How to destroy Bishnupriya Manipuris?

Scared!

Here is the backdrop that prompted me to write on this bizarre idea. It’s been 5-6 months back, while conversing with one of our community member who didn’t know me, he asserted that we as a Bishnupriya Manipuri community “are not….., but we are…..”. I am not revealing since to my knowledge and understanding, even the idea to be given space in writing is amounting to prove that his thought do exist. 

I was excited to the new revelation and was aghast at the same time. I naively asked him, who told this to you about our identity. He immediately called the person who had told him and in front of me he had a conversation with him about our identity. He said the other person have some new proof for his claim. 

I pondered if we have such people at least 1000 in our community to have this thought it is enough to disturb the whole community. Here my interest in the study of Pakistan supported me to understand the psychology behind the thought process of that person. Pakistanis have conspiracy theories for every event! For a moment with my ‘Pakistan’ state of mind, I started in this line of thinking.

To my new acquaintance, it was very easy on my part to make him understand stuff about his surroundings and about his identity. I don’t know whether he understood it or not, but I made him sure that his line of thought will not lead anywhere since it is fundamentally wrong. 

So, here I am. Supposedly if an external agent tries to destroy the community. Here are the few subversion steps that the agent would do. These are the symptoms that we must know and understand. The phases or steps include:

1. Demoralisation:

The demoralization of the community process takes 15-20 years or more time to show results. This is the period one gets educated. In this period, new bizarre ideologies and public opinions are created that are not rooted to the land. Observe your surroundings and even yourself, you will find many thoughts from the field of social science, history, sociology and other disciplines that are not in conformity to our ethos but we have started believing upon it. With little bit of introspection, you yourselves will find the truth.

At this phase, every sphere of one’s life is distorted or tempered---religion, beliefs, education system, social life, cultural ethos, administration, and labour-employee relationship.

People get demoralized with the emergence of new sects, cults, belief system, education that latently assert – superiority/inferiority, social life gets poisoned with deficit of trust, love, care, and respect. 

So where we stand as a community; we will find despite being a Hindu community, we are misled from the path of our Dharma. And our Dharma is entirely rooted in spiritualism, values and righteousness. We are part and parcel of the Sanatana Dharma. Our core Dharmic system is being replaced by western thoughts/ philosophy/ culture etc. Except technology, the West doesn’t have anything to give us.

I am surprised to discover that the foremost unit of the society, the family and even the simple and noble relationships like saas-bahu, nanand-bhabhi, sister-in-laws have been maligned and given a distrustful aspect! As if God has created all these differences. Furthermore, marriage has been turned to mutual benefit scheme based on the principle of utility. Scratch a bit, you will find that these strained relationships are the outcomes of materialistic thought process that are not rooted to our land and culture. They are exported by external agents.

At this stage, if some unknown and camouflaged foreign organization is created with some vested interest that are not under the control of the community people and create a power structure replacing our traditional organizations or parallel to it. The situation would be dangerous. These foreign-sponsored organizations may ostensibly have candy and flossy motto / objective on anything that might blind us in the name of Progress and Development, Economic Upliftment, Education etc. Imagine opposite to Bishnupriya Manipuri Mahasabha, there is another foreign-funded institution not being controlled by us! In the same breathe, suppose a foreign funded media outlet focusing on the community, showcasing in the garb of mouthpiece of the Bishnupriya Manipuri voice, is established! The whole environment would be vicious.

The most interesting part of this stage is that there is no punishment. It is not considered CRIME.

2. Destabilisation

Here enters the second stage with people getting far away from the core thread that binds a community. Till then we must not get astounded seeing organizations like Bishnupriya Manipuri Women Human Rights, and other bodies like Bishnupriya Manipuri Conflict Arbitration. Since we have not entered to this phase yet, we can say now, the lens of gender is different for us.

The funniest part is that I have seen ‘conflict arbitration NGOs’ in Delhi. I was amused to find that the jurisdiction of the NGO is on every conceivable human relationship. The NGO is located in an area where there has not been any migration. A closely knit community living for centuries, today for simple arguments between neighbours, the parties had to take refuge to an NGO, even for father/mother-son/daughters skirmishes. I will say the community (or a part of it) is in ICU! God forbids, this must not happen to our community.

At this stage of destablisation, the parties involved are not able to come to terms.

3.Crisis

One can imagine at this stage we will cease to exist as Bishnupriya Manipuris. We have forgotten our Dharma, we are unaware of our personal and social value system; the family system has been poisoned and degraded. To aggravate the situation external agents have blinded us further and we are destroyed.

Conclusion

A Russian scientist once said the reason behind the disappearance of many ancient great civilizations like Harappa, Mohen-jo-daro, Incas, Maya, Egyptian happened when the people of these societies left their religion, and the distinctiveness of their identity. Therefore we have to be rooted in the reality, without being swayed by western intellect and knowledge. We must follow our dharma.

An inclination towards Dharma would definitely be a step in this direction. You do your dharma, let me do my dharma. The question is not ‘How to’ but it is: ‘what is’ my dharma.

If we follow our dharma, we don’t have to pour our lungs out to save Bishnupirya Manipuris.