TO BE YOUR KNIGHT

      This will be the last time I wield my pen. My eyes are weak, I can barely see. But I sit myself down at the end of my days because I know I can’t leave without ever having said what I have felt everyday for almost half a decade. And I write this in the hope that in a rare lucid moment, it might catch your eye and speak to you in a way I haven’t been able to. 

     The first time I saw you, you were but a kid- probably in High School with dreams of a brighter future. And I was a fresh young graduate all set to join the Assam Civil Services. Remember those nights we sat in your house- Young ‘educated’ men enthralled by your father’s talk of nationalism and a movement that was brewing? Those nights created dreams of a future where our children would study without discrimination, where library books wouldn’t be passed around just so a “tribal” couldn’t get his hands on them. A future where you and I could walk around without being taunted as beggars and fools just because we looked different. As the dream transformed itself into a vision, I found myself picking a green uniform over the life of a civil servant, wielding a gun instead of a pen- without a shred of regret because I believed I had been called to serve my land and my people.

    Imagine my joy when I saw you again two years later at Boys’ ME School at Aizawl, among the volunteers who had come forward to cook for us greenhorns playing at war. The songs we sang, our stolen looks of promise, all fed by the hope of a better life after the guns were silent. Your happy smile is the last thing I remember before the attack, before the chaos that turned our worlds upside down. In the days and nights that followed while we hid in angst waiting for a chance to right a wrong, I was tortured by thoughts of you and wondered if you lived through that horrible day when the sky rained death upon our happy fellowship. I beat myself up for not having taken you along but then reasoned that was not the life I wanted for you. Days and nights in wild hideouts, a fugitive in my own land, fuelled by the need to chase the usurper out, knowing I needed to be a guerilla against the man with bigger guns. The vision by then had become a cause.

       At Ruallung I said a thousand prayers when I saw you. You were still so beautiful and my cause became so much dearer because you were still a part of it. But you were unhappy; my dear, how your eyes had grown dull. And your smile couldn’t reach them, I know you tried. There was never a time for a guerilla to feed the flame of a romance but my heart had no room for doubts. Seeing you was all that mattered, I never even thought to question why you were so sad. My walk home with our supplies was lighter than my journey out with an empty rucksack, only because I had seen you and knew you were alive, waiting for me. It was only at night, in the cruelty of a watch under a moonless sky that my heart bled, that I felt it squeezed till I could breathe no more. Major Pritam Singh. The name replaced every beat of my heart while all I wished for was to hold you in my arms and blow everything else away.

     March 20, 1968. The dreaded man was dead, we had been planning for days and he was finally dead. Taking the spoils after an attack like we always do, I walked right up to his dead body because I wanted to frame in my head the face of the man who had tortured you and whose name had tormented me for so long. It was then that I saw the little notebook in his pocket. It had your name on it, as it had other names, but yours more often than others, and dates against each written name. Even in death, this devil was to haunt me. I traced each night you were forced to be with him, wishing I had known and that I had come to shield you. But a guerilla could not be your knight in shining armour. Forgive me, my love.

       The next I heard, you were at the Civil Hospital in Aizawl. The kindly doctor there had done his best to heal your wounds they said. But those who had inflicted them could not be more indifferent and no one could tend the hurt inside. I was told you were not yourself anymore, that the trauma of the many invasions had done you in. My love, it would have been too much for even the strongest of us. But your life had been spared and this I felt was in answer to my prayers. The day we said our vows you were happy, you were once again the girl I had loved from so many years ago. When you trembled at my every touch I never blamed you. Each day has been worth it just knowing you are now safe and I could watch you sleep in peace. And on those nights you stayed awake, when fear took over and their faces came back to haunt you, I could finally be that knight you needed and my presence calmed you. But I cannot point a gun against ghosts and memories of tragedies that were all too real. Watching you slip further away from me and from a world that had been cruel, all I could do was pray that it would all end soon.

   Yet here we are today, both invalids. Waiting for salvation and a life of love undisturbed by rememberances of horror; living in a world that shuns us exactly because we had fought for it. It’s hard to understand my love, I know. What felt so right then still feels just as right. If we could go back we would probably do just the same- for what is life worth if not for the struggle of a better one? Even if those we thought we were fighting for do not understand, I still believe in the cause that drove us; and I believe their todays are so much better for the years we spent in anguish. If we could go back, I still wouldn’t have offered to make you the wife of a servant who slogged for a Government that wanted to trample him and his people. It would not have been right to see you in a plush home tending to nothing more important than your flowers or hosting parties for ‘Babus’ who secretly looked down upon us.

      There’s only one thing I would change could we choose to go back, my love. I would take your hand on March 5, 1966 and not let go as I run, to meet whatever fate awaited us, together. Then, perhaps, I could always have been your knight.

