[Assam] Another piece on Dr Thingnam Kishan Singh

[uttam borthakur]

Srijut Baruah :Thanks for sharing the piece with us.
 
Uttam Kumar Borthakur




________________________________
From: "baruah at bard.edu" <baruah at bard.edu>
To: assam at assamnet.org
Sent: Monday, 2 March, 2009 10:50:40 PM
Subject: [Assam] Another piece on Dr Thingnam Kishan Singh


Since this group came to know of Thingnam Kishan Singh because of the piece by Udayon Mishra that was circulated, thought would share another write-up on him by Xonzoi Barbora.


February 18, 2009: In one of those tragic examples of synchronicity, I
woke up with a desire to send my old friend and comrade, Thingnam
Kishan a nasty mail for not keeping in touch. Just then, his cousin
called me from Imphal to say that he had been missing for three days.
In a matter of minutes, we were all trying to connect dots and trace
him. I did not worry much, for Kishan always had an anarchic streak in
him. One would not see, or hear from him for years and suddenly he
would pop up like some genie, waving agitatedly and trying to string
together a coherent sentence from the recesses of his fertile mind. I
assumed this would be another such moment. That when he appeared
online, on gmail?s chat window, he would tap out furious apologies and
explain just how busy and chaotic his life had been.

His cousin called again in the afternoon. She choked back tears and
said that his body was in the morgue. This was February 18, 2009. He
had been missing for a few days prior to the day his friend identified
his body, head bludgeoned in with a spade, or some other blunt object.
With him were five of his colleagues, three of whom were killed in a
similar manner. News from Manipur poured in and as most of us who had
known Kishan tried to come to terms with the brutal murder; we were
also confronted with a possible communal polarisation. Had he been
alive, he would have screamed as only he could: ?Not in my name! No
man? no communal mobilisation with me as the dead helmsman?.

We liked those words. Back in the 1990s when he, a few other friends
and I scrounged for money for a decent meal to break the monotony of
hostel food, we addressed each other ? with all sincerity ? as
?comrades?. We were not affiliated to any student organisation from
the tolerated Marxist groups. Even the radical left eyed us with
caution and with good reason perhaps. Kishan and the rest of us were
unpredictable and without an iota of puritanical discipline that is
asked of South Asian Leftists. We were satisfied to be in the fringes,
organising study groups to discuss Capital (Volume I, always Volume I
because we never went beyond the chapter on ?value?).

As we dissected the true meaning of the chapter ? adhering to our
ideological proximity to Lenin and Mao ? Kishan would happily announce
that he preferred to be ?non-aligned?, throw caution to the wind and
declare his preference for ideologies closer to the Black Flag of
anarchism. ?There is something not quite right with the vanguard
thing?, he would say, without bothering to qualify, much to our
collective dismay. But over the course of the day, he would
participate in our world of helmsmen and great leaders, with the
abandonment of an unruly but brave child. What cemented his place in
our rather amorphous collective was an unwavering commitment to
everything related Manipur. He would sift through information,
discussions and debates, in ways that made sense to his world that was
centred on the complicated political and cultural landscape of
Manipur. Sometimes, he would be the first to laugh at his simplistic
readings of history but they came from such a deep conviction that we
let it pass.

We had lost touch, like all college and university friends do. I met
him again a few years ago on a hot day in Imphal. It was one of those
brief meetings, so charged with energy that it yields a plethora of
ideas, making distances and time seem immaterial. I wanted to
congratulate him on editing his cutting edge journal on critical
issues in Manipur. He was not satisfied and wanted to write more. We
discussed the need to move away from the given script of exclusionist
political mobilisation and the selective use of history in garnering
power. He spoke of shared histories, shared visions and a need to
transform the current political discourse in the region. To this
effect, he suggested that we work on the epistemic break in the
movements and mobilisation on the issue of autonomy in Manipur.

It was a bold idea. It hinged on the kind of negotiations that went
into the making the first constitution of post-British Manipur and
comparing them to the kind of deliberations that followed the merger
with India in 1949. As usual, we had not idea where this though was
headed and if indeed it would help us move away from the received
scripts that act as political manifestos in Northeast India. Then,
characteristically, he went off the radar. I heard that he was
agitating with other colleagues for regularisation of jobs in the
public service commission, including Manipur University. He resurfaced
again last year, calling from Faridabad of all places, following yet
another tragic loss of life that had our dispersed collective in tears
and momentarily blinded by grief. While the rest of us called one
another and cried angrily about yet another extra-judicial execution
of an acquaintance in Manipur?knowing that justice would never be done
? Kishan alone sounded firm and resolute about the course of action he
was going to follow. He had joined the civil services, he announced,
much to my confusion. Surely he, of all people, would recognise the
fallacy of the argument that ?one upright person can make a difference
to a corrupt system?. But he really believed and it was his old
uncomplicated conviction at work again.

I suppose if he were corrupt, he would be alive today. I wonder if he
knew just how circumscribed our political horizons have become? Kishan
was far too smart to not understand that alternate political voices in
the so-called Northeast have been hemmed-in by a combination of
Machiavellian statecraft and greed. Having said that, he was
optimistic enough to believe in the eventual triumph of the human
spirit. For me, I shall always remember my wild haired friend and
remind myself that he would not approve of complacence and
self-indulgence. He would want me to pick myself up and believe that
something good can come out of the worst tragedies. I shall never stop
trying?.

Sanjay (Xonzoi) Barbora


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