Open Secrets: The Explosive Memoirs of an Indian Intelligence Officer (20 page)

But most of the top leadership of the Naga and Mizo insurgents and the Meitei revolutionaries were not petty criminals. They had taken to arms for varying reasons. The Naga imbroglio was handed down as the legacy of the unfinished agenda of the departing empire. The Mizos had rebelled mostly because of mindless handling of the affairs of the Lushai Hills by the insensitive politicians and bureaucrats in Shillong and Delhi. Their failure to contain the mother of all the North Eastern insurgency had also added to the ambience of unrest in the Lushai Hills. Pakistan too did not dither in exploiting India’s fault line in the blue hills of Mizoram.

Manipur was neglected for too long by Delhi and the Meitei Hindus were accepted as docile vashnavites, who were permanently wedded to the philosophy of non-violence. Introduction of vaishnavism had faded away the practice of
Sanamahi
religion. It had introduced a new script and had reoriented the philosophy of life of a troubled people. But the Meiteis had seen very little of peace during there interaction with the Burmese kings and the British colonialists. The Meitei is well known for his fighting mettle. He is wily, clever and tenacious.

Delhi and its representatives in Imphal had utterly neglected the genuine economic aspirations of the valley and the hill people. Statecraft was confined to rudimentary economic activities and much of the vista of social and economic transformation was neglected. The mandarins derived immense pleasure from the imperial game of divide and rule and fattening their own pockets. Corruption at all levels permeated the administrative and the political structure.

The Meitei insurgency was not caused by revivalism. Revivalism is the essence of cultural existence of people. Reconnecting with the roots of older civilisations and cultures often lead to renaissance. The early days of the growth of Indian nationalism had also witnessed such renaissance and reconnecting with the glorious past. Something went wrong in Manipur. The quest for the past had arisen out of frustration with the present political, economic and social circumstances. Delhi wasted time in recognising the right prescription for the ills of Manipur, as it did in the cases of all the states in the Northeast and other pockets of imbalance in the rest of the country.

The Meitei was pushed to the wall to believe that his voice would not be heard unless he too took up arms like the Nagas and the Mizos. Taking into consideration the exiting ambience of insurgency in the North East Delhi should have acted fast to strengthen the valley of peace, inhabited mostly by the Hindu Meiteis.

I, therefore, believe that Meitei resistance had arisen out of acute frustration and disillusionment. The ambience of insurgency and Manipur’s tryst with left extremism too had hardened the resolve of the young Meiteis. From amorphous romantic renegades they were transformed to ideological revolutionaries.

The same belief made me to treat the insurgent movements on a different footing other than the military approach adopted by the state administration, the armed forces and even the Intelligence Bureau. Way back in Imphal I realised that ideological unrest should not be treated as mere ethnic disturbance and that there was no military solution for that. To keep a people with the country the country should also convince the people that it was worth a paradise to live and die for. I still nurse this value. But Manipur was not the last horizon of India’s imbalanced approach to its own people. I had chanced to face the similar crisis of faith in Punjab, Kashmir, Assam and other areas of internal conflict.

*

The oscillation of events during 1970-71 had changed the political geography of the Indian sub-continent that was scripted by the British Empire and the leaders of the majority Hindu and the minority Muslim communities. But that did very little to change my worldview of the conflict of civilisations. The post-partition miseries had embedded in my thought process some elements of hatred; disliking and disdain for the civilisational forces that had enslaved India; the Christian and the Islamic civilisations. These feelings were strengthened in my adolescent mind by my association with the Hindu civilisation protagonists, the RSS. My simplistic black and white perceptions were further strengthened by what I was taught at the Anand Parvat training facility of the Intelligence Bureau. The curricula had a distinct pro-Hindu bias.

I was told in no uncertain terms that certain Christian Missionary forces were supportive of the Naga and the Mizo rebels. The indigenous Islamic forces and the forces of the broader Islamic world, I was given to understand, were at work for destabilising the Indian society and polity. The Muslims were simply not to be trusted. The study of communalism basically meant study of the Islamist forces and their linkages with the Rabita-Al-Alam-Al Islami and worldwide Tablighi Jamaat movements.

