The North-East Blog
Know what leading academics, writers, poets, musicians, activists and journalists from the region have to say to develop an informed perspective on matters related to this part of India.
by It is a truism today that reading the daily newspapers from Manipur, especially from afar on the Internet, can be a depressing routine. For most of us from Manipur stationed outside the state, this is a compulsive exercise every morning, though thankfully and understandably, I would imagine, a little less disconcerting than these news would appear to somebody who does not belong to the state following news from the state. A certain amount of psychological conditioning, or desensitisation if you like, to blood and gore, is the blessing or curse a Manipur domicile has generally come to be fortified with, having literally grown up and been forced to cope with unmitigated violence and lawlessness for decades without end.
Manipur, without doubt, would qualify as yet another case of unacknowledged tragedy where the abnormal has been allowed to become the norm. As for...Read more...
It is not too infrequent that we hear of the President of the United States of America, Barak Obama, being in his legacy years. It is his second term in the office, the occupant of which is considered the most powerful man in the world. It is also an office which cannot have an occupant for more than two terms, each term lasting four years. In other words, this will be the last term Obama can be the President of America. This being what it is, he does not have to worry about so many things politicians normally are bogged down with, and most importantly re-election and therefore, the need to cater to the demands of petty constituencies of his electorate, often sectarian in nature. He would therefore also be much more free to be himself and to rise above mundane pressures and exigencies of everyday politics. Knowing...Read more...
The news that the battle of Imphal-Kohima during the Second World War (WWII) was voted in Britain as Britain's most hard fought and significant battle in its entire history, ought to excite more than mere wonderment in the two states that remote as they are, they had been the pivot around which an important chapter of the history of the world actually turned so significantly. There undoubtedly would be a mixed sense of awe, pride and victimhood in both the places at the confirmation that they had been in the eye of a violent campaign of a magnitude they had never ever imagined before. There would also be an equally understandable sense of sudden importance at this revelation. These senses of elation, expectations and awe however can only at best be ephemeral, popping up and acquiring a place in the iconic memory of the place for a brief...Read more...
The Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), 1958, has never been out of focus in any discussion on the problems of the North-East region. Its continuance has indeed become what Georgio Agamben calls a permanent "State of Exception", during which the civil rights of citizens or a section of citizens of a state are wilfully and severely curtailed by the State. The discussion on the issue once again has leapt into the front burner after reports by United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Christof Heyns, and Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, Margaret Sekaggya, which derided in the strongest terms the continuance of this Act as a dark blemish on the democratic credentials of India. Following this, the Union home minister, P Chidambaram, has even gone on record that a proposal for reforming he Act is pending with the government. This is welcome.
Irom Sharmila is in love with somebody who has been communicating and sharing soul anguish with her in her confinement through letters. Report in the media declared this loudly a year ago. Nothing very strange about this, after all Sharmila is only 39, and living alone in a prison cell after having vowed to sacrifice eating to demand the repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), for almost the last 12 years now. Her fast will complete 12 years on November 2 which is the day her family says her fast began, or November 5 when the newspapers first took notice of her fast and put it on record in the next day's edition.
The terrible privation she has inflicted upon herself and how she has been coping with it is next only to superhuman and...Read more...
More about Pradip Phanjoubam
Pradip Phanjoubam is Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, and editor of Imphal Free Press.Recent Posts by Pradip Phanjoubam
- Hunter Gatherer: Of legitimacy, moral policing and an enlightened civil society
It is a truism today that reading the daily newspapers from Manipur, especially from afar on the Internet, can be a depressing routine. For most of us from Manipur
- Hunter Gatherer: make these years count, Okram Ibobi
It is not too infrequent that we hear of the President of the United States of America, Barak Obama, being in his legacy years. It is his second term
- Battle of Imphal-Kohima most significant battle in British history: opportunity to grab the Unesco Heritage tag
The news that the battle of Imphal-Kohima during the Second World War (WWII) was voted in Britain as Britain's most hard fought and significant battle in its entire history,
