“We do not want economic packages.
We want AFSPA to be repealed”
-- Images from the Ongoing Struggle in Manipur
A team organized by the Campaign Committee Against AFSPA visited Manipur in December. The team comprised of several human rights activists, as well as activists of students’ and women’s groups. Mona Das, President, JNUSU, Manisha Sethi from the Forum For Democratic Initiatives as well as Malay, Bilash and Sumit from AISA, Jadavpur University, joined the team. On December 9, CPI(ML) PB Member Rubul Sharma as well as Lokenath Goswami, a cultural activist from the Assam Jan Sanskritik Parishad, attended and addressed a Convention against AFSPA in Imphal. Manisha Sethi reports some impressions from the visit.
Last month , a CPI ML team had visited Manipur. But there was one major difference since then—the visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. In a gesture of sham magnanimity, the PM handed the Kangla Fort to the State Government and granted Central University status to the Manipur University, even while an Assam Rifles camp and shooting range continues to operate in the university campus! And, no, he did not bother to visit the home of Manorama, whose barbaric murder and gang rape at the hands of the Army had become the flashpoint and sparked off the present phase of anti-AFSPA movement. Rejecting the demand of the people of Manipur for a repeal of the draconian AFSPA, he merely announced the institution of a Review Committee that would look into the law and suggest, if needed, another, more ‘humane’, law to replace it. The committee is packed with former bureaucrats, with Sanjoy Hazarika being the solitary presence from the North East. Far from welcoming the review, the people of Manipur—and we spoke to a cross-section, including students, Human Rights activists, ordinary men and women—feel slighted and betrayed. Apunba Lup, the umbrella organization spearheading the anti-AFSPA movement, has called for a boycott of the Review Committee when it arrives in Manipur on 27 th December. If the PM thought that he could placate the students who have been pouring out on the streets against the draconian law for years now by offering their university an exalted central university status, he could not have been more wrong. In a joint statement issued by the JNUSU and MUSU, the two students’ bodies condemned the review as an “eyewash” and called the bluff of the “humanization” of such draconian laws. Students of the Manipur University, who heroically braved lathis and teargas bullets on 26 th July outside the Governor’s residence in order to demand a repeal of the Act, also told us that the review fell far short of their expectations. “We do not want economic packages. We want AFSPA to be repealed”, was the emphatic retort of a young girl, a neighbour of Manorama Devi.
If the people of Manipur have demonstrated remarkable courage in opposing AFSPA, the response of the ruling political class has been marked with duplicity and callous indifference. Dr. Nara Singh, a CPI MLA and former Minister for Art and Culture could be a modern-day Nero. When we visited him late one evening to interrogate him about his Party’s position on the Act, his drawing room was a veritable rehearsal room with singers and musicians engrossed in perfecting their act for a performance at the Medical Association programme later that evening. A sea of distance seemed to separate the strains of mellifluous music that emanated from the former minister’s residence and the heart wrenching wails of Manorama’s mother when we visited her home a day before. Personally, he said, he was opposed to AFSPA and his Party did not agree with its big brother ally CPI (M) on this count. When we asked him if that was the case, what stopped the CPI from walking out of the government to lead the movement against the AFSPA, he replied that the CPI’s mass fronts were participating in the movement. It seemed perfectly tenable to him that the Party participate in the government while the mass fronts participate in the movement! After our meeting with him, we tended to agree with our local friends that his popular title of “Drama Minister” is well deserved.
While we were in Manipur, the CPI (M) Manipur State Convention was underway. Manorama’s brother was one of the invitees and it called for the repeal of AFSPA. CPI (M) however did not explain why it has imposed the same Act in 23 of the thanas in Tripura, where it is in power. We could also spot some fresh wall writing by SFI which made feeble attempts at wooing students with its apolitical signature line, “Be a complete Student, Join SFI”. When the students of Manipur have been marching to demand that their right to life be guaranteed by the State, a silence on this issue is nothing if not criminal.
The force of the movement and the rage of the people has forced these parties to pay lip service to the democratic rights of the people—but from a safe distance, safely ensconced in the corridors of power.