Having lived together, ill at ease as it were; the two alien civilisations had never blended meaningfully with India. The Indian soil and the Hindu way of life had absorbed many human waves in the past. Some of the major defined and undefined civilisations had emptied themselves into the sea of Indian humanity. However, the civilisational contrasts fortified by the religious aspects that emanated from the Mount of Sinai and the deserts of Arabia had assumed radical proselytising mechanism as the cornerstone of their advance to the different corners of the world.

There were, however, slight differences between the Christian and Islamic civilisational approaches. The conquistadors of the middle ages had undergone vast changes. While they carried the sword and the scripture with equal conviction they did not insist on total civilisational transformation of the conquered people. Over a period the church allowed civilisational peculiarities of the conquered countries to mingle freely with the prescription of the Book and the boots.

It is not that Islam did not allow any such elbowroom. Certain varieties of Islam did not hesitate in absorbing the flavours of the conquered soil. But some varieties always insisted on
khalis
(pure) Islam and total conformity to the Book they preached from and total acceptance of a new civilisation that basically suited the Arab Bedouins and assorted tribes in the Middle East. Both the streams existed in India in some form or other.

But the British had understood well that the civilisational edges of the Hindu and the Muslim communities were never to be matched perfectly and that would leave scopes for tectonic fissures for few more millenniums. They played their card well and a vast section of the Muslim community was trapped by the lure of a revived Muslim entity out of the ashes of the demolished Islamic Empire of Hindustan. That myth was shattered by the events of 1970-71. The two-nation theory so assiduously crafted by the civilisational wizards and wily empire builders had collapsed and a new ethnic nation, Bangladesh had emerged as a new geopolitical reality.

The views narrated above were, no doubt, my article of faith at some point of time. But to be honest to the Christian missionaries and the Christian populace of the North East I must admit that I did not find them harbouring and nurturing anti-Indian feelings. Christianity had exposed the neglected tribal population to better education and modern social system. I had found the ordinary Naga home more civilised and polished than any Hindu home even in cities like Delhi and Calcutta. The Church often stood up as the voice of the community, not as a religious force, to protest against social, economic and political injustices and often-brutal military and police operations. They performed the same obligations as are being done by the modern day human rights organisations and NGOs. The Church had acted and still acts as the focal beam of a mass of people who believe in a particular faith. Unfortunately for the Hindus there is no such focussed social machinery that can speak for the entire Hindu society, inclusive of the untouchables, depressed and oppressed low caste Hindus. The Arya Samaj and the RSS have failed in this crucial field of unifying the Hindu society.

In this connection I must narrate the story of Angi Luikham, a scintillatingly beautiful Tangkhul woman from Kharasom (Ukhrul). Angi was a simple Christian and never failed to attend the Sunday mass. Sometime in July 1971 I accompanied by my wife and son happened to traverse the insurgency-infested tract between Ukhrul, Koiri, Kharasom and Jessami with the intension of crossing to Phek in Nagaland and spend the night there. Our first stop was at Koiri, where the SIB had a small outpost. Well stocked with petrol, food and drink we started next morning for Kharasom and Jessami. The road was rough and it often traversed through thick undergrowth. We stopped at Kharasom for feeding the child and also have a drink of tea.

Our jeep revolted. It refused to start and driver Mani Singh informed that the carburettor had developed some defect and nothing could be done without replacing some parts of the fuel-injecting chamber. We deputed a runner to Koiri outpost hoping to procure the spare from the nearby Army detachment. L. Hungyo, who accompanied us, came back with more bad news. A group of Chakesang Naga insurgents were camping in the riverbed on Manipur-Nagaland border. They intended to capture and interrogate me.

It was indeed a bad news. We approached the Khullakpa (village headman) and sought his help. He turned his face away and told me that he would not like the idea of inviting the wrath of the Chakesang soldiers for the sake of three Indian lives. We sat down under the village church portico and arranged to send another runner to Jessami for help. I believe he was intercepted by the Naga insurgents and was not allowed to proceed to the Assam Rifles camp.

