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Part III

In some hearts, this unreasonable spite still flourishes, but is steadily disappearing. After all, the Japanese are an economic power, and not to be trifled with. Descendants of the Japanese soldiers still visit Kohima and Imphal every year. Last November I met some. One of them was the father of a soldier killed then, and he did not have any malice towards anyone. They wanted to forget the violence and hate that had doomed their loved ones. Their only wish now is that the Indian Government would allow them to erect a memorial of their own in Kohima and Imphal. The Allied soldiers' cemeteries commemorating Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs are at Digboi (near Ledo), Imphal, Kohima and Guwahati. There are numerous graves with rough-hewn headstones or crosses that one stumbles upon in the jungles where these battles were fought. The fiftieth anniversary was observed with dignity and subdued ceremonial splendour by the erstwhile Allies in Imphal in April 1994. No one invited the Japanese who had had their memorial service earlier, to which no other combatant was called.

The trees on Garrison Hill planted after the War are stately now. A cherry tree planted from a sapling of the original near the tennis court from which a Japanese sniper harassed the Allies had grown to full height died a few years ago. Another one has been planted. In the large Kohima village, now part of the state capital and pulsating with life, near a haunting inscription 'Lochaber No More' to the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders, taken from the opening lines of a Scot dirge, children play and pigs forage. Even now rusty mess tins and tanks that have escaped scavenging for decades can be seen there. The track on which the bulldozers and tanks drove up to the DC's bungalow is now a leafy lane with steps. Numerous trees have untraceably hidden the hideous pattern of the War.

Peace, sadly, has not yet returned to this hapless land. After the War this land was never the same. The paths charted by tanks had become roads. With this the physical and geographical remoteness of this area ought to have ended. It did not. As this region has different peoples, following different customs and religions, intolerance and suspicion have distanced them from the rest of India. The roads and airports have failed to bridge this gap. Cultural centres and interminable seminars have failed to treat the malaise of mindless violence, alenation and mutual suspicion. Continuing unemployment and threat of worse to come, and most economic activity in the hands of non North Easterners keep stoking fires of discontent that no one is serious about extinguishing, or even understanding why they burn.

This beautiful land and its charming people still yearn for peace and it is elusive. Our armed forces are alert and are often killed in attacks without warning. Not infrequent also are incidents of one village being forced by the armed forces personnel to burn another village; or old men, women and children being made to stand in the cold and the rain from dawn to dusk every day for 30 days in July and August. Torture is not unheard of. Deaths in ‘encounters’ are common, especially while escaping from maximum security army camps. These and many other incidents have been painstakingly catalogued by Nandita Haksar, B.D.Das and Hrishikesh Roy, lawyers from Delhi and Guwahati, who had filed public interest litigation cases in the Guwahati High Court with some success.

Fifty years of freedom have not changed the life of the people in this region, especially in the hills. With fortified army camps and watchtowers sneering down at every village, can one fault the residents for protesting, especially when as much concern is not shown for their economic uplift as for their 'security.' No water. No market for their crops. Not much medical aid. To supplement their incomes some folk have taken to cultivating cannabis illegally, to buy which North Indian traders come from the plains right up to their villages. For this ganja they get 20 times more money than what they would have got for cabbages, which they themselves would have had to take to a distant market. To escape the pain of a bleak future many young have taken to drugs. It is no coincidence that addicts are most in areas with insurgency and military activity.

Studying descriptions of these battles, I searched in vain for any mention of the plight of the civilians. None cared to estimate or bothered to write about how many must have perished in the indiscriminate bombarding and shelling. Tangkhuls of Ukhrul, Kabuis and Zomis of Tamenglong and Chandels or Meteis of Manipur Valley have suffered and contributed immensely towards a foreigners' war.

In a badly rhymed but fact-filled epic poem in two volumes entitled 'Manipur and the Second World War' by Sanasam Gourhari Singh, a Secretary to the former Maharajah of Manipur, there are some references to the privations the people went through. As many as 20,000 houses were occupied by the British in and around Imphal. A war tax was levied on an unwilling people, who had themselves tried to evict the British in 1891. No wonder the British soldiers were not cheered when they liberated the villages, as they were cheered in Europe.

If these peoples are trusted, treated as friends and equals, and honest efforts to improve their economic lot are made, no one need question their patriotism. Even now a protest for better roads or a bus service is often needlessly misinterpreted as treason. In broad daylight people can be killed by official bullets as well as by insurgents ones. With such obduracy, it is not surprising that peace eludes this alluring land. The dreaded midnight knock or an ambush is still not unknown.

The people are willing, but will they get a chance? Or do we have to wait for more epitaphs such as 'Good Night Daddy' found on a grave in the Imphal War Cemetery?

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