A lecture given by Pu Lalthlamuong Keivom, IFS (Retd.) during the 10th Arambam Somorendra Memorial Lecture at Imphal on 10th June 2015
Mr.
President Pradip Phanjoubam, Chairman of the Arambam Somorendra Trust, Dr. Arambam
Lokendra, my young colleagues Dr. Ngamkhohao Haokip, Dr. Sohiamlung Dangmei,
Dr. Priyadarshini Gangte, my friend David Buhril, ladies and gentlemen.
It is
indeed a privilege to be with you at Imphal to participate in the 15th Death
Anniversary of the late Arambam Somorendra and pay my respect to him by
delivering the 10th Arambam Somorendra Memorial Lecture. I am very happy to be
here in your midst for many reasons. Since 1964 I have hardly had any
uninterrupted stay in Manipur except in 1971 when I came to Imphal for a six
month district training and was attached to the Office of the Deputy
Commissioner, the only DC we had at that time for the whole of Manipur. Though
nobody ever noticed its significance, it was a reckoning landmark for me – the
first Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer from Manipur and the first IFS
officer in India ever sent to Manipur from Delhi for District training.
After
spending four years in D. M. College (1959–63) and a two-year stint at Guwahati
University (1964–66), I joined the Indian Revenue Service (1967–69) and finally
switched over in 1970 to the Indian Foreign Service, the ultimate choice of
service at that time. I had a record breaking 21 years uninterrupted (1976–97)
postings in Africa, Middle East, Australasia, Asia and Europe during which I
made only a few brief visits to my hometown Churachandpur with Imphal as the
transit point.
The ugly
sight of gun-toting security forces doubly armed with the dreaded Armed Forces
Special (Powers) Act, 1958 (AFSPA), the endless checkpoints set up at every
imaginable place by them with demeaning and despicable signs like “Check All
Suspect All”, the body-search and the command to undress at times, which I
considered a cruel assault on human dignity, plus the virtual absence of
electricity robbed all the charms of visiting home.Therefore, we tried to avoid
visiting Manipur as far as we could. Our Sanaleipak had lost its sheen since
long but never its hold on our family. It is where our roots began and no other
soil on earth can substitute its sacredness.
Even though
I have been practically away from Manipur for half a century, I have had the
opportunity of bumping into many people and things associated with Manipur.
They included the famous or infamous Dada Idi Amin of Uganda in 1978 in Nairobi
(Kenya) who proudly told me that he had served in Manipur front during the
Second World War. Talking about Kenya, one day, while on an official tour, I
was strolling in the manicured Kericho Tea Garden, the world’s single largest
tea plantation and bumped into a prominent signboard showing the tea grown
there originally came from Manipur! G.W.L. Cane first introduced the plant in
1903 in Limuru and later in Kericho with thumping success.1 The photo I took
that day is one of my proud possessions. A question that struck me that day
was: why other people made so much money from our tea and not us? Perhaps that
was the furthest our Manipur tea has traveled until the arrival of Ragesh
Keisham who, in August 2011, launched another kind of Manipuri tea called CC
Tea (Cymbopogon Citratus tea), a multi-purpose green tea based on lemon grass.
From Kenya,
I moved to Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) handling political and Islamic affairs. One of
our regular exercises was to look after thousands of pilgrims who came for Haj
and Umrah from all corners of India including Manipur. It is an open secret
that a good number of pilgrims including some from Manipur “vanish” during Haj,
staying back and eventually getting absorbed into Saudi society by hook or by
crook. My wife and I had the opportunity to share dinner a few times with these
diaspora Manipur Muslims during our stay in Jeddah. The most amazing thing I
discovered was that all the families we came across were still speaking
Manipuri and told us how much they missed and longed for their Sanaleipak! This
was really food for thought to me. What could be the thing or things, longings
and attachments that even their holy land could not compensate?
From Saudi
Arabia, I moved to Wellington, the capital of New Zealand (1983–85). A few
weeks after my arrival, Second World War Veterans held a big annual event and I
was invited to attend the function. When the organizers came to know that I was
from Manipur, the last theater of war, they were over excited as if I had just
landed from another planet. They asked me to propose a befitting toast which I
did on behalf of India and the people of Manipur. It was a very nostalgic
moment and a memorable one to witness our tiny State suddenly coming alive
“Down Under” out of the dust of their collective war memories.
Then a few
days later, I had a visitor in my office, a young girl who wanted to undertake
research on the last days of the British rule in Manipur. She happened to be
the niece of Mr. G.P. Stewart, ICS and the last Political Agent in Manipur who
settled in Nelson (South Island) after his retirement. Later, I invited Mr.
Stewart and his wife and their niece for dinner at India House and also paid a
return visit to their home in Nelson which he had proudly decorated with
trophies and mementos from Manipur.We exchanged several visits, chatting
sometimes till the wee hours during which the names of Maharaja Priyobrata
Singh and Major Khathing popped up frequently. Mr. Stewart married the daughter
of W.L. Scott, also a Kiwi and the first ICS who served as Superintendent in
the then Lushai Hills (now Mizoram). Scott’s wife was a vivid photographer. She
maintained treasured albums in which she meticulously catalogued rare photos of
chiefs, important families and socio-cultural events from Chin Hills to Mizoram
including some from Cachar, Tripura and Manipur. It was these albums that
prompted their niece to undertake the research for her Ph.D thesis but
unfortunately she had to abandon her dreams for
lack of proper guide and reference material.