The Speaker of the Manipur Assembly, T.N. Haokip, however, felt no need to even hide behind the charade of democracy and rights. Dismissing the possibility of a repeal, he emphasized the need for some law to “control people”. He was openly contemptuous of the militancy of the struggle and bemoaned the loss of crores due to economic blockades, even terming it “against humanity”. When we asked if the lives of Manorama, Chttaranjan and countless others who disappeared and were killed by the armed forces were worth anything, he laughed it off saying that it was the only the killings by those in “uniforms” that raised the hackles of the people. Like Dr. Nara Singh, he washed all responsibility off his hands saying that the ball was in the Centre’s court and there was little that the State Government could do now. That the Centre is being run by his own Party did not strike him as ironical.
The men in ‘uniforms’ echo the Hon’ble Speaker’s perverted logic of “crimes against humanity”. At the Loktak Lake , once a happy picnic spot off the National Highway 150, and now a camp of the 11 Gurkha Rifles, we sought out the opinion of a jawan. The jawan, who had been posted in Kashmir earlier, lamented the curbing of his natural style of soldiery in Manipur. “Kashmir was very good. We could pick up anybody and kill anybody. But here there is so much hue and cry about human rights” (“yahan Human Rights ka bahut hungama hai.”). What was even more chilling than his statement was the complete innocence with which it was said. His message was loud and clear: the right of the armed forces to rape, pick up and kill people is an inalienable right.
The next day, the Vice Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Santonu Chaudhry, also gently chided the press for hyping the Manorama incident out of proportion and added, “we have a number of documents to prove that Manorama Devi had links with the terrorists. But at the same time, what happened with her was unfortunate.” Lt. Gen Chaudhry then attempted to recruit the press for “rebuilding the image of the army” in Manipur. “Manipur is not such a bad place. It is peaceful,” he concluded.
This ‘peaceful’ place has tragic landmarks. Here, a Manipuri friend will tell you, is where young boys were shot at by the Assam Rifles from that hillock. This army camp, another will point out, is where Manorama is said to have been brought that night. This is the road where Chittaranjan ran down—a human torch—shouting for the repeal of AFSPA. This is the spot where he collapsed. This is the bus stop where ten innocent people waiting for a bus were gunned down by Assam Rifles. This is the place where a man was beaten to death by a police commando for not giving him way in the traffic. The list goes on.
In this peaceful place, you are likely to come across an army camp every two or three kilometers and a patrolling party every hundred feet. Allegations of forced labour against the army are just beginning to erupt and such is the extent of militarization that the army will now “strictly monitor the quantity of essential goods, particularly food items being taken into villages … to see if they correspond to the population strength of the family or not.”(Loktak to be Cleared for All Clear Ops”, The Sangai Expess, Nov. 16 2004 ).
While AFSPA has been lifted from the Imphal municipal area, it is still thick with the presence of the army. According to Speaker Haokip, lifting of AFSPA does not entail ‘demilitarisation’, only that the army no longer enjoys ‘special powers’. Even this weak argument does not hold. In late October, three Kuki boys were killed by the Imphal East police commandoes at about 6 in the evening when they were walking home after choir practice. The boys—the youngest was 15-years old and the oldest about 21—were accused of being UGs, asked to lie spread eagle on the road and several rounds of bullets pumped in their back. After a militant protest led by KSO (Kuki Students’ Organistaion), ATSUM (All Tribal Students Union of Manipur) and ANSAM (All Naga Students Association of Manipur) and supported by many other organizations, four police personnel were suspended, but only for their “alleged misconduct”. A judicial enquiry was also ordered but almost two months later, a committee has yet to be constituted. There is little faith in judicial committees anyway. In 1996, following the shooting of an 11 th class student, Netaji, by two Imphal East ASIs at Kakwa, The Kakwa Firing Case Commission held the two policemen guilty and recommended that they be tried for murder. While one of them, Rajen, was killed in a counter insurgency operation soon after that, the other, Krishna Tombei was not only reinstated but promoted to the rank of SI and awarded a President’s medal for gallantry at the next Republic Day Parade!
In the State’s lexicon, gang rapes and brutal, cold-blooded murders are merely “unfortunate” and “misconducts”: a kind of ‘boys will be boys’ tone of condoning these crimes.
The people of Manipur are not willing to be hoodwinked by the talk of reviews and humane laws. A Rally called on 10 th December, the International day of Human Rights, reiterated its demand for the repeal of AFSPA and vowed to intensify the struggle further.
The Rally was attended by thousands of people, was chaired by the Apunba Lup and the Campaign Committee Against AFSPA. Mona Das addressed the Rally, saluting the brave women and men of Manipur and telling the people about how their struggle had inspired and put new life into the struggle for democracy and human rights.