By Misao Hejang Hangmi
More Lethal and deadlier than nuclear bomb in today’s world is one’s communal feeling and behaviour that shook the very fabric of human peaceful co-existence. Behaviour, in fact, is the end result of one’s feeling. Therefore feeling and behaviour are interconnected. Interestingly no community in the world is immune to this virus/disease. But how one directed or channelled this feeling is very important.
In Manipur people failed to direct such feeling in constructive/positive ways. Thanks to the systems that are in place and the kind of environment that we build up. The bottom line here is who is responsible for inventing such deadly virus that posed the greatest threat to humanity and has no scientific cure? Scientific advancement could bring about cure to the deadly virus like Ebola, bird flu and swine flu but its curative role to communal feeling and behaviour is very doubtful or not at all.
The said virus/disease sadly has been deeply rooted in Manipur and we’ve paid the price for it and I am afraid we will pay more with greater intensity. Every incidence has been view from the lens of communal that has the danger of chain reactions. The recent unsavoury incidence of brutally assaulting students of MBC; who were there to enjoy their own free space of friendship and without any fault of theirs is a blatant act of communal behaviour. The students were asked to which community they belong and after ascertaining that they belong to Kuki community the assault took place. Who are they that they should take the law in their own hand and sullied the peaceful environment by creating enmity between the communities through their irresponsible behavior? I feel it requires unequivocal condemnation from all angles but to my utter surprise such did not take place.
The NSCN (IM) bullying politic still went unchecked. The coercive strategy in this civilized and democratic world deployed by them on Aimol community is very unfortunate. It is nothing but a communal behaviour that vitiates the peaceful environment. One cannot decide the future of one’s community just because they are minority. Forget about national and international law, it is against God’s law. Truth itself will reveal one day. Today just because we enjoy the upper hand we cannot distort the truth. God will defend the cause of the undefended for He alone is the true judge giving regards to no mortal being and He is the God that does not tolerate injustice.
Every action has its own reaction, that’s the law of nature. And our today’s behaviour and action naturally created an environment called ‘Safe Haven Community’. Each community leave no stone unturned to make their own community strong and safe even at the cost of others. Unknowingly we’d created a culture of save your own community resulting in unrelenting competition for superiority that take us to a level of ‘Cold War’ – ready to strike at the push of a button giving rise to the infamous industry called insurgency. This is also the cause for the demand of separate administration and State. The majority feel insecure and the minority feel more insecure.
Your own community is considered the only humanity and the rest devils. That is the extent of our feeling in Manipur. What a wretch State it is and who can save us from the ‘Swords of Damocles.
There is no ‘one size fit all’ solution to our malady. One possible panacea can be doing away with our practice of close community and becoming an open community by stretching out the arms of brotherhood. For this major community has to play the role of standing in the forefront.