India today seems to have forgotten that “Peace is not merely the absence of war but the presence of justice, of law, of order —in short, of government”. This perception of peace was not only said by 18 century Scientists and Philosopher Albert Einstein, but many political writers including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jane Addams had elaborated on the irrelevance of peace with the absence of war when there is no justice being delivered.
There are not many counter criticism to the idea of peace as define by great thinkers and political writers and it is obvious that presence of justice, proper maintenance of law and order conditions and presence of an effective committed government that insures safeguarding of the rights of every citizens is what every people accepted as real peace.
If we go in the line of the political thinkers, and we accept the definition of peace as described by them; is the so called “Peace Talk” that has been going on for 22 years between the Government of India and the National Socialist Council of Nagalim, which is at the concluding stage, a right terminology?
A freelance columnist, during an interaction with some students of the South East Asian studies, JNU once said that – sometimes two countries respected each other without creating disturbance to one another if both have similar military strength, economic powers and of course deadly high tech weapon like nuclear bombs. That was in late 90s during a camp organised at Puri in Orissa where delegates from Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and some other South East Asian countries were present. If it is about to maintain peaceful co-existence between two neighbouring countries it is probably by either having similar military and economic might or by proving or showing that the other entity is at no par with the might of the country. The later part of 2000s , the idea of Mr. Mahopatra, the then freelance columnist become irrelevant. Considering the fact that India and Pakistan , despite being neighbouring nuclear power countries still continue to embark on war or war like situation. Now, the present day concept of keeping peace with neibouring countries is by showing that they are not in par to challenge the might of the country. But, when it comes to internal crisis like separatist uproar and wage war against the government of their own country, the situation is different. A blame game culture of pointing fingers to external force (other country) for the cause is just for excuse and it will in no way solved such issue.
Leaving aside the problem of Jammu and Kashmir (which need to be deal with other perspective) almost all intellectuals, think tank and those building the nation called India knows that the problems in the North Eastern states (Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram etc) was a different issue. This column had many times given analytical points of the root of the arm struggle in North Eastern states particularly in the state of Manipur. The ideas submitted in this column were not simply assumptions but were base on the writings of the top Intelligence Bureau, from the mainland, who had work and served the region.
Between the years 1949 till 1972, from the time when India was in the process of nation building till it works to strengthen the nation, those in the then government had committed many wrongs. Almost every of them were mostly occupied by the attitude of the Colonial rulers British and they definitely underestimated the people of these region. A perfect example is the History. An erstwhile kingdom which was the 2nd nation in the entire South East Asia to have a written constitution and to run a democratic government by people elected through adult franchise was reduced to not even at the status of an Union territory. It was kept as a Part -C state governed by a commissioner. The frustrations among several youths of that time are the cause of the present insurgency movement in the region.
Despite, knowing these facts, the government authority of that time ignored and the unfortunate part was that they underestimated the people and believed that guns and bayonets can suppressed as these region, which have a history of over 2000 years, was no different from the Wild Wild East.
The ugly chapter in the history of India is the idea of Surrenderee Policy during mid 1990s. And the failed diplomatic channels formulated by the then Narashima Rao government was the signing of the agreement with the NSCN-IM on August 1, 1997. The signing of the so called peace agreement and the introduction of the Surrendered rehabilitation programme is being term as “failed and premature diplomacy” because the word “peace” has been misinterpreted.
22 years, the law and order condition of the state of Manipur was even worst then hell. Bandh Blockade, encounter, ambush to security forces, fake encounter killings, corruption nepotism were the way of life of the Manipuri people. And all these years people are living in fear and justice to the common people are just another dreamt.
It is not because that the NSCN-IM may refuse to sign the final agreement as scheduled by the government of India that this write up called it so but because the so call “Peace” used in the peace talk has been misinterpreted . In the absence of war between NSCN-IM and the Indian Army – common people face the worst nightmare, forget about getting justice.
