Remembering the Shattered Lives

In loss and shame they treaded
Heads buried and hearts that still dread
Man and might are just a mite
As he quest vain win with lost sight
They washed their hands to forget
But their sins will ever be wet
Be healed, distressed daughters mourn
Fly free, for you is the bright morn
(To Distress Daughters–DB)

They said public memory is short. This is why I write to remind you about the never-ending nightmare lived every moment by the Tipaimukh raped and molested victims. Forget not also those people who have lost their limbs and lives to the landmines. The girls and women desperately tried erasing memories of that fateful incident that occurred in January 2006 in their forsaken villages in Tipaimukh’s Lungthulien and Parbung. While the armed perpetrators left, the scarred mortals battle to recover. The attempt has been ceaseless and desperating, as they try to shed the memories of pain, shame and helplessness. But they told me that they could never succeed for even a second of the mighty time. The attempt has been a silent one. It was like swimming against the current. The current that favours them not, while they seek to drown their pain and shame.

The Rajkhowa Commision, which was instituted by the Government of Manipur in March 17, 2006 to investigate the Tipaimukh rape case, has once again issued an order for another hearing and cross-examination. The burden routine would take place between January 17-20, 2008 at Parbung. JL Sawmi, President of the Hmar Women Association (HWA) and her colleagues who are fighting for the cause of the raped and molested girls and women, told me that they would be heading for the land of mole and bruises - Tipaimukh a day or two in advance before the appointed days. May God strengthen their selfless efforts. JL Sawmi also told me about the severe difficulties involved in bringing together the victims to their villages every time the Commission conducts its duty. Some of them have move out of their villages that bear dark memories. Today they are scattered in Mizoram, Meghalaya, Assam and Delhi. They were asked to return again with their bags of pain and shame for the cross-examination. Just when they are trying to move on, their wounds and bruises are made afresh. Many are in deep dilemma. One of the victims, who is working as a maid in Delhi called to tell me that she did not want to go back to her village. “It is shameful to return”, she told me. She cried over the phone with her old, but fresh, shame and pain. She said, “My guardians have spent lots of money to bring me to Delhi. How can I tell them that I have to go back to my village for the cross- examination? I am so ashamed.”

Rajkhowa Commission conducted its first examination at Lungthulien and Parbung on April 2006 where 25 rape and molested victims testified. The investigating team flew inside the venue of the crime by two helicopters that were provided by the Government of Manipur. The Manipur government availed the helicopters after considering the state of the deplorable roads that actually lost itself in the pool of mud, rivers and bushes as it run longer. After the examination, the Hmar Students’ Association, HWA and various other organizations demanded the Commission to make the report public without any delay so as to ensure justice to the rape victims. The Commission also said that it would make its report public two months after the investigation. However, almost after two years the report is not made public yet. Just after the Commission’s examination, Imphal based human rights organizations, Human Rights Alert (HRA), Human Rights Law Network (HRLN) and MAFYF demanded for cross-examinations and for roping in the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to probe the rape case. The involvement of the international organization was not even considered. However, bowing to the demands of the contesting actors, the Commission fixed the dates for a cross-examination on August 20-23, 2006 at Parbung. However it was suddenly called off on the insistence of HRA and MAFYF, on the ground of “insecurity”, despite the unusual privilege of getting helicopter for the journey added with required State sponsored security. The HWA and Hmar Inpui who went two days ahead of the appointed dates by road to reach the assigned venue came to learnt of the cancellation and postpone after reaching Parbung. HRLN, Imphal chapter, then backed out as asked by its headquarters in New Delhi. HRLN headquarters in New Delhi told HSA leaders that they were never intimated about HRLN’s involvement with the Tipaimukh rape case.

The National Commission for Women (NCW) headed by its member, Malini Bhattacharya, intervened and visited Lungthulien and Parbung on May 10 and 11, 2006. Malini and her team reached the fear ridden villages from Mizoram side. Malini met the rape and molested victims in their villages and also visited the refugee camps in Mizoram’s Sakawrdai on May 12 and met the displaced Tipaimukh villagers. NCW, then, made its report public with a list of recommendations for the government to initiate. Besides, there were many organizations that visited the two villages after the forced displacement, landmines and rape. Manipur Chief Minister, Governor, and group of ministers also visited the crippled villages on helicopter.

As is with Manipur, there were few human rights organisations from Imphal who banked and inculcated the culture of doubts, contest and questioning, while the distressed villagers were licking their wounds as displaced people, rape victims and landmine victims. The actors championing human rights made all the possible calculated moves, exploiting their networks and knowledge to negate the inhumane sufferings of the deprived lot. Imagining distanced Tipaimukh and the wretched life of the self-reliant farmers, who still practiced the traditional slash and burn jhum cultivation, from the comfort of Imphal and elsewhere made it difficult to come to terms about the harsh realities of the forgotten parts of Manipur. Similarly, the neglected people knew nothing of the other lives in different parts of Manipur. They don’t even know what the government stands for. They don’t know there is hue and cry over AFSPA, which also covers them. For they don’t know what AFSPA is. They don’t know Manipur’s glorious daughters Kunjarani or Sharmila. The existing gap and ignorance is an inevitable reality that should not be contested or doubted. It just exists. The State is a true picture of different lives. People with different quest and struggles. The blown out miseries and truth have become too inconvenient to swallow. If anyone cannot be fooled all the time, no one can remain silent for all the time. The time may not be for their justice, but at least it has been a time to voice the injustice done to them. The barriers are layered, but the truth remains the same.

Come January 17-20, 2008, as if to mark the second anniversary of the bleeding girls and women, Rajkhowa Commission will be conducting another hearing and cross-examination if it is not called off again. The traditional legal procedures necessitated and imposed by the Commission is in no concern about the vulnerable plights of the raped and molested victims. Public action and any proactive efforts ought to be constructive and remediary even when the pursuit is for justice. The quest for justice should not inflict more harm to the targeted groups, especially when it comes to dealing with women who were severely traumatized. There has been no aid from the government except for the NCW organized medical camp for the rape and molested victims that was organized in Parbung in the end of 2006. The Government of Manipur is also yet to release the promised “interim relief” money, an amount or rupees one lakh each to the rape and molested victims. The government was pushed to the edge of making the promise after the HWA threatened to boycott the 2007 assembly elections in Churachandpur.

Meanwhile, the shattered people do not know about the politics and culture of manipulation attached to their sufferings. They do not know that there are people who are trying to win against them. But they felt that the monotonous act of examination and cross-examination are a spit over their shame and pain. A disgrace to their miseries. It might just help, once again, if we remember the lives in shattered pieces that are still lived behind those shadowed mountains.

(New Delhi, January 9, 2008)