A Dishonest Voice: Binalaxmi Nepram Interviewed by Karan Thapar
A Dishonest Voice: An Analysis of the Interview of Ms Binalaxmi Nepram by Karan Thapar on his show, The Interview With Karan Thapar,” for the Wire.in
The Grandstanding "Nafrat ki Aag": Ms. Nepram Packages Lies & Dogwhistles Against, and Peddles Hatred of, Kukis, as "Love, Peace."
Ms Nepram Leaves No place for Reconciliation Between Meiteis And Kukis, Where A Reconciliation Is Possible Only When Meiteis First Sincerely Repent & Apologize for their Monstrosities And Crimes Against Humanity, Against the Kukis.
Throughout her interaction with Mr Karan Thapar, Ms Nepram indulges in disingenuous wriggling, evasion, melodrama, hydraulics.
She starts with "Let me be very clear," and then waffles so much, Donald Duck will go green with envy.
Talk about Patronalism, of Patronization. Instead of resisting Patronalism, she blatantly indulges in it: "Our political leaders must be like our 2nd parents."
No, they don't!
Government in Democracies are a Service, as much as your food deliveryman.
Allowing Government leaders to patronize is an invitation to them to abuse their power and positions!
Which sane person does that!
Nepram: Government of India had promised in 1949 to maintain the territorial integrity of Manipur by means of the Treaty of Accession.
Lucio: This is the favorite hobby horse of Meitei Chauvinists. The Neanderthal Thug Pramot Singh Mayengbam, Führer of the Meitei Leepun Terrorists, too made a similar claim.
However, the Government of India promised nothing, zilch, zero, regarding any kind of "binding commitment to freeze the boundaries of the Kingdom of Manipur."
Shortly after the September 1949 Treaty of Shillong, by which the Kingdom of Manipur was merged into India, India merged Manipur into the Province of Assam. Manipur was a mere district of Assam for several years.
Kukis are not Meiteis. Ladakhians and Dogras are not Kashmirians. Any "agreement" between Kashmirians and India, cannot bind Ladakhians, Dogras and other nations in the Colonial State of Jammu and Kashmir. Likewise, no "agreement" between the Meitei Colonial rulers of Kukiland, and India, can bind the Kukis and Kukiland.
"I want Decolonization of Manipur from India," says the Meitei, then snarls at the Kukis: "How dare you ask for Decolonization of Kukiland from the Dead Colonial hands of the Meiteis?"
This is Hypocrisy, pure and simple.
I have searched for the text of the Treaty of Shillong, and failed to find it.
I have seen the Meiteis' representation to the United Nations Committee on Decolonization, a very long screed. See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/lib-docs/HRBodies/UPR/Documents/Session1/IN/COHR_IND_UPR_S1_2008anx_Annex_VI_Memorandum_of_Revolutionary_Peoples_Front_Manipur_to_UN.pdf
I have seen representations by the Meiteis to the Government of India to amend the Constitution of India so that the territorial boundaries of the Province of Manipur cannot be changed by Indian Parliament without the consent of Manipur, similar to Article #370 which had provided similar guarantees to the Province of Jammu and Kashmir, but which the Modi Kleptocracy fraudulently abrogated, with the passive yet tacit connivance of the Supreme Court of India. See https://thewire.in/government/understanding-manipurs-quest-for-autonomy-through-special-status
If India had made any such commitment, Meiteis would have mentioned it, stressed on it, demanded it be honored.
Neither Meiteis appealing to the UN, nor Meiteis appealing to the Indian government, make mention of this Mythological "Commitment" made by India, to preserve, freeze, the boundaries of the erstwhile kingdom of Manipur.
So much for a "vaunted" binding commitment to the territorial Integrity of the erstwhile kingdom.
Nepram: There was a Massacre in a village, with eighteen people killed.
Lucio: Ms Nepram is being severely dishonest, blatantly lying. She is referring to the Khamenlok Church Incident.
It is an agreed fact, one not controverted, that a Meitei mob, 3000 or so strong, which also had JCBs, had been maurading for several days, attacking, terrorizing Kukis, killing Kukis, driving away Kukis from their homes, properties, institutions, businesses, settlements, churches, burning and demolishing them, from June 12 to June 14, 2023.
The evening and night of June 14, they reached the Khamenlok block of Kuki villages, and at night, after their monstrosities were over for the day, the terrorist vermin were taking their ease in the devastated and desecrated Khamenlok Church, when the Kuki Resistance, armed mainly with machetes, counter-attacked the vermin and slaughtered many.
How many of the vermin were exterminated?
The Meitei Government first said 9 of the vermin were killed.
Then it said 54.
Then went back to 9 (54 is a multiple of 9).