March 2, 2013.

GROUPING OF VILLAGES IN MIZORAM

GROUPING OF VILLAGES IN MIZORAM
Lest we forget
For Zoram Ni

Background:
Mizoram was hard hit by a famine soon after the region was admitted into the Indian Union. The unsatisfactory remedial measures from Assam government resulted in a political disturbance that tormented the hills for about two decades spearheaded by the Mizo Famine Front, later transformed into a political unit called Mizo National Front (MNF). In February 1966 the MNF intensified its activities and the party decided to start an armed revolt.
The attack on the Aizawl Treasury began at midnight on 28th February, 1966 and the Lungleh Treasury was also attacked on the same day. Simultaneously the outposts of Lungleh, Tlabung, Champhai and Kolasib were attacked and captured whereas Aizawl was held out by the Ist Battalion Assam Rifles.
When the Government of India learnt of the outbreak, troops were sent to the area. By an Extra-ordinary Gazette Notification Published on 6th March, 1966, the Government of India declared the Mizo National Front an Unlawful Organization. Being satisfied that the MNF had been indulging in activities prejudicial to the security of Mizo District in the State of Assam and the adjoining part of the territory of India, the Central Government by effecting the necessary amendment of the rules ordered that Rule 32 of the Defence of India Rules, 1962 shall be applicable to the Mizo National Front.

The Defence Of India (Amended) Rule 32 of 1962
Rule 32 of the Defence of India Rules, 1962 as amended provides that no person shall-

a) manage or assist in managing any organization to which this rule applies.
b) promote or assist in promoting a meeting of any member of such an organization or attend any such meeting in capacity.
c) publish any notice or advertisement relating to any such meeting.
d) invite persons to support such an organization or otherwise assist the operation of such an organization.

If any person contravenes any of the provisions of this rule, he shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 7 years or with fine or with both.

The Mizo District was subsequently declared ‘a disturbed area’ under the Assam Disturbed Area Act, 1955. The Armed Forces (Assam and Manipur) Special Power Act, 1958 was also applied to the area by which the Government of India, under Article 352 of the Constitution, entrusted the responsibility of law and order in Mizoram to the Army and issued a strict instruction that the Army was to function as in war time but strictly in aid of the civil power. The matter was also discussed in the Parliament. Home Minister G.L Nanda made a statement in Parliament on March 3, 1966 saying, “the total number who took part in all those places- Lungleh, Aijal, Eayrengte (Vairengte), Chawngte and Chimluang (Chhimluang) who resorted to acts of lawlessness and violence were 800 to 1300 tribals… As a result of this, the army has been asked to deal with situation in Mizo Hills District. Transport of troops to Aijal by helicopters has been going on this morning and troops are also moving by road to Aijal and expected to reach by noon today.”

Grouping of Villages

Lt. General (later Field Marshal) Sam Manekshaw, GOC-In-C, Eastern Command, Calcutta, recommended grouping of villages to facilitate effective military operations. The Governor of Assam, B.K.Nehru, opposed the idea and the Central Cabinet rejected the army proposal of grouping on October 20, 1966. The army lobbied for its case during the next few weeks and the scheme was finally cleared by the Government of India on December 5, 1966. In its 6 P.M news broadcast on January 3, 1967, the All India Radio announced the decision of the Government to group villages in Mizo Hills for security reasons. Lt. General Manekshaw and A.N.Kidwai, Chief Secretary, Assam announced the decision in a Press Conference held in Calcutta and Shillong respectively on the same day. Formal orders were issued by B.C. Carriapa, Commissioner of Cachar and Mizo Hills Division and Ex-officio Central Government Liaison Officer for Mizo Hills, under Rule 57 of the Defence of India Rules, 1962.

In forty-nine days between 4th January and 23rd February, 45,107 inhabitants of 109 villages were forcibly grouped into 18 group centres on the main road of Vairengte- Aizawl-Lunglei.
The villagers were ordered to move bag and baggage with whatever property they could carry to the centre. All the grains, fowls and pigs that could not be carried were burnt along with their houses so as to keep food and shelter out of the reach of the insurgents. There was absolute confusion everywhere. Women were wailing and shouting and cursing. Children were frightened. Young boys and girls held hands and looked at their burning villages with a stupefied expression on their faces. Pigs were running about, mithuns were bellowing, dogs were barking and fowls setting up a racket with their fluttering and cackling.

The Village Council Presidents and Elders were ordered at gun point to sign the document that said that they were being harassed by the insurgents, and because their own village did not have communications, educational, medical and other facilities, they had voluntarily asked to be settled in the Grouping Centres under the protection of the Security Forces. Another document stated that they had burnt down their own villages, and that no force or coercion was used by the Security.

