipuri will agree with me that they are elegant. If some one coined the words on purpose, even with an agenda, he/she has done a good job.

Roughly translated, it means ‘The Maiden who dares to challenge the Injustice’.

Besides, there is this important reason why I’m talking about this. To prove that I’m quite a keen watcher of this society, I’ll try to be the one who first put this down in black and white!

Here we go:

THIS ‘NURA TEMSING-NABI’ IS, SLOWLY BUT SURELY, BECOMING THE SYMBOL OF THE STRUGGLE OF THE MANIPURIS TO DEFINE THEIR OWN SELFHOODS.

Irom Chanu Sharmila

The image is still fresh in my mind. In a freshly put up makeshift tent a girl was seen sitting, starting the day one of her fast.

It was very early in the morning. When I opened the day’s paper, I was greeted with the above photograph right there in the headline.

Seeing the photograph that morning, I actually had a wry smile on my face because I was murmuring to myself—‘What is she doing there?’.

Because, the girl in the picture was that girl who occasionally sat across the table opposite me in the reading room of the already burnt down Central library.

To me that morning, she looked definitely out of place in that makeshift tent.

Although she was fairly regular in that reading room crowd, I never got to know her name. Only when I started reading the news story then did I come to know she was Sharmila.

That was the morning six years back when a newspaper first reported about the fast by Irom Chanu Sharmila.

Now, these days, I cannot stand to look at any photograph of fasting Sharmila. Whenever I see one my mind just galloped back to the reading room days where whom I saw was an energetic girl in jeans, with luxuriant but wild hairs, totally absorbed in her books.

In front of my own eyes, she is crumbling.

It is cruel.

One private sector joke to another public sector disservice!

Last night, I was late at my computer. I even skipped my daily routine of brushing my teeth after dinner to type out the following piece so that I could post it before midnight.
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This evening I was in a friend’s office. In another room, where one of his assistants was working, there was this small tv showing Manipuri film songs. I went in the room and switched to the CNN-IBN. Just on cue, it showed the highlights of the coming interview of Sana Yaima. It was touted as the first TV interview by any channel.

That was in around 7.30 pm. My friend’s office closes at 8 pm and the interview was on 9.30 pm slot.

So, I quickly went home and made all the preparations for the dinner and then, went to another friend’s place.

As we were chatting, the programme came. It showed montages of Sana Yaima, saying different lines of what he had to say about his agenda. Then, it switched to the present political condition of Manipur showing collages of still pictures, mostly of the agitation of the rape and killing of Manorama.

Then, the break came.

We were chatting in front of the TV, thinking that all those montages and collages were the run up to the main interview.

But it never came.

They had captions and scrolls saying that it was the first TV interview of Sana Yaima. But the subject of the interview, Mr Sana Yaima was never in the frame for more than 30 seconds. They were all montages.

How do they term it as an interview?

It was a joke. A complete joke.

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On most days I typed out my post on Words before I log into the net. When I go online I quickly paste the piece onto the Blogger’s create post interface and click publish button. Then, I go ahead with my daily reads, also mostly offline.

Last I pasted the above piece and even clicked published button. Just then, the connection to the net failed. And, I never could log on to the network for the whole night.

So, last night’s case was the instance of descending into another public sector disservice from the one private sector joke!

Now, I’m trying again.

Snippets

>> Even if it looks like a log book of a utility company, it may serve a purpose! So, I got such a low voltage power last night that it barely could light up my room. I dutifully phoned the ‘complaint room’ of the electricity deptt ( yes, it is a govt-run utility service ) and got the news that there was some problem in the transformer. That meant it would be a major maintenance job which could only be taken up under the supervision of senior officers. These officers would be available during the office hours meaning we had to wait for the following day.

That’s the story of place called Imphal. A quaint place.

>> Damodar Swami of the Imphal ISKCON died in Kolkatta. We all along have got the impression from the media that he sustained only a minor injury in his arms. Now, it is clear that he never could recover from the shock of the hand grenade explosion.

Whatever his religious affiliation, Damodar was always a hero of Manipur. Son of a widow and from a small village, his rise to be an icon of this society is the stuff the fables are made of. How his extremely poor mother supports his education by selling vegetables has become folklore here.

Our hero has been slain by a mysterious grenade.

To my mind, how our hero has been slain by this mysterious grenade will have far-reaching impacts in our society, even though we may not detect it in this maddening immediacy of our life.

>> CNN has started a documentary starting this day and running up to the 14th of this month. It is named ‘The Hidden Wars of India’. It is about the insurgencies in NE India and it is reported to feature several interviews of insurgent leaders, including Sana Yaima from Manipur.

Well, you should remember that I have not a cable connection and I’m still running after a broadband account. So, I’m in a twilight zone! And, I can definitely tell you that it’s absolutely awful to be in such a twilight zone!!

>> I’m in a striking distance of acquiring a brand new scar right in my forehead! Right now, the image in the mirror is a bit out of place with the brand new scar. Will it go away after some time? Please do—PLEASE DO GO AWAY!

>> On a brighter note, the wound on my thumb is healing so fast that I’m beginning to think my relentless chase of all those anti-oxidants, trace minerals etc etc is starting to have its impact on my health. I may well be healthier nowadays. I feel good about this.

Jihad means striving for any cause.

That’s how Mr SM Murshed wrote in the Statesman ( dated 27th of September). He also told us that the word ‘jihad’ occurs 41 times in the Koran and ‘not once can’t it be construed as a warlike exhortation’. He said that 'the stringest sentiment that I can find in the Koran about Jihad is in the verse 9 of Sura 66 which states : " O Prophet! Strive against the disbelievers and the hypocrites and be stern with them. Hell will be their home, a hapless journey's end".'

Mr SM Murshed is a retired IAS officer.

He was writing about the implications of what the Pope had told in a lecture in German university and his subsequent apologies. Apparently, Mr Murshed also could not find the response of the ‘learned Persian’ to the Byzantine emperor’s question, which was quoted by the Pope as—

“ Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as the command to spread by the sword the faith he preached”.

But after reading Mr Murshed’s piece, I came to know that we missed the central thrust of the Pope’s lecture. It is the Sura 2.256 of the Koran. I’ll quote from the piece—

>> The Pope quoted the Sura 2.256 which states that ‘there is no compulsion in religion’ but is quick to add in a second breath that, according to experts, this sura must have been recorded in the early part of the Prophet’s career, when he was powerless and threatened, and the emperor ‘also knew the instruction developed later and recorded in the Koran, concerning holy war’.
.. . ..

The Pope has said that while Sura 2.256 mentions that there is no compulsion in religion, in the later verses of the Koran there is incitement to Holy War.<<

Mr Murshed reproduced two other to disprove what the Pope had implied. Please note these 2 Suras came into being in the later parts of the Prophet’s career, when He was neither ‘powerless nor threatened’.

Sura 109—"And I shall not worship that which ye worship. Nor will ye worship that which I worship. Unto you your religion and unto me my religion".

This Sura is quite clear and Mr Murshed has made his point as well. But see the second Sura.

Sura 10, verse 99—“ And if thy Lord willed, all who are in the earth would have believed together. Wouldst thou (Momemmad) compel other until they are believers?”

The second Sura can be interpreted in both ways—Bin Laden way and the moderate ( like Mr Murshed) way.

Don’t you think so? Still, I like Mr Murshed’s piece. I like to read more of such pieces.