An extract
(para three) of my letter of March 25, 1985 to Dr. Rochunga Pudaite in USA when
I was Head of Mission in Wellington, New Zealand may best reflect the
position:
One
interesting person we have discovered is the last Political Agent in Manipur,
Mr. Gerry Stewart, 79, who now lives in Nelson. Though a little short of
hearing, he is still physically fit and intellectually alert. He and his wife
came all the way to visit us two months ago. Mr. Stewart is married to the
daughter of the first New Zealand ICS Officer, Mr. Walter Lawrence Scott (he
was later knighted and died in 1949 as Sir Walter) who was Superintendent in
the then Lushai Hills from 1919–22. His wife Beatrix Scott who died in 1971 at
the ripe age of 94 left behind a 500-page memoir and a treasured album in which
she meticulously catalogued photos of the Chiefs from the Chin Hills down to
Lushai Hills. Even Mr. Stewart’s wife Elisabeth left behind an exhaustive
account of their stay in Manipur which gives you an insight into life in those
days. I believe there exists here a sizeable research material of our area
which I will try to dig out as much as time permits me to indulge in these
extra-curricular activities.
Then in
1986 I came to our immediate neighbor Burma (later named Myanmar) still reeling
under military rule since Ne Win (1929–2002) seized power in 1962. Movement was
restricted and even casual contacts with relatives on social occasions were
suspect. It was unwise to openly visit the so called “Manipuri Basti” in
Mandalay, the largest concentration of darkish Meitei population where they
carried on their orthodoxy with unconcerned abandon and their language along
with Burmese, the lingua franca. Though deprived of political power or any say
in governance, they seemed satisfied so long as they were able to carry on
their tradition and orthodoxy without interference. I used to visit the Basti
unnoticed whenever I went to Mandalay to study their condition but found that
it was difficult, if not impossible, to interact with them as I did openly with
the Chin-Kuki-Mizo community in Myanmar. They seemed unconcerned so long as
they were able to carry on their adopted culture and religious rituals without
hindrance.A good number of them lived in Rangoon but never showed up at events
and shows organized by the Embassy.
When I
compare the Pangals in Jeddah to the Meitei Hindus in Yangon and Mandalay, many
questions popped up to which I have no answers even till today. The Pangal’s
attachment to his religion and the holy land and fulfillment of his dream was
unquestionable. But his longings for and emotional and social attachment with
the land of his birth remained embedded in him. The Mandalay Meitei to me
seemed unaffected so long as he remained within his borrowed caste system which
deprived him of his ethnic entity long before he came to surface on earth. I am
sure many of us will encounter past unresolved issues and mistakes in our
search for identity. It is suicidal to hang on to presumed and concocted myths,
legends and stories which my very own community is fond of doing. I shudder to
think of the heavy price they will have to pay in the future. It is like
hanging on a ledge over an abyss.
The
introductory part has become much longer than I expected but I still have
another interesting story to tell before I jump into my subject. Soon after my
arrival in Rangoon, I tried to find out the number of Indians incarcerated in
Burma by visiting jails, especially the notorious Insein Prison in Rangoon, the
biggest jail in Asia where they kept all prisoners awaiting repatriation by
air.On one of my visits, I found a fair-looking and pleasant guy, a Meitei
doctor, who was able to dabble in broken but understandable Chin-Kuki dialect.
He seemed well-informed, particularly on the history and literature of the
country. When I talked to him in my broken and rusty Manipuri, he became
suddenly withdrawn and sullen perhaps thinking that I was one of the military
intelligence guys who had come to dig out information from him. To cut the
story short, after I came to know of his background, I told him that unless he
agreed to my suggestion for his repatriation and assurance of his subsequent
release after a few months, he would rot and die in Insein Prison. Later, the
Embassy arranged an 8-member Manipur police contingent to fly to Rangoon and
they escorted him back to Imphal by a special aircraft in line with his status.
I have never seen him again since but hope that he is still up and about. I
also still remember having repatriated three Mizo National Front (MNF)
detainees from Insein Prison and two National Socialist Council of Nagaland
(NSCN) detainees from Mandalay Prison to India during that period.
Why did I
mention all these and for what? As a representative of India, it was my duty
and responsibility to serve the interest of my country and its people to the
best of my ability. What I am trying to say is that while performing your duty,
your sense or feeling of being one with the subject or the object is a strong
driving force which enables you to go many extra miles beyond your normal call
of duty. Other factors apart, I believe that we all possess an ingrained sense
of ethnic affinity, somewhat like a primordial consciousness of belonging to a
common genetic root that generates a feeling of oneness. In short, it is having
a soft corner for people with physical likeness in appearance over others with
a different look. Adam’s exclamation when he first saw Eve, “..bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh” can best explain the position. My last association with
Manipur while abroad was hosting a Manipuri dance troupe in Italy when I was
Consul-General of India in Milan. The troupe was led by no other than Dr.
Lokendra Arambam who has now kindly extended this invitation to speak on the
issue of identity, integration and national aspirations of the Chin-Kuki-Mizo
peoples of the Indo-Burma region. I thank him and the organizers of the Arambam
Somorendra Memorial Lecture for their generosity in giving me this opportunity
to return to the cradle of my education and to my motherland that nurtured me
into what I am today. I really feel that my life has come full circle. German
philosopher, thinker and writer Johann Wolfang von Goethe says, “There are only
two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots,
the other, wings.” I developed my wings from here, flew around the globe for
more than two decades and have now come back to my roots.