V.F.Jafa, an IAS officer of 1965 Batch who served as SDO (Civil) at Lunglei in 1967 and Additional District Magistrate, Aizawl in 1968, who was involved in the task of grouping honestly confessed, “We had to protect ourselves with false certificates”


Second and Third Phase of Grouping

In course of time, public resentment against grouping mounted and it was found that the legal base for the forceful grouping namely, the Defence of India Rules was weak. In Nagaland, it was used and withdrawn again in 1956-57. The Governor of Assam consequently promulgated early in 1968, an Ordinance known as ‘ The Assam Maintenance of Public Order (AMPO), 1968’ which was to be used as the legal base for the continued grouping of villages by force, in preference to the application of the Defence of India Rules.

The Second grouping order for grouping of another 185 villages, with a population of 95,917 to 41 centres was issued by the District Magistrate of Mizo Hills under the Assam Maintenance of Public Order Acts (AMPO), 1968. This was followed by a third forced grouping of 63 villages by the Army with a population of 47,056 in 26 centres in 1969 without any order from the Government. The Government regularized this grouping by an ex-post facto order issued in 1970 under AMRO. By 1972, there were 102 grouping centres accommodating 240,000 persons, or more than 80 percent of the Mizo Hill population of 285,000. The remaining 45,000 people lived in Aizawl, Lunglei, Saiha and a few ungrouped villages in the Pawi-Lakher region in the South.

Purpose of Grouping

The immediate aim of the grouping was to facilitate effective military operation against the underground elements who had taken control of the interior villages by cutting off the sources of food supply and shelter to the MNF as was conceived by the Army authorities. In every grouping centre there was a military unit to control them.

High Court stopped the Grouping of Villages

While the last two phases of grouping of villages were being carried out, the general resentment against grouping mounted to such an extent that one Mizo namely Sub. K. Zahlira (Rtd) of Saikhamakawn Village challenged the orders in the Gauhati High Court as violation of the Fundamental Rights guaranteed in the Constitution. The High Court directed the suspension of all further grouping and asked the Government of Assam to show cause as to why this order should not be made obsolete. The matter was dropped by the High Court on 6.1.1971 after the Government’s assurance that no further grouping of Villages was planned. Thus, the order issued for the third phase of grouping was cancelled. By this time, however, 80 percent of the population had already been relocated although the southern part of Mizoram was spared.

In spite of the grouping of villages in most parts, the intensity of the insurgency continued until about 1970. As a matter of fact, disturbances continued in a virulent form until 1980s.

The Pain
To mention the atrocities committed upon the Mizos, during the first four months alone, the MNF Secretary, Publicity Department, S.Lianzuala said, “So far as my knowledge goes, in North Mizoram district alone, the Indian Army burnt down 21 Villages and gutted 2,133 houses, they raped 54 women, out of whom 2 adult women and a minor girl died due to excessive copulation by a number of soldiers. They burnt 17 churches, and looted many others, cooking, sleeping inside the churches while the villagers were not allowed to worship there. They cursed those homeless bewildered women and children, saying that, ‘we do not care even if you all die, and we don’t need you. What we want is your land’. They treated the innocent Mizo people with fearsome manners and as cruel as possible.”

Tlangchhuaka also emphatically highlighted, “Like the World War II stories of rapes indulged in by Marshal Thukov and his soldiers in Berlin, they (Indian soldiers) did the same in Mizoram. They spoiled many virgin girls… even married ones… some girls were forced to their camps for their own pleasures. There is no limit to their atrocities. The men were driven away towards the jails with no chance to mention their rights. Many were beaten to death, hanged upside down and they suffered all kinds of tortures and as a consequence many were deformed physically. They called the general public meeting in the Churches, and used them for torturing and killing the inmates. They even raped some girls in the churches, and in some churches they did not allow them to come out of their meetings.”

When the disturbance broke out in Mizoram, the Indian Security Forces often disrupted and even dispersed church meetings in many villages. Lalthangliana Philips blamed them (the Security Forces) for defiling the churches and sacred properties wherever they went and of robbing and camping in the churches. The soldiers cut and tore the Holy Bibles and Hymn books into pieces and did not allow regular church meetings in most of their occupied villages. He further alleged that some of the Indian Commanding Officers even said, “You bloody Mizos, call upon your God Jesus, and bring him here that we may defeat him along with you.” These vile challenges flared up the religious sentiments of the people and alienated them into becoming strangers” .

