Manipur
Naked anger
July 15, 2004 has taken a permanent
place in the history of India, when a
group of women in Manipur stormed
the Army base at Kangla Fort in
Imphal and stripped in daring pro-
test against the rape and killing of a
32-year old Manipuri girl Thangjam
Manorama.
They carried a banner saying:
“Come and rape us all” and shouted in
a protest never seen anywhere in the
country. About 40 women converged
on the main entrance to Kangla Fort,
the headquarters of the Assam Rifles’
9 Sector, on the day. They shouted
slogans against excesses by security
forces and demanded punishment of
the personnel who allegedly tortured
and killed Thangjam Manorama a few
days prior to that incident.
A dozen of them — most middle-
26 April 08
Cover Story
aged and some older — shed their
clothes and tore into the campus
through the western gate. The sentries
did not budge from where they stood,
dumbstruck by the protest. The other
women in the group held banners that
said “Indian army take our flesh” and
“Indian army rape us”. Some of the
demonstrators fainted, possibly over-
come by emotion.
Manipur is the worst victim of in-
surgency and excesses on part of se-
curity personnel, which saw such an
unprecedented demonstration never e
personnel, which saw such an unprec-
edented demonstration never experi-
ence in the country before. It also gave
rise to demand for further introspec-
tion into the excesses committed by
the security personnel equipped with
the Armed Forces Special Powers Act
(AFSPA), the abolition of which has
been the main demand of the iron lady
of Manipur Irom Sharmila, who has
been on fast for seven years.
Irom Sharmila – a life
without food
Irom Sharmila Thanu is now 34
and already completed her seven years
of fast in demand for the repeal of
draconian law like the Armed Forces
Special Powers Act (AFSPA). She is
the only person in the entire country,
who has remained without solid food
since 2000, demanding withdrawal
from her state, of one of the most dra-
conian laws in the statue books called
AFSPA.
The historic fast launched at Ma-
lom was no planned affair. There was
a firing by security forces at Malom
bus stand, which is nearly 15-16 ki-
lometers from Imphal, on November
2, 2000. It saw blood of ten innocents
spilled on the streets. The mother Irom
Sakhi Devi had no inkling of what
was in store of her youngest daugh-
ter Sharmila. She merely sought her
mother’s blessings to work for ‘better-
ment of humanity’ and left. Sharmila
straight away went to the very spot
where the bloodbath had occurred
and started her fast unto death. Irom
Sharmila’s legendary struggle for hu-
man rights has become an important
symbol of the resistance of the Mani-
puri people who are fighting their pres-
ent day suffering at the hands of policy
makers. Her action drew international
attention to “excessive militarisation
of the region” and the “promulgations
of many a black laws like AFSPA at
the cost of the life and liberty of the
people of this region.” She wrote a new
history for the entire region caught be-
tween insurgents and security forces.
Some aid for AIDS please!
HIV/AID, the most dreaded dis-
ease the mankind is suffering from,
has spread its tentacles in the North-
east far and wide and the worst vic-
tim of this is the small state Manipur.
Several reports blame extensive use
of drugs and sharing of needles as the
main reason for this disease spreading
at an alarming rate. The HIV virus is
by now running in the veins of scores
of people in Manipur threatening to
wipe out the entire population of two
million populations in recent times.
The threat of a looming disas-
ter was quite palpable in the 80s but
the state machinery did nothing on
this front. By February 2000, a total
of 9,732 HIV positive cases and 574
AIDS cases were reported of which
131 were registered AIDS victims.
Three districts namely Imphal, Thou-
bal and Churachandpur contribute
about 85 per cent of the total number
of ‘positive cases’.
According to some analyst from
Manipur, besides other factors, the
state government’s ineffective policies
and programmes to combat the dis-
ease by raising awareness level among
the risk groups; state’s backward econ-
omy; and the geographical proximity
with Myanmar, which produces a vast
chunk of the world’s opium are some
of the important determinants that has
added to the spectrum of AIDS in the
region.
The main factor of the spread of
HIV in border state of Manipur lies
with its close geographic proximity
with the golden triangle an area that
spreads between Thailand, Myanmar
and Laos. The Golden Triangle is one
of Asia’s two main illicit opium-pro-
ducing areas. It is an area of around
350,000 square kilometers. Along
with Afghanistan in the Golden Cres-
cent (together with Iran and Pakistan),
it has been one of the most important
opium-producing area of Asia and of
the world since the 1950s.
Manipur being close to Golden
Triangle, the state has become a ma-
jor route for drug smuggling and other
illegal goods. Heroin worth crores of
rupees have entered Moreh through
the porous Indo-Myanmar border. The
extensive use of Moreh route as a tran-
sit point coupled with dire economic
situation have led to a large number of
Manipuri youths started taking drugs
and infection of the deadly HIV virus.
In Manipur AIDS has emerged as a
serious public health concern. In fact,
it is becoming a number one killer of
young people in Manipur. The rap-
idly increasing number of HIV posi-
tive persons in the state and the fear
of the Manipuris being annihilated by
the so called “deadliest disease” of the
modern world has now haunted every
localities, villages and towns, AIDS
death has become a daily phenom-
enon, the wailing and groaning of be-
reaved families reverberated the hilly
state, once known for its scenic beauty
and rich culture. In this traumatic and
agonizing situation, the people of Ma-
nipur have to work together more than
ever before. Time has come for the
people to rise to the occasion.
Manipur
Forgotten heroes (ding-
ko sing, sports)
Thoiba Singh, Zoramthanga,
Gunabir Singh, Sanamacha Chanu,
Torak Khapran – the list is long and
these names are only a few among
the eminent sportspersons from the
Northeast who have faded into obliv-
ion. These players who represented
India at the highest level and bought
glory to the state and the country as
a whole have been long forgotten. Not
many remember T. Ao the first Indian
football captain who represented India
in the 1948 Olympics or Zoramthanga
the first ever bronze medalist in the
1990 World Boxing Championship.
The Sepak Tapkraw team, which won
the world championship hailed from
Manipur. Today many of them look for
daily wages, Gunabir Singh and Kiron
Khongsai represented India at the
highest level in football but today have
almost no role to play in the football
associations. It is alleged that Thoiba
Singh was dropped from the national
team because he was in contention to
captain India at the Olympics, some-
thing not acceptable to the strong
Punjab lobby hence he was sidelined
on flimsy ground. Long before we had
Dingko Singh, the first ever winner at
the world stage. But when he passed
away recently, no regional or nation-
al media even reported the incident.
Shocking but true: it seems that we
have forgotten our heroes.
April 08 27