[India Today]

Published date: 30th Sep 1982

It is a war without end, a no-win situation in which nobody can provide answers to some questions: How long will this go on? Which side will eventually prevail? What is the cost to the nation in money, matériel, men?

This was has no name. It is more an endless series of skirmishes than a sustained military confrontation. Yet, this war has been raging intermittently for 26 years in Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram.

It is also a terrible human tragedy, a tragedy that flings soldiers trained to battle with the enemy’s identifiable army against tenacious opponents who are Indians-and yet foes. Trapped between the two sides are the ordinary civilians- the villager, the simple government employee, the middle-class town inhabitant. For them, the future spells strife, bloodshed, terror and hatred.

It is a journey into the heart of darkness, a sadness made sharper by the cold highland air. The sun rises far earlier in these regions than any where else in the country, and the nights are full of jungle sounds. At every step these sounds grow in cadence, filling unfamiliar ears to bursting; the darkness seems to hide a thousand men with hungry guns.

The tension swirls around all the time, and the Nagas, the Manipur and the Mizos, accustomed to laughter and quick song, used to their own strong identities, nevertheless harbour deep fear-and anger. Every night-time knock heralds danger-either the hunted guerrilla demanding shelter or food at gunpoint, or the harried soldier bursting in to ransack the house in pursuit of his quicksilver quarry.

The steep jungled hills that tumble pell-mell through the region provide ideal terrain for the guerrilla. ‘Civilisation’ in the western sense came late to these hills, in the late 19th century, and it has not yet supplanted the older- and equally civilised- order.

In 1956, when Angami Zapu Phizo lit the fires of revolt in Nagaland, the Indian Army was sent in to quell the flames. Unaccustomed to jungle warfare, fed with the doctrines of counter-insurgency gurus like Frank Kitson and Robert Thompson, men who brewed mistakes committed during the Malayan counter insurgency into disaster in Vietnam, the army behaved more like a garrison force, charged with the task of bringing fierce aliens into line.

Many mistakes, dictated by whimsy and caprice, were committed in the years afterwards, but the Nagas, the Manipuris and the Mizos recognise that they are still seen as uneasy partners in a strained marriage. And insurgency has a way of incubating an endless sequence of mistakes.

Over the years, the tragedies of these states have become as commonplace as those elsewhere in India. But truth has been a casualty of this war, too, and bloody counters between the guerrillas and the curity forces’ today merit only scant space in the national press.

Meanwhile, the nation has been pouring in more and more troops into these areas. Dozens of rebel leaders are either in prison, or dead, or have come “over ground”. Nagaland’s Phizo and Mizoram’s Laldenga are in exile in the West. But war continues.

The tragedy is immeasurable, and the brutal truth is that Assam, and Khalistan affect the national psyche more only because they provide vital supplies of oil, tea timber and food: In contrast, the Cenit complains of pumping in untold crores aid into Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram, and of subsidising their unproductive economies.

Delhi’s perception of the far Northe east’ is warped by its geographical distance from the capital. Nor are people elsewhere in the country very concerned about what happens in these distant regions. Shaped by their histories into close knit, insular lives, the Northeasterners of Mongoloid stock talk painfully about how they are often ta ken to be foreigners in other parts of India. Such ignorance only deepens their sense of isolation.

These warped perceptions boil over when mediocre bureaucrats from other parts of India more often than not on punishment postings are sent to administer these sensitive areas. Such men have treated their charges like colonial outposts.

All the people in this region have proud martial histories, traditions of valour, process and pride. For them India represents only a brown colonialism that replaced the white colonialism of the British. To them, life ideally means a dignified existence, se cure in values that have been pieced together over centuries. What they demand is sensitive partnership and peace, not vassal- hood and bloodshed.

It is an impossible situation. The young Naga, Meetei or Mizo who studies in universities outside his region still wants to return to live among his people. But unemployment and anger quickly build up, and self-respect finally seems to flow only from the barrel of a gun.

The mistakes run deeper. Saner minds in the army speak feelingly about the web they are entangled in. Corruption, abysmal economic development, and thoughtless destruction of traditional societal values have provided insurgency its best encouragement.

As the heat increases, the security forces, guns at the ready, cannot distinguish between the people and the rebels, and the civilians in turn cannot distinguish between one soldier in uniform and another. What is. happening to all the actors in this interminable tragedy?