Kekrupat Haiku

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Eighteen June eighteen
Departed souls they know not
You and me still fight
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Our land and their land
Blood marks the border and black
The lands have turned to
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The Hindus raped it
Now India has condoms
The national fuck
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I am a Meitei
But I can’t fuck a Naga
For I’m impotent
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On the streets we meet
For the homeland we resist
Why can’t we just live?
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The mirage leads us
The illusion steers us and
We proceed for peace
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United we are
In our mass fornication
Not anywhere else
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One June, one summer,
With one love and in one world
We will live happy.
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People offer tributes to the eighteen departed souls every June 18 at Kekrupat. Photo courtesy: E-pao.net 

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FOOTNOTE This collection of haiku is a private commemoration of the Great June Uprising, which is held every 18th of this month in Manipur. In June 2001, the people of Manipur revolted against the Indian federal government and the latter’s unholy decision to incorporate some regions of the state in its ceasefire agreement with a rebel group of the neighbouring state, Nagaland. The people were weaponless but were armoured with a strong conviction that the government cannot disintegrate the state. The price was the loss of eighteen lives and a few hundreds of wounded and disabled Manipuris. The government did succeed in driving a wedge between the Nagas and the Meiteis. Subhir Bhaumik, the editor of the Seven Sisters’ Post, articulated the gist of the government’s plan to expand the area of ceasefire agreement:

The Indian state continued to use the four principles of statecraft propounded by the great Kautilya , the man who helped Chandragupta build India’s first trans-regional empire just after Alexander’s invasion. Sham (Reconciliation), Dam (Monetary Inducement), Danda (Force) and Bhed (Split) — the four principles of Kautilyan statecraft have been used in varying mix to control and contain the violent movements in the Northeast.

But it is an open secret, in the first place, the armed movements started in Manipur against the unconstitutional annexation of the state into the union. There is no question of area expansion when there are already controversial cases of Merger Agreement and other illegal territorial disputes like the Kabaw Valley issue. Isn’t it ironical you willfully create an awkward situation and then seek for even more awkward excuses to avoid it? These illogical self-justification are apparent in their bhed politics, the imposition of AFSPA and other black laws, the intentional creation of a spineless ruling elite in the state, among other things.

* The 18 souls were cremated at Kekrupat.

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