Manipur developments since May are a shame on any democracy but some irksome realities should be recorded here. There are tribes and tribes with a history of violent conflict in the North-East. The task there is twofold. Achieving peaceful coexistence between local tribes is the first part and assimilation of the entire motley lot into mainstream India is the next. Centrist parties-no matter whether Congress/BJP cannot win there without the help of some local group which is bound to be some tribe that alienates some other tribe. Discord is permanent. Moreover, if the centrist parties are too assertive, all tribes raise the cry that their identity is under attack and the centrist initiative gets blunted.
Ill-timed, ill-managed as it was, the Opposition strategy of tabling a No-Confidence Motion (NCM) against NaMo & Co was doomed to fail. Yet the playing out of the scenario has added insult to injury. Gaurav Gogoi from Manipur who tabled the motion has come out with a lame justification that the NCM was successful because it finally forced NaMo to come to Parliament and speak on the Manipur violence. But he must know in the heart of his heart that NaMo & Co have developed such thick skin in the last 9 years that he spoke on Manipur only after the Opposition had walked out in frustration. The same thick skin was evident when Amit Shah’s motion for peace in Manipur too was accepted by the house after the Opposition walk-out. Needless to point out that no division of votes was called for and the voice vote was just a farcical ritual.
Both NaMo and Shah spoke for over two hours on successive days to tighten the screws in the Opposition (sic Congress) coffin. For once Shah conceded that both the Centre and State governments had failed in containing the Manipur shame and violence; yet he condemned politicisation of the issue. This was certainly the Devil preaching the Bible for on the next day NaMo politicised, perhaps out of context, every statement and action of Congress rulers from Nehru to Indira to allege that the Congress and the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty had been busy in splitting the country: both the territory and the people. He referred to Nehru’s “My heart goes out to people of Assam” broadcast during the Chinese aggression in 1962 and the bombing of Mizoram under Indira in 1966. He never showed the decency to concede that these were blunders of two former leaders more popular than him who enjoyed absolute support of the then less than 100 crore Deshwasis, like he claims that at present over 140 crore Indians are behind him.
This is just not cricket, Mr Prime Minister, Sir…
If the Opposition claims a victory in having made NaMo open his tight lips over Manipur it is a very poor cry. NaMo simply exploited the occasion to repeat the sins of the Congress. It was like badminton or tennis; the Opposition tossed ball after ball to him and he hit smash after smash! “Tab Manipur me kiski Sarkar thi” he asked and the BJP members, true to form, shouted ‘Congress’ in chorus. While opposition members tried to interrupt NaMo his cronies went on shouting ‘Modi Modi’ as one man. There was nauseating juvenility on both sides. NaMo’s reply had the usual jibes, taunts, smirks and occasional emotional overstatements (desh ka har yuvak aatmavishwas se bhara huwa hai) so typical of the revivalist jargon of the RSS and its other offshoots. The word play over INDIA/Ghamandiya too was proof of sheer lack of serious thought to bring normalcy to Manipur and the North-East.
NaMo came up with the standard ‘the guilty shall not be spared’ and ‘peace shall soon return to Manipur’ assurances. As is his habit he never explained how and when. No policy change about Manipur and overall North-East was tabled for consideration of the House. It was just another off the cuff (cough?) boast like his most recent ‘Bharat ko duniya ki teesare number ki arthavyavastha banayenge’: when even the less informed know that the first three numbers are firmly occupied by EU, US and China and dislodging any one of them is beyond India as things stand at present. He rounded off his too long speech by a sly advice: when you table another NCM against us in 2028 come better prepared-killing two birds in one stroke.
Where is your victory, Mr Gogoi, et al? U only succeeded in tangling your own horse with your own lasso!
I call the NCM ill-timed because it was tabled just before the PM is scheduled to address the nation on Independence Day. Is the Opposition so naïve as to believe that it could put NaMo on the back foot by targeting him over the Manipur issue on the eve of August 15? If the Opposition had shown mature patience and waited till the August 15 speech it could have exposed the PM’s apathy and lack of policy measures over Manipur in subsequent discussion in the Parliament; because to judge from his reply to NCM I do not expect NaMo to come up with any original strategy over Manipur.
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I call the NCM ill-managed because there was never a build up to expose the failure of the Centre in Manipur and on other fronts. The speeches in support of the NCM were sickeningly repetitive and showed no depth and wisdom expected of the members of Parliament. Every speaker was just targeting NaMo when the country witnessed that right from Soniya Gandhi’s Maut ke saudagar description of him two decades back. NaMo has thrived on this selective outrage of the Opposition. That created space for him to quip that the Opposition had just one agenda: Modi, tumhari kabr kab khudegi. It should be a politically educative exercise for both the NDA and INDIA to make a list of NaMo’s assurances to the countrymen since 2014 and check how many of them have materialised: not more than half at a first guess.
I am pained to note that Rahul Gandhi cut a poor figure at the most opportune moment. Fresh from his Bharat Jodo exercise and bolstered by re-entry into Parliament he should have made a studied presentation on the NCM and exposed the hollow ‘doublespeak’ of NaMo over the last decade or so. Instead, he went into a patriotic haze and alleged that Bharatmata was mortally wounded in Manipur: thereby tossing just another ball at NaMo and Shah to counter this by the mis-deeds of his grandfather and mother. Not stopping at this, he created more space for the RSS-driven BJP to retaliate when he evoked Ramayana by comparing NaMo to Ravana.
Let me blow a whistle here for all NaMo-NDA detractors. Avoid references to the past- especially to ancient history, mythology, epics while discussing present day politics. These areas are dogged with obscurantism and illogic. As far as India is concerned we have too much of history which is not only conjectural but also contradictory. In the same breath one can say that India has been the most secular/fundamentalist society of the world. Same goes for equality, tolerance, social justice, rationalism and harmony etc. This not only obfuscates the debate over current issues but it takes the battle into Sangha Pariwar’s favorite arena. They have used those images of the little known past as a tonic to their cadres and it is next to impossible to wake them out of this self-chosen stupor.
Manipur developments since May are a shame on any democracy but some irksome realities should be recorded here. There are tribes and tribes with a history of violent conflict in the North-East. The task there is twofold. Achieving peaceful coexistence between local tribes is the first part and assimilation of the entire motley lot into mainstream India is the next. Centrist parties-no matter whether Congress/BJP cannot win there without the help of some local group which is bound to be some tribe that alienates some other tribe. Discord is permanent. Moreover, if the centrist parties are too assertive, all tribes raise the cry that their identity is under attack and the centrist initiative gets blunted.
It would be eye opening to compare the North-East with Kashmir Valley. National parties face the same demand there: protection of Kashmiriyat. Yet the issue there is a little less complicated because there is not a multitude of tribes there. Proximity to Pakistan adds a note of urgency to any happening in Kashmir Valley. Sadly, negative developments in the North-East are less palpable for the rest of India.
The situation calls for a joint Congress-BJP initiative over the North-East with Manipur in focus…
As things stand today will this be another day dream?
- Vinay Hardikar
vinay.freedom@gmail.com
(The writer has been working in the public sphere of Maharashtra for the last five decades. His versatile personality has several dimensions, but the primary ones remain to be that of an established writer, journalist, editor, critic, activist, and teacher.)
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