Seized Conscience

The culture of doubt and contest has invaded our reasoning space quite recently in the background of inhumane sufferings. Call that the Thomas game. That has actually numbed us from exercising any proactive efforts in a very demanding time. Our sympathy and apathy seems to be too hard earned and reserved as our inclinations to our own community and unquestioned interests become more sacred. When militarization in Manipur is followed with gross human rights violations that also multiplies insecure constituencies, the unwanted culture that is overtaking our reasoning faculties act as an instrument of insecurity, rather than security as it is supposed to be. This has eventually resulted in defining who we are. This culture reflects the evidence of fragmented integration that we are living with.

We have been witnessing the strong movements to assimilate and “integrate” the Naga districts of Manipur into Nagaland. On the other hand there are growing assertions that also poke and bank on the baggage of identity and geography. That enhanced the insecure constituencies and multiplies them with non-state armed actors equally occupying the militarized zones. That actually makes militarization complete, with constituencies getting partitioned to become “liberated zones.” That is when people from mainland India, on their visit to the state, actually find the “end of India” when they stepped into these zones. It is no surprise when the end of India, they said, begins in Manipur. This is when I found militarisation delivering two meaning. One it shows the presence of India through the armed forces. However, the presence of the armed forces again delivers the question of “force” and “occupation.” Secondly, militarization also explains the absence of India too. But only if it is “forcefully occupied.” If then, the beginning of India is also seen in the military bases and outpost manned by the security forces. The unfortunate thing is that this geographical compartmentalization did not end in itself. Instead it takes to toll on seizing the collective conscience and further processed it to limiting them on those constituencies defined by community, ethnicity and what not. The individual as well as the collective, then, grow, cultivate and tuned their reason to serve their respective interest. If our ex-pressions were to be counted as mutinies, our “disturbed” compartments would be called the land of million mutinies.

Lately, the serious issues of landmines, forced displacement of the Kuki people from their land, and their alleged abduction have gained national and international concern. They also rap and ragged our reason and conscience. There was a strong denial on the part of the actors who were blamed for the acts. On the other hand several Kuki organisations went extra mile to prove that their unfortunate sufferings are true and real. When the context, Khengjoi block and New Samtal range in Chandel district, Manipur, situates in a fringe corner, situating them in one’s imagination so as to relate the grim reality becomes a difficult task. That becomes a point where the game of questioning, doubting and contesting becomes an inevitable affair. Do we need to make that an inevitable affair? Or are we doing this because the truth is too inconvenient for us at the moment? Or is it because this will better serve the interest of Manipur? We see three types of know-it-all species here. One who knew and speak out. The other, who knew but choose to be silent. Thirdly, who knew but choose to play that Thomas game. The videos of the Kukis displaced people and their testimonies, which were prepared by the Fact Finding Team comprising of Kuki Movement for Human Rights, Kuki Students’ Organisation, and Kuki Chiefs’ Association (Chandel) is packed with volumes. The videos have travelled far and wide, which is also doing the round in Delhi. They weighed with hard evidences that put a big question on the blame game. In a culture overwhelmed by the volume of promiscuous representation, there must be some practice by which the real and the truth is given a place of special attention, a demarcation that insists that it be seen and heard just exactly as the affected people are going through. We have cultivated a culture where it is impotent, though important, to satisfy human needs for an account of our dignity as creatures, less able to treat the human experiences of violence and suffering with the respect it deserves. One cannot help, but say that the truth is trapped as conscience is seized. This situation reveals how naive we are as a people. That old adage – the first casualty of war is truth – applies here. Doing this, we are corrupting Manipur’s historic capabilities of negotiating with inevitable differences. We are corrupting Manipur’s integrity and rationality. Corrupting Manipur’s conscience.

However, this actually comes as no surprise, when the state has been reeling under tense and compartmentalised situations that are costly. Costly on our peace. Costly on all our values and systems. Costly on our hopes and expectations. Costly on the suffering generations. Costly on our plural existence. Costly on our reason and rationality. We tend to pick and choose the others to be blamed, but that is not. No one is playing the win-win game here. But what if the seized conscience happens to be our heights of desperation where it blurred us from seeing the truth? What if this are signs of our helplessness? What if they reveal our adopted irresponsibility? What if they happen to be what will be cultivated and inherited for tomorrow’s Manipur? What if this is how we all accommodate the changing time that we all are negotiating with? How long shall we allow our embedded characters to continue?

It is stunning how we could quickly recast them and accept them as something about us. Is this evidence of abandonment of our treasured character? Call it the “collective responsibility.” We have with us a strong military presence that is, I don’t know, assigned with “peace keeping”, “war- fighting”, “flushing operations”, or “containment.” Neither of them really shows. But ever since those missions, they have gnawed into our lives. And we have not only aped, but has been victimized, marginalized, neglected and discriminated. Worst, our consciences are seized. This threatens our values, which we have collective chipped in to characterise Manipur. I just wonder who will be willing partners in remaking Manipur with the seized conscience. But it still has to be you and me. That should immediately grow to represent the collective space to cease the seized conscience.