The fear of being caught by the rogue Naga elements did not worry me. I was more worried about the safety of Sunanda and our child. He did not bother about the gravity of the situation and ran down to a young Naga woman, who was watering the front flowerbeds of the Church.

She talked to Hungyo for a while and disappeared into the village. She returned soon at the head of a procession of the village women, numbering about 30. Angi, as her name was, told me in broken English that I had nothing to fear in her Christian village. She guided us to a peculiar Naga home with a central fireplace and made us seated on wooden planks. I was offered rice ‘madhu’ (beer) and Sunanda a cup of tea.

Angi disappeared for a while only to return with the village headman and about 20 traditionally armed Naga men. She harangued the crowed in Tangkhul tongue and exhorted tem to protect the visitors to the village. I did not understand her exhortations but Hungyo informed me that Angi, wife of the village pastor, had mobilised women and men of the village for our protection. We should be at ease. Angi further assured that a contingent of Kharasom youth would see us off at Jessami.

We tried to express our heartfelt thanks to Angi. She simply crossed her heart and replied in a placid voice that no one could harm a visitor to Christian home.

We spent the night at Kharasom and enjoyed a family dinner with Angi and her pastor husband Jason Luikham. Next morning we started for Jessami and our slow moving jeep was flanked by six Kharasom youths.

Angi and her husband had become an integral part of our life. We nursed the friendship well after our North East sojourn was over. Angi’s beautiful daughter had later come down to Delhi to study medicine. We acted as her local guardian.

Sunanda, who had attended the Church regularly till she graduated out of school, could not repel the lurching doubts in my mind about the Christians. She was not a converted Christian but appreciated the teachings of the Christ and the social practices of the followers of the Christ appealed to her sensitive mind. I respected her views but did not allow her feelings to ‘contaminate’ my think-pod. But The Luikham family of Kharasom had helped me changing my views on the Church and the Christians. I was able to come out of my cocoon of RSS bigotry and the teachings of the Intelligence Bureau. I knew we had enough space in India to live as good neighbours and respect each other’s religious faith.

*

I learnt another glorious lesson, almost at the cost of my life, which brought about slight changes in my deep embedded hatred for the Muslims.

I had learnt to hate them way back in 1946, when a Muslim mob had attacked our home in East Pakistan and forced my family to temporarily shift to Agartala. The hatred was transformed to anger after we were forced to migrate to ‘another India’ in sackcloth and ash. But Kusum Mian was the first Muslim to gently chisel away a couple of layers of the hatred that I nursed so carefully.

For visiting Gwahati and Shillong I normally avoided the national highway that traversed through Golaghat and Kaziranga. I preferred the unpaved forest road that took me to Nowgong via Diphu, Hojai and Kathiatoli and Jaggi Road. The road was not smooth and the terrain not very friendly. But I liked the forest and its unique flora and fauna.

On that fateful day of July 1972 I was summoned to Shillong to meet the Governor and my regional boss. I was directed to arm myself with all that I knew about the breakaway Revolutionary Government of Nagaland and the affairs of the Naga Federal Government, in the light of the last meeting of the
Tatar Hoho
.

Dhiphu was a small administrative centre with a few scattered buildings, Hojai, with its miserably small thatched market huts was still to emerge as an important centre of Islamic studies in North Eastern India and Kathiatoli was just one of the innumerable Bengali Muslim inhabited villages.

A huge tree trunk blocked the narrow metalled road near Kathiatoli. The Assam plains were free from insurgency and I had never encountered hostile elements. Quite often I stopped my car and conversed with the Bengali Muslim villagers who had migrated to Assam mostly from my home district Mymensingh. We Mymensinghias speak a distinct Bengali dialect. There are slight variations between the dialect spoken in southern and northern Mymensingh. But the raw flavour of the language of the Meghna basin always fascinated me. This was the language of ‘Maimansingha Geetika’ (ballads of Mymensingh), wonderful storehouse of Bengali folk literature. This is the language of folk singer Abbasudduin and poet Jasimuddin. I am still fascinated by this uniquely flavoured Bengali dialect.