6 January 1858
The chill wind tore at their blood splattered ankles, as they trudged along the plain wilderness away from Fategarh and towards Etawah. Miles and miles of barren land gently sloped towards the river valleys in front of them. Not far away, the terai low lands cut away from the bangar uplands, the two divisions separated by a vast rocky stretch – the handiwork of centuries of erosive action of rivers.
6 January 1858
The chill wind tore at their blood splattered ankles, as they trudged along the plain wilderness away from Fategarh and towards Etawah. Miles and miles of barren land gently sloped towards the river valleys in front of them. Not far away, the terai low lands cut away from the bangar uplands, the two divisions separated by a vast rocky stretch – the handiwork of centuries of erosive action of rivers.
“It was just like yesterday”, thought Ramkumar as he looked at the Doab from the makeshift post. Eight months back, on a bright summer afternoon, his life changed forever. Hundreds of soldiers posted in the 10th Indian Infantry revolted against their British masters in a massive display of solidarity and resolve to liberate their motherland from the yoke of slavery.
From that minute onwards, events and happenings hurtled past him – the feverish planning meetings with his co-sepoys Jamal and others, the tearful farewell to his young wife Jamuna and their 8-year old son Ashok, the storming of Luknow by the insurgents, the siege of Delhi and then the fall of Delhi and Lucknow to the British within a few months thereafter.
They were now fugitives in their own country, pursued by General Walpole and his forces, encircled and driven towards Fategarh for annihilation. Ramkumar’s insurgent band was small, but they effectively checkmated the British at Etawah.
Jamal eyed the small quantity of muskets they were left with to defend themselves from the marauding army. But their inadequate munitions didn’t bother him. “This is our land, our trees and forests, our people. Why should we surrender to these brutes? Let us set an example and teach these barbarians a lesson or two in bravery”, he cried with passion.
Ramkumar’s eyes shone with even more conviction. “Let us fight till the finish. For every life they take, let us take four. These aliens don’t have a right to be here”.
Animated cries rent the air. The insurgent band feverishly took up their positions.
The leader of the enemy forces reconnoitred the place. “These uncivilized brutes don’t want us to bring them civilization,” he grimaced. “They don’t deserve to live”.
He then ordered his forces to go on the offensive and not stop until all the rebels were annihilated. The enemy forces first threw in hand grenades to blow up the insurgents in their precarious hideout. There was little success. The butchers then tried to smoke the occupants out with burning straw, the way a hunter would do to smoke out rabbits out of their burrows. Their efforts were still in vain. Through openings, the rebels kept constantly firing at the troops, keeping them at bay for hours on end.
At last, the assassins decided to blow up the entire place. Officers of the Engineers fabricated a mine with a number of gun cartridges and ignited it with a lead wire.
In that split second before the explosion tore the head off Ramkumar’s body, he remembered his wife and son, their longing tear-filled faces. “One day we will all be free”, thought Ramkumar in his dying moments.
10 August 2004
Far down the slope, the big rivers Eeril and Thobal flowed steadily down, their waters rippling in the bright morning sun. The hills around the cup shaped valley shone resplendently, with thick foliage.
The quiet gurgling of the waters in the brooks, the gentle twittering of birds, and the sway of the breeze could not calm the seething within Chongloi. The news made his blood boil. On the morning of 11th July 2004, the body of Thangjam Manorama, with barely a few clothes on, was discovered near Ngariyan Mapao Maring village. She had been brutally raped, tortured and then killed in the most gory manner by the 17 Assam Rifles.
“How can we tolerate this situation even a second more?” fumed Chongloi to his friend Tejkumar, his close associate in the Youth Front. They were making plans for the massive rally the next day at Kongba. Encounter killings, kidnappings, people being whisked away from their homes – these were everyday affairs in Manipur. The past month, Chongloi and his friends had been protesting against these brutal acts through sit-ins, rallies, and pitched battles with the army. Women protested on a massive scale everywhere, undeterred by rubber bullets and tear gas, and this gave a great impetus to the struggle. The Meira Paibies kept vigil for whole nights against the Indian army.
What infuriated Chongloi and Tejkumar was the barbaric, undemocratic and genocidal nature of killings carried out by the state in the name of restoring ‘law and order’. The alleged custodial rape and brutal murder of Thangjam Manorama, the killing of Jamkholet, a pastor, the cold-blooded murders during the Holi festival, were glaring examples. In fact, the whole of Manipur had been kept virtually under military rule for the past 24 years since 1980 when all of Manipur wilted under the draconian AFSPA.
Hundreds of bayonets greeted the demonstrators the next day. Chongloi had never witnessed such a large turnout in his life with women taking the lead. Slogans denouncing the genocidal killing of the Manipuri people and the draconian AFSPA rent the air. The entire District Commissioner’s office was cordoned off. As the women attempted to seize the office, they were met with a rain of rubber bullets, tear gas shells and lathi charge. Women by the dozens were being carried away in stretchers to the nearby hospital. Pitched confrontations continued between the protestors and the police. The unarmed infuriated protestors attacked the police with stones and catapults.
The Commander of the 32 Rashtriya Rifles reconnoitred the place from a vantage point on the terrace of the District Commissioner’s Office. Wave upon wave of people were advancing, undeterred by the assault of the armed forces. “These upstarts need to be taught a lesson. They don’t appreciate that we are bringing them democracy. These terrorists don’t deserve to live”, he muttered to himself.
The Commander belted out an order to his forces to open fire. In the split second that a bullet bore through his back, Chongloi remembered his parents, his two school-going brothers and a sister. “One day we will all be free”, he gasped.
by S. Raghavan