A comparison between the British and Indian responses to insurgency: An Irom Sharmila Chanu Herstory

If I were Irom Sharmila's Headmaster and you were to ask me on her leaving day for my opinion of her, after collecting myself, "Irom, Irom you say, sounds familiar let me check. Ah below average intelligence, poor academic standards, never learnt to apply herself, will never amount to much. But in her defence, quite a pretty young thing, very docile and unlikely ever to give anyone any trouble." Today of course, "Irom Sharmila Chanu the nation's greatest poetess, fearless experimenter in Truth, internationally feted peace activist, a Yogin with a radical vision for eco-friendly village based development opposed to western capitalism, I am sure she will be the first to accept that I taught her everything she knew."

So back to the British. If you were to ask a Britisher are you not ashamed, does not your nation harbour a terrible toxic guilt over it's treatment of the Irish. They might ponder for a moment, wondering what on earth are you on about. Images of boybands, girlbands, Enya, the Eurovision song contest, and then perhaps tourist stag dos held in Dublin where the stags can really go wild, or is the foreigner trying to say something about what we did to Guinness. Then he'd think well I don't mind discussing the facts in a reasonable manner but this foreigner does not seem to have a grasp of the basics of history. He'd be right. For is not History a coiled dragon which whilst sleeping devours its tail. Or perhaps the tail devours the dragon for history has no beginning no end. We enter and leave her always in medias res.

The island of Ireland, Eire in the tongue of the aboriginals, was made up of many tribal kingdoms under a mythic High King of All Ireland. In modern times the kingdoms were named as the Four Counties. When these Counties are united the fifth Royal County appears, where lives still the true High King of All Ireland. However since the British kept Ulster for itself and until it is returned the High King sleeps in his holy mountain. The Irish are a simple pagan people, highly superstitious, nominally Christian, and they are far from a united people. On closer inspection there they are divided strictly upon economic and social lines formed of distinct racial groupings that tend to stay separate.

Manipur was a princely state one of the North Eastern princely states. If I were to ask people about the national shame heaped upon India by its treatment of these forgotten lands the Indian would retort as the Britisher though outwith mention of boybands and Guinness.

When I was in Bristol in the 1980s as a non-Englishmen I befriended many of the other nationals living in the Hostel there, the Welsh, Scots and Irish. One in particular a deeply religious young man had become increasingly irritated at being called an IRA supporter. He did not condone violence but whenever he spoke out at what the British were doing in his country people didn't even want to listen. I told him best not to speak when the English were about. He told me one tale I still remember more by the passion of the telling. How one of his schoolfriends was picked up one day by a British Patrol and beaten and kicked to the extent of leaving him hospitalized then and impotent for the rest of his life. No British soldier has ever been punished for any wrong doing in Ireland. He mentioned Bloody Sunday too the day British Paratroopers opened fire upon unarmed civilian peace protestors for which there have been countless Public Inquiries over the years, each Inquiry seems to leave just more unanswered questions and no one held to account. You don't know what it's like Desmond. You didn't grow up in Divers Flats (a Catholic housing estate in Belfast, Northern Ireland).

When I was in Dublin in 2000-2001 after the peace process was in full flow I was quite shocked by the reaction of one young Belfast Catholic woman on our course in Spirituality and Theology. I have a knack for getting under people's skin but it was her visceral anger. I don't recall the specifics save for her final comments. This is not about forgiveness. This is about justice. Only a mahatma it would appear can trascend the twisted knots of abuse and evil and still salute Namaskar in the other.

I will mention the Assam Rifles because they were formed by the British and there are parallels with the Black and Tans paramilitaries used against the Irish in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Usually Soldiers can maintain discipline for 90 days. After that in prolonged conflict the brutality of war brutalizes our children. And we do well to reminds ourselves that frontline soldiers are always children first until we have no more young to send, then and only then are the men sent out. With the Black and Tans and the Assam Rifles, a different model is used. Here you take the delinquents, the rapists, thugs, muggers and murderers and instead of depositing them just on a island far far away as some radical prison reformists seek. You give them a uniform and lethal weapons. The idea being to suppress terrorist insurgency with a greater terror. There is no discipline to maintain but the recruitment rids your troubled lands of problem children who then can work usefully and with honour for their country. I use the term honour here in the same sense as honour killing, not in the 19th century Romantic tradition.

The national sport in Ireland is Irish Football. At their national stadium during a national final an armoured regiment of Black and Tans invaded the pitch. Why because petty thugs are killjoys who take no pleasure in life save from taking it from all others. What started the bloodbath? And this too is consistent and predictable given the type of paramilitaries involve. Instead of trembling and bowing the knee to arrogant force, one of the star players kicked the ball over a tank and ran past it, what is termed in Irish Football an Up and Under. They responded with machine gun fire. These were British troops acting with the full authority of the State within the then borders of the United Kingdom.

Let me end this section by acknowledging the widespread use of gang rape against the women civilians of Northern Ireland by all sides during what was always called the Troubles. It is easy to make mock of the litotes preferred by Indian English, Encounter, Eve-Teasing, Honour killing and easy to forget that murder is perpetuated in Language. But if you wanted the British to acknowledge what you mean you could not just mention the Troubles, you would have to say the word in the context of Norther Ireland, because the word itself is meaningless.

What would happen was that a gang of men masked men would turn up at your house and drag a woman into the street. She would be stripped gang raped, beaten then tarred and feather and left tied to a lampost like a dog. And people would be too scared even to cut her down once the men left. Originally the men would say it was to discourage collaborators. Then collaboration could mean you were a waitress or bartender and served the wrong person a drink. Eventually it meant you had a hard day, perhaps people close to you had been hurt or killed and you wanted to kick back and wind down. They were masked men who knows who side they were on.