By Angomcha Bimol Akoijam
In some cultures, especially in non-western culture, story-telling is a way of explaining or describing the reality. Say, they say, in China and India, it is quite common for someone to begin an attempt to answer or explain a query with a ‘let me tell you a story’. It is a different mode of the doing ‘the business of making sense’ that departs from the usual forms of (western) intellectual engagement that is based on empirical research and effort to theorize on the reality with the help of discrete, often operationalized, conceptual categories. I suspect, the cultural orientation of Manipur is closer to this ‘story-telling’ mode. I say this because, sharing anecdotes and talking about major ‘actors’ of our public life seem to be a preferred way than those efforts which are derived of the intellectual engagement such as research and analytical endeavors of the established social sciences. In fact, dismissive and derisive outlook towards the latter attempts as ‘theoretical’ and ‘academic’ etc are not unheard of, including, paradoxically, from those who hold university degrees as well. This being the case, I feel like sharing a story that I wrote:
Deranged Man and the Protestors
Amidst the sultry tropical weather, a group of protestors repeatedly shout, ‘Save Sharmila’! One of the protestors passes on the leaflet, which they have been distributing to people, to a deranged man who happens to pass by the protest site. Shaken by what is written on the leaflet, the deranged man seeks to strike a conversation with the protestors. Initially, seeing the odd looks of the man, some of them laugh at him and teasingly call out one guy, who happens to be one of the leaders of those protestors, to entertain the deranged man. He, along with a few, decides to take a break from the protracted protest, and have a conversation with the deranged man. As such, they need some rest as they have been shouting for a while and it will be some time before those who have gone in a police vehicle to submit a memorandum to the PM or his office, something that they have never failed to do so each time they organized such a protest during the last decade, return to the protest site.
As they sit down, one of them asks the deranged man, ‘So, what do you want to know’?
Deranged man (Henceforth, DM): Why are you supporting Sharmila?
Leader of the protestors (Henceforth, LP): Because Iche Sharmila has been on a fast!
DM: Oh, you support her because she’s been fasting?
‘Yes, yes’! Some of the protestors answer, almost in unison.
The leader continues in all seriousness, “Yes, Iche Sharmila has been fasting for the last 11 years!”
DM: Oh I see! So you are supporting her because she is on a fast?
Yes! Replied LP emphatically.
DM: Why don’t you ask her to eat; In fact, still better, since you seem to love her so much, why don’t you offer her food, instead of protesting like this?
LP: You mad!? She’s on fast for 12 years!
DM: That’s what! You shouldn’t have allowed her to go hungry for so long?
The deranged man continues, scratching his head as he glances at the leaflet and looks at those protestors.
LP: She has been forced-fed all these years! She won’t eat!
DM: Too bad!
LP: What!!!!?
Taken by surprise, the leader retorts back; the deranged man continues again.
DM: You people love her so much and protesting all these while in this weather and she refuses to eat! I don’t understand. Doesn’t she love you? If she loves you, I think she will start eating food!
The deranged man continues.
Hearing his remark, the protestors look at each other and some of them become visibly perturbed by the remark. One of them says in Meteilon (a dominant language which consists of a group of Manipuri dialects spoken by people in the valley of Manipur as their mother-tongue, like the Mandarin amongst the Chinese), ‘Masi angaobashi…mathong maram khangdaba…kaothatlu…fujillaga fadouni…mee ushittaba…makok yaodaba’ (this mad man has no sense, kick him, it’s better to beat him up; brainless fellow)!
The leader looks at them and says, “Ngaikho… tapthakho…angaobaga maanaraga kei kandoino” (Wait! What will you get if we do that with a mad man?)!
Looking at the protestors who were talking to each others, DM continues, ‘You angry’?
LP: Of course not! Being a seasoned leader, with a touch of diplomacy, he smiles as he answers. Then, he looks at his followers with another smile.
DM: So, does she love you people?
LP: Yes, she loves us, why would she fast if she does not love us, the people of Manipur?
DM: That’s all the more reason for her to call off the fast so that you don’t protest like this in such weather!
Hearing this, one among the protestors menacingly walks towards the deranged man and says, ‘Shut up’!
Wait! LP stops the man from coming nearer to the DM. After stopping the man, LP then looks at the deranged man and continues, ‘See, she won’t eat until the Armed Forces Special Power Act is repealed by the Government of India’.
DM: Oh, then you should be fighting against that ACT, rather than SUPPORTING HER BECAUSE SHE IS ON FAST!
The LP, the leader, thinks for a while and answers, ‘That’s what we are doing’!
DM: But you said, you people are SUPPORTING SHARMILA BECAUSE SHE IS ON A FAST! Didn’t you say that?
The leader looks at the deranged man and his followers. Then he continues.
LP: Yeah…err…but it’s the SAME thing!
No! How can it be? Retorts back the DM.
LP: What do you mean?
DM scratches his head, think for a while and says, ‘If she decides to call off the fast or SOMETHING HAPPENs to her…dies, what will you do’?
The leader roars, ‘Then, you will see a CIVIL WAR if anything happens to her! And the Government of India will be solely responsible …God forbid, if something bad ever happens to her’!
And Armed Forces Special Powers Act? DM, the deranged man, interject with a confused expression.
The leader and protestors look at each other! And a strange silence interrupted the conversation, on the hindsight, only for a while!
Moral of the Story
Of course, while we were children, teachers and elders used to end their story-telling with a poser, ‘What is the moral of the story’? I suspect, it is better to skip that part, lest one be accused of trying to moralize. Nonetheless, one is tempted to say that to say Irom Sharmila is important but not AFSPA is to say Sharmila doesn`t bother you, and to say that AFSPA is important but not the armed (rebellion) conflict in Manipur is to say that AFSPA doesn`t bother you. And I suspect, somewhere some missing links have forced Sharmila to suffer (or, from her perspective in some sense, spiritual journey to go on) for more than a decade, and AFSPA continues to survive in a democracy for more than five decades just as the armed (rebellion) conflict also continues to mark the state for years on. Incidentally, the distortion and mutations of the un-addressed issue begets a habit of not looking at the basic issues, which, in turn, has consequently deepened the pathos of our society and its polity while simultaneously nurturing interests and beneficiaries of a reality which has been termed by some as the `conflict industry`.
Indeed, once again, AFSPA is fundamentally an issue of what, how and wherefores of deploying the military as an instrument of regular administration far more than, if at all it is, an issue of `Human Rights Abuses`. Had this been recognized, the issues and matters of policy and politics would have been raised, and the militarism as well as issues like armed conflict would have taken the center stage of the debates, and Human Right Abuses would have also been a legitimate consequential concern. But then, this would have called for political and intellectual engagements that would predominantly inhabit the political space of our public life; but then this kind of engagement cannot be driven by NGOs and funded projects. The reality of AFSPA as it stands is that the consequential concern has not only come to take the centre stage but also effectively silenced the core issue that this notorious AFSPA is all about. In this regards, one can`t help but sense an uncanny discomfort to hear the expression `NGOized activ
ism` or `NGOization of movement`!
That’s the story baby; that’s the way it is!