Why Manipur
Burns?
By Ashok Mitra
28 July,2004
The Telegraph
Reading
classics broadens the mind. It also offers clues that help to sort out
knotty contemporary concerns. The national question fills a large part
of the socialist literature spanning from the mid-19th century. The
reason is not at all obscure. A nation
consists of a group
of people who have a government of their own. Should some heterogeneities,
such as of language and culture, distinguish the people constituting
the nation, these are assumed to be taken care of by the deft hand of
the government. The hand, however, can often be far from deft. The people
are not unified, they are a baggage of nationalities riven by differences
in ethnicity, language and culture, and the regime may fail to bring
them together.
This was the problem
afflicting the great Habsburg empire, dominated by German-speaking Austrians:
German-speaking other fiefdoms had no difficulty in considering themselves
as an integral part of the nation-state. The Slavs and the Czechs would
not however agree to merge their identity with a nation chock-full of
German-speaking groups. They kept resisting. The resistance was a major
irritant to the emperor and his flunkies. It posed an almost equal problem
for the ideologues dreaming of a magnificent proletarian revolution
that would sweep across the whole of Europe. Leaders plotting and planning
the revolution had no doubt in their minds: nationalities refusing to
sacrifice their identity in the cause of the nation are a nuisance;
their divisiveness splits the working class, and thereby,
sets back the revolution. Marx had no time to spare for such splitters.
Engels was somewhat more ambivalent, and had a word of praise at least
for the Czechs valiantly fighting against centuries of German oppression;
he was though not supportive of them on overall considerations. Lenin
opted for a cautionary approach: yes, sympathy for the lesser nationalities,
but they must not allow themselves to be used for sabotaging the revolutionary
solidarity of the proletarian masses. Besides, while the Poles, for
example, had a strong case for establishing a separate nation-state
of their own, would they have enough resources to run the administration
of the state on a viable basis? Lenin had his reservations.
Till the November
Revolution and the end of the First World War, much of this was academic
polemics. The births of Poland and Czechoslovakia apart, circumstances
altered in a radical manner for revolutionary ideologues once the Soviet
Union emerged as a reality in 1917. There was now no question of not
acknowledging the datum of the existence of nationalities such as the
Uzbeks, the Turkmen, the Kirgizh and others; their habitations were
a bulk of the former Czarist empire and became annexures of the Union
of Soviet Socialist Republics. Lenin was incapacitated before he could
attempt to tackle satisfactorily the national question: how to reconcile
the interests of Russians and these other folk. It landed on the lap
of Stalin, who approached the issue with rare imagination. Those firmly
of the
belief that Stalin was a cruel, insensate, blood-sucking dictator will
experience a shock. "In [the Soviet] Union, which as a whole unites
not less than 240,000,000 people, of whom about 65,000,000 are non-Russians.
it is impossible to govern unless we have with us, here in Moscow, in
the supreme organ, emissaries of these nationalities, to express not
only the interests common to the proletariat as a whole, but also special,
specific national interest. Without this it will be impossible to govern,
comrades": this was Joseph Dzhugashvili writing to the party's
central committee at the time the Soviet constitution was being drafted.
It is a different
matter whether Stalin's pious wishes were followed to the hilt in the
Soviet Union during the tortuous seventy years of its longevity. Perhaps
it was, perhaps it was not beyond a certain point of time. But the dictum
Stalin scripted stands out for its clarity.
The terms and expressions
have got shifted, the debate is no longer in terms of nation and nationalities;
these days we talk of the centre and the periphery. The centre is the
dominant category, those inhabiting the periphery lead a tremulous existence.
They want to migrate towards power and self-determination, but are thwarted.
Thereby hangs a tale of dispute, misunderstanding, fulmination, reprisal
and counter-reprisal.
Like many other
things, the centre-periphery imbroglio is now a global phenomenon. Consider
the current state of affairs in Manipur, and, for that matter, in the
rest of the North-east. The entities in this region were, in the course
of the 19th century, gobbled up by the British crown and directly administered,
till 1947, by the viceroy of India. They were not, strictly speaking,
a part of the Indian empire; the government of India Act 1935 did not
apply to them. With the departure of the British, the north-eastern
provinces were taken over by the Union of India as if by inheritance.
The question of nationalities was not resolved though. States such as
Manipur remained in the periphery; the Centre was distant and authoritarian.
Each year, Jawaharlal Nehru made quite a ceremony of commending
to New Delhi artistes of different ethnicities from the North-east and
have them perform tribal dances on Republic Day evening - a superficial
gesture of this nature, smacking of feudal mores, took the periphery
further away from the centre.
The nationalities
in the north-eastern region have taken their turn to voice their discontent
with the existing arrangements: they have many problems, and they want
to be heard. The Centre has been cool and indifferent, provoking every
now and then armed rebellions. A pattern has emerged over the past five
decades in the region: the Centre initially is reluctant to even acknowledge
the problems afflicting a nationality; riots rage; the Centre then falls
back on army-bandobast. After many killings, a perfunctory attempt is
made to arrange a ceasefire, followed by some sort of a written patch-up.
This story has been repeated in Nagaland and Mizoram, and promises to
be repeated in Manipur. But in no instance is any intent visible to
go into the root of the malady. The Centre, besides, will rob
one nationality to placate another, or set one against another, almost
on a regular basis: fun and games.
Perhaps the inability
lies in the failure to comprehend that the assumption - the Centre always
knows best the periphery will have to fall in, or else - will simply
not pass muster. And yet, the solution of the centre-periphery issue
should have been easier than it was in the European historical instances.
The entities in India's North-east, in contrast to those 19th century
nationalities who were dispersed all over Europe and flaunted their
distinct identities, are territorially homogeneous. With adequate recognition
on the Centre's part that they deserve equal respect, regard and attention
as other federating states such as Uttar Pradesh or Tamil Nadu do, a
happy season could still have unfolded in the North-east.
Instead, just watch
what is happening in Manipur. While the Meiteis, concentrated in the
three plain districts around Imphal, occupy only 10 per cent of the
territory, they constitute 70 per cent of the state's population. Their
grievances fall by the wayside because, at this juncture, the Nagas
and the Kukis, who hold sway in the strategic hill districts, have to
be given more consideration. The plain Manipuris are disaffected. New
Delhi tries to side-step the issue by buying up votes of legislators.
The culture of smothering
genuine grievances by bribing legislators or chieftains remains the
same whether the party occupying the power centre is the Congress or
the Bharatiya Janata Party. Manipur is unquiet, the Centre sends hordes
of army and police forces. The situation worsens. More troops descend,
incensing the Meiteis further. Unlike in the days of yore, no contingent
of women of easy virtue accompanies the troops. The latter therefore
pounce upon local women, and the situation becomes a thousand times
more explosive.
The Meiteis are
in fact a very gentle people, grace spilling from their countenance
and bearing. They were won over to the Chaitanya cult of Vaisnavism
in the 16th century, which preaches love and humility. Provoked beyond
endurance, the Meiteis are now on the warpath, and they are led particularly
by the women. The Centre, installed in remote New Delhi, will conceivably
continue to behave as woodenly as it has done in the past; it will send
more troops.