Hundreds of Mizo families therefore sought refuge in Shillong and other places in Assam and Manipur and also in Burma to escape the chaos at home, and a further and much larger Mizo population were caught between two fighting armies. There was scarcity of food and other essential commodities in the district. The convoys which were run to bring in foods and other goods under security force protection were few and far in between because of the frequency of ambushes and heavy security force casualties. The Border Roads Organisation, which had been building strategic roads in the district since 1964, was also finding it difficult to build and maintain roads under such insecure conditions. To add to the Government’s discomfiture, there were reports of serious human and civil rights violations and maltreatment of civilians in the hands of the Security Forces.

Opposition

The MNF also understood the idea behind the grouping of villages and therefore, they opposed the grouping in their limited capacity. About 2,000 villagers of Keifang and Tualbung villages were successfully prevented by the Mizo National Army (MNF forces) from being grouped at Thingsulthliah Centre in January, 1967.

Life in the Grouping Centres

The manner by which the Indian troops carried this plan was cruel and treacherous. The Indian troops in battle dress marched in the night and surrounded villages before dawn to make sure that no villager escaped. The people were forced out of their ancestral homes with what they could carry in their hands. They were then driven like cattle to where nothing but torture awaited them. The Indian troops then searched vacated houses and took away any valuables they could find and then burnt the houses while the owners were still watching. As the Government of India thought that starvation of the MNF people will be one of the effective measures to crush their movement, they decided to burn the stores of grain of the people thereby inflicting suffering on the innocents too.

Many people compared the Grouping Centres with ‘Concentration Camps’. At the beginning, these centres were in the open air without any housing facility or even shade. The people had to sleep in open fields for days and nights. Children, even small babies, suffered under the scorching heat of the day and the chilly cold of the night while their parents were building thatched huts. Over and above, the people were given meager subsistence ration even while the troops forced them in fencing the grouping centres.

As they were not provided with housing facility all construction was to be borne by the villagers. Every movement of the people was under the strict vigilance of the troops and suspicion (of supporting MNF) had to be paid for with life. As such, at Thingsulthliah Camp, three boys who had gone to the jungles to cut bamboos for their house were shot dead on the mere suspicion of supporting MNF. Their bodies were covered with leafs and left at the spot. Their relatives, conscious of their unusual absence, went to the place and found their bodies.”

The Grouping centres were also used as forced labour camps. All the able persons were requisitioned to work in the military road construction, carrying water, fire woods, supplies of food items and ammunitions, clearing of jungles along roads, digging bunkers apart from fencing work with strict regimentation. They were forced to work as and according to the labour supervisors’ dictation. If a man raises any complaint he was paid with slashes of the armed supervisor’s whip.

The economic life of the Mizo people was greatly hampered. Jhuming cultivation was the main stay of the people but the people could not pursue their normal duty as they were not allowed to go out of the centre. Sometimes, the civilians were taken as a protection from surprise attacks of the MNF and used as human bunkers in the Army’s patrolling. With no means to earn a livelihood, there was starvation and dependence on the meager supplies.

Whenever there was an encounter between the security forces and the MNF, the aftermath was that the security forces either burnt down the village nearest to the place where the encounter took place or beat up the male members of the village or the first group of civilians they met. Such incidences generated bitterness and hatred in the public. In many of the encounters or ambushes, the security forces hardly ever caused casualty to the MNF but great harm did come to the innocent civilians.

The security forces also grossly abused the special power given to them, namely, arresting a person on suspicion. In many cases, they wrongly detained such persons for long periods and tortured them. Sometimes they used this method as a weapon of intimidation. For instance, if a villager reports to higher civil authorities against the wrong doing of the security forces in his village, the latter will arrest him charging him as a MNF sympathizer and threatened him with dire consequences.

Another instance of bitterness against the security forces is occasioned by their utter disrespect to the Church congregation. In some cases the security forces suspected some MNF or their agents as being present in the church congregation on Sundays. They came and drove the congregation of the Church in a most vulgar manner and herded them together in the open ground outside for long periods whether in rain or sunshine. There was a feeling that they were treated as aliens, worse than enemies.

Failure of Grouping

In spite of the grouping of villages, the intensity of the insurgency continued until 1970. As a matter of fact, disturbances continued in a virulent form until mid 1976. The main idea behind the grouping concept, that is to deny sources of food supply to the MNF, was thus belied. The desired results were never achieved.

The overwhelmingly harmful effect of Village Grouping on agricultural activities resulted in near famine conditions. The Government had no choice but to allow the villagers to go back to their old villages to enable them to work on their jhum. Thus, the grouping operations only caused untold sufferings and miseries to the general public resulting in the total ruin of the village economy and, more importantly, in the alienation of the minds of the villagers. The strange thing here was that the Government of India repeated the same measure in Mizoram in 1967 after it had failed miserably in Nagaland in 1967.