One might feel no malice towards a neutral Twitter follower if she/he were to wonder whether Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore is Indias Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting or the chief propagandist of a state-sponsored terrorist organisation. Rathore chose to use the hashtag #ManipurRevenge to brag about the Indian Armys strikes inside Myanmar, said to be boldly approved by the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the countrys supreme symbol of authoritarian leadership who is supposed to have ordered a befitting retaliation for the 4 June ambush in Chandel District of Manipur by the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Khaplang)-led insurgents in which at least 18 Indian Army personnel lost their lives. Rathore even commended and peddled the Indian Armys operation as a warning to Pakistan, never mind that the Myanmar government reportedly summoned the Indian ambassador to reprimand New Delhi for the military incursion.Sections of the Indian media, especially the TV news channels, behaved less like the fourth estate and more like combatants gone wild. Despite no clinching evidence at hand, the operation deep inside Myanmar was reported to have been completed in 45 minutes flat. Further, there were wildly inflated figures for the number of militants killed50 or more by the reckonings of the Union Minister of Home Affairs, a precise 38, according to one TV channel, and even a hundred according to some sources. Talking of embedded journalism, at least those covering the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 accompanied the US armed forces, but over here their Indian counterparts merely reported on the Indian Army operations on or across the border in Myanmar on the basis of what was handed to them in New Delhi! The talking heads and the anchors on the news channels celebrated the news rather than report it. Samuel Johnson once said that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrelone is left wondering if one might now say that it is their first sanctuary.In display over here is the Great Power syndrome, inherited from Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel. One might recall that the then Naga National Council (NNC), under the leadership of A Z Phizo, won overwhelming support for independence in a Naga plebiscite conducted in 1951, but despite such a popular verdict, the Nehru-led government rejected it. The NNC was left with no other choice but to set up a federal government of Nagaland in March 1956, and later a military wing to resist the Indian Army when India placed the Naga Hills District of the then Assam under military rule in early April of that year. The Indian Armys counter-insurgency tactics against the Naga independence movement included the use of strategic hamletswhat the British did in Malaya earlier and the Americans did later on in Vietnamto alienate and break the close links of the NNC guerrillas from/with their local communities. The Naga national liberation struggle has been one of the longest ongoing armed struggles in Indias North East, but we cannot recount it over here. The main element of the Indian Establishments strategy has been to unleash military repression to crush the independence movement. This has alternated with bribing sections of the local population into collaboration and using the policy of divide and rule to break up popular political organisations. Is this the way to go? For our purpose, it might suffice to state Gandhis views on the Naga question.Gandhi is said to have told an NNC delegation led by Phizo that met him on 19 July 1947: The Nagas have every right to become independent. I want you to feel that India is yours. I feel that the Naga Hills is mine just as it is yours. But if you say that it is not mine, the matter must stop there. I believe in the brotherhood of man, but I do not believe in force or forced unions. If you do not wish to join the Union of India, nobody will force you to that. Contrast Gandhi with the Lilliputian political bosses in India today, including the one who now governs the country on the basis of the principle ofek chalak anuvartitva(translated as obedience to one leader). Indeed, the Indian State is yet to apologiseor even acceptto the Mizo people for the vicious air raids on Aizawl on 4 and 5 March 1966 by the Indian Air Force fighter jets to suppress the Mizo National Front rebellion, which left many civilians dead. Yet, this Establishment is fond of swearing bysatya(truth) andahimsa(non-violence) in the periodic homage that it finds prudent to pay to the Mahatma. If it really believes in what the Mahatma stood for, it would find a way to demilitarise Manipur and Nagaland, repeal all the draconian acts, particularly the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, and end the reign of state and vigilante terror over there. The only ethical and practical way forward is to negotiate a settlement based on the will of the people.

Manipur Peoples Liberation Army and United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA)