Things are settling back to normal after the June 4 devastating Chandel ambush which broke what everybody thought with relief was the return of peace in the state. Villagers who fled their villages for fear the Army would go on a rampage to avenge the death of 18 soldiers of the 6-Dogra Regiment in the ambush, would have already begun returning home. All concerned about their wellbeing are now heaving a sigh of relief that no great damage resulted in the aftermath of the ambush, except for the obvious consequence of the villagers having neglected their meagre subsistent farms for the past fortnight. Since the cultivation season is still not over, we do hope there would be no losses beyond salvage. Although the area of the Army`™s combing operation had been sealed off and the press, as anybody else had been shut off from visiting these villages, it is now apparent that unlike in so many such incidents in the past, the Army did not take it out on the local population. It may be recalled, while the operations were going on, some families feared for four hunters who were out in the jungle when the ambush happened. Even they returned safely after two days, indicating the Army was not out for blind vengeance this time. Although the full picture is not out as yet, it does seem this is one of those stories which ended without collateral damage, despite fears for the worst.
The All Manipur Working Journalist Union, AMWJU, it is learnt is taking a team of media persons to the area which were covered by the Army operation and has since two days back been opened again to the public. This is good news. Not only would the visit bring confidence to the affected people, for even the mere act of communicating one`™s plight to all who care has a therapeutic quality, but also the people of the state would be able to know what exactly they went through during their trying hours in the last fortnight. But the sense already is, they did not go though the agony that many others went through in similar situations in the past. Although the last is still not heard yet on the matter, indications are a lot of lessons have been learnt in the decades that have gone by, among these being that targeting the villagers have never paid dividends in the long run. In all cases, the villagers are helpless in resisting armed men, be they of the establishment or those fighting the establishment.
During the days of the combing operations, there have also been some snide allegations levelled at the local media for failing to be on the spot of the ongoing operations. This was to say the least unfair. How exactly were press persons to enter these areas when they were sealed off? Newspaper readers will recall even the local MLA was prohibited from entering the area. Under the circumstance, were these critics asking the press men to sneak in covertly into these areas of operation? What if there they become casualties themselves, a prospect not at all impossible, given the tension? Would these critics then come to their rescue or else hurry to write reports of the bad situation in the state to their bosses for whatever the benefits? If there had been wide scale human rights violation known, then okay, not just the media, but also every concerned civil body must come forward to do whatever is called for. Pending this, it would be selfish to simply wish others to put themselves in the lines of fire for the pleasure of these critics, who probably have their own interests for doing so. In any case, it was not as if the media was sitting idle in their armchairs. They were monitoring the situation the best they could using whatever newsgathering resources in their command. These include contacting police stations in the area, getting accounts from villagers and civil bodies who were close to the area of operation etc.
It was also confounding why the Union government began leaking information about the operations, which apparently included an elite Army commando action, in New Delhi. Many of these information unfortunately did not exactly tally with what observers with their ears close to the ground here sensed, or else were in the know of. For some reasons, the Union government decided to take publicity mileage from what was meant to be a covert operation, but backfired. What was even more distasteful was the manner in which the media in New Delhi, especially the 24-hour news channels, began swallowing these publicity materials without even screening them, even when it meant unfair portrayal of Manipur and Nagaland before the rest of the country, as well as posing the danger of queering the pitch of India`™s diplomatic relations with Myanmar.
Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam