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VIEWPOINT Joydeep

Bhattacharjee

Angst and agony

NNN Photo

Social strife in Manipur might have taken away the shine from this culturally advanced state, but the innovative minds never cease to function. So, be it art or protest; Manipuris continue doing them uniquely.

A A piece of creation.

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our years back during the same month, when 12 desperate Manipuri women took to the streets in protest against the highhandedness of the security forces, none perhaps could have imagined that they would strip. Similarly, when Irom Sharmila began her fast in protest against imposition of a discriminatory act, none believed she would script a new history and draw the international attention towards a law, which they believe draconian unlike its makers. It is again in July, (this year), the mother of the late Manorama, who performed the last rites of her daughter four years after her rape and murder, showed extreme 16

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anger by not performing the same for want of justice. Northeast India has been a cauldron of chaos from the day of India’s independence. Years of social strife, unrest and violence not only decelerated the growth that has put us back by several years, if not by decades, but has also given rise to a situation where security issues became the prime focus, while other social issues have taken the back seat. But that’s what we have come to terms with, that’s what we have started living with. Moreover this is not my point of discussion, which may call for paraphrasing or further enunciation. What I find more pertinent and interesting is the way agitators in the Northeast place their demands or display their anguish. It is in the Northeast where you see a 1000-hour bandh continuing without any defiance. It is here where national highways remain closed for months together. Again it is here, where you find silent protestors like the Manipuri women who resort to demonstrations in their unique way. In 2004, when the Union

Government met the NSCN-IM leaders in Delhi and declared that the demand for Greater Nagaland (of the Naga rebel group) was in its agenda, almost immediately the entire state of Manipur sprang up in anger and the rest is history. The state saw the worst kind of violence and protests that continued for months together and gradually spread to other neighbouring states, which were likely to lose their land in the event of a greater Nagaland coming into being. But again the uniqueness of this agitation was that the protest, which had begun with a candle light procession ignited a massive inferno, that not only left the state with tell tale marks of the brunt, but also gobbled up huge national resources before subsiding. When Manipur was burning, Irom Sharmila was already on her indefinite fast demanding the repeal of the Armed Forces Special (Powers) Act. Irom Sharmila was a gentle and docile girl till November 4, 2000, when her attention was drawn to a gory picture of some youth lying dead in a pool of blood. Her August 08

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