By Thounaojam Brinda
‘The run away lawyer
The run away judge
The run way judiciary
The run away executive
The run away legislature
Only the people are left’
At best, they can arrange the dates of cases. This one case, they can never adjudicate. It is a case bound to fail for a number of reasons that will never stop cropping up and for reasons of failure to give reasonable answers to pertinent questions.
Who will redress the rights of all the victims of this violence?
Who is not a victim of this violence, from the puppet head Chief Minister to Sanjit, Chanu Rose, Mao gate victims, Rabina, Manorama, Ahanjaobi, Sangeeta, Sanamacha, Netaji, hundreds in the hills and valley alike, to the collective hundreds and thousands who have been murdered, disappeared, raped, maimed, sodomised, dead and survivors, since the start of this conflict?
Who amongst us is not a victim?
Will Chungkham Sanjit case alone redress the rights of other victims and their families?
How many registered cases and how many undiscovered or hidden in unknown graves meant for eternity?
Who will stand up for them?
Is it the victim`s personal responsibility?
What if you, your family, your children, their future are the victims next?
Will you be able to fight alone?
You may be the next victim.
The system is hopeless and at its best it has proliferated itself to its own destruction.
Who will try all the victims` cases?
Who will decide who will adjudicate their cases?
Has a sixteen year fasting of a Gandhian woman`s voice been heard?
Do we trust that judiciary which has upheld a law as the Armed Forces Special Power Act, 1958, as constitutional?
Will we get justice from this judiciary?
It is more than high time the intellects of the state came out and took a stand. What is the highest academic institute of the state, the Manipur University intellects doing at this hour? Is it a colonial university or a real university? At this critical hour that will decide the future of this state and that can be made to bring a solution to this decades long conflict that has cost us our peace and lives, will you not take a stand for your children at least?
All the vital organs of the state have run away and we, the people, are left alone at this perilous moment of history, even by the intellects of this state apparently. It is not about Sanjit nor Herojit, neither CM, DGP, SP, but about all the victims, physical and mental of this violence resulted from the ever aggravating conflict. Both state and non-state actors are culpable. Even if no one speaks up to inform the people correctly to guide them towards forming an informed public opinion, we must be reminded that the truth has made its position and rooted its stand. In that, if we do not wake up, we shall be forced to wake up, at the time of which, we shall be forced to take the stand or face the gallows.
Sadly, the nation has all the laws and loopholes to make the biggest democracy in the world a grand success or the shame of mankind. The Fundamental Rights in the Constitution have been enshrined for citizens and even non-citizens too. But, are they not meant for the people of North-East, Central India and Jammu and Kashmir? Do we have our Fundamental Rights? There is not much in a name, in fact nothing. You call it Tomba, Chaoba, Naga, Kuki, India, in fact anything. What the people need is the substance of democracy and not a war over a name that is just an arrangement of letters to me. If the name is Heaven and we live in the environment of hell, what difference does it make if the heavenly environment we live in is called Hell? Let not the nomenclature divide the people. It is the umpteen duty of the intellects to awaken the people to realise the futility of participating in this profit war emotionally, the war that is killing us physically, emotionally, economically, environmentally and that is going to wipe us off from the further chapters of history, of a history that was never let known to its people. Even if we have to die, let us die knowing our history and rights.
The intellects of Manipur University and the state ought to freely air their wisdoms on the victimhood issue so to find a solution to this conflict. Help inform the people in guiding them towards the light that will bring a closure to this cycle of bloodshed violence. Help the people end this violence.