Ms Nepram says 18, again a multiple of 9.
(What is this Meitei obsession with 9?)
Kukis advise me that from the Meiteis' radio chatter, over a hundred of the vermin were killed. #TeDeum.
Those vermin had no business being in Khamenlok.
Those vermin had no business being in the Khamenlok Church.
It was a great and salutary act that these vermin were exterminated in the act of further desecrating the Khamenlok Church.
All humanity should rejoice!
Nepram: The Burmese invaded and devastated Manipur in the 18th century.
Lucio: Yes, indeed. Meiteis are inordinately proud that King "Garib Nawaz" (Sounds like a Muslim name) invaded, devastated Burma, imposed the glories of the Meitei Hindu Empire upon the Burmese, but moan and whine when they speak of when the Burmese overwhelmingly returned the favor. https://theprint.in/opinion/manipurs-imperial-moment-when-king-gharib-nawaz-spread-hinduism-conquered-burma/1616786
"When I tread on your toes, it's an occasion for hilarity and merriment. When you tread back on my toes, it is murder, a great injustice, a monstrosity, a crime against humanity."
Burmese conquering, subjugating, humiliating Meiteis is bad. Meiteis conquering, subjugating, humiliating Kukis is the Cats Whiskers.
Nepram: The hills and the valley cannot be separated.
Lucio: Who says that the Kuki Hills and the Meitei Valley are "inseparable"? They've been administred separately from 1891 to 1947 by England.
If Manipur can be carved out of Assam, Kukiland can be carved out of Manipur.
It is not "irresponsible" of Karan Thapar to ask if Separate Administration for Kukiland may be the best way ahead. It is sheer and unadulterated Hypocrisy for Ms Nepram to Pretend that the Meiteis have some kind of "Divine Right" to keep the Kukis and the Kukiland in subjugation.
The Meiteis possess no such right.
To anyone laboring under a doubt on this score, hoof it over to the Declaration of Independence by the United States of America, and read it, to disabuse yourself of this foolish notion that the Kukis do not have a right to a Separate Administration for Kukiland. The 13 English Colonies had faced less than 1% of the abuse and criminality that the Kukis have faced since May 2, 2023.
"When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
"We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends."
(Text abridged to exclude accidentals that aren't pertinent).
Nepram: Manipur is facing a conflict engineered by men with guns, drugs, human trafficking. To stop the insurgencies by major ethnic groups in the NorthEast, the Indian government armed smaller ethnic groups, aggravating the situation.
KT: What is meant by "Engineered by the state?" Who are these smaller ethnic groups that the Government of India has armed, set up?
Nepram: "They" know. You should ask the Government of India to stop training and arming smaller ethnic groups.
Lucio: How and why did Karan Thapar not challenge Ms Nepram's Omerta? Who is "They"? Why tolerance for insinuations and innuendos?
I'll be clear. I know what Ms Nepram is insinuating.
It is publicly known that, in the period from 1960-2000, Naga and Meitei Separatists principally operated in the Kuki Hills, in Kuki lands, lorded and terrorized the then practically unarmed Kukis, and started poppy cultivation to finance their terrorism.
For a very long time, the Indian State was at a disadvantage, unable to come with grips with the Naga and Meitei Terrorists or to come to the aid of the Kukis who kept asking for help against their Meitei oppressors.
It is for this reason that intelligence and counter-terrorism wings of the Government of India, and of it's militaries, turned to the Kukis, the third largest ethnicity in Manipur, at 16%, after the Meiteis' 53% and the Nagas in Manipur at 24%.
Karan Thapar is the son of an army officer and a general. Is he no longer in touch with contacts in the Indian military?
It is because the Kukis were informally militarized by India to act as a counter to the Meitei and Naga Separatisms, that the Nagas in the 1990s genocided the Kukis, killing over 1000, wiping out Kuki settlements that had pre-existed the Nagas, forcing a population exchange and a relative demographic consolidation of Naga and Kuki territories.
This is what Ms Nepram called "Population Engineering."
Worldwide, it's generally called "Demographic engineering," as popularized by the State of Israel.
We are seeing the Meiteis now replicating Muivah's "Demographic engineering" and Genocide against the Kukis, for exactly the same reasons, after a gap of some 33 years, but with greater ferocity and barbarity.
In both cases, first the Nagas, and now the Meiteis, are attacking and "punishing" the Kukis for siding with India, for being India's Proxies, and acting towards them as Proxies for India.
It is also because the Kuki militant entities are largely creatures and proxies of the Indian State, that the Indian State singled out these Kuki militant entities for favorable and preferential treatment, the so-called "Suspension of Operations" (SoO) regime.
It is this SoO that is a sore sticking point in the throats of the Meiteis.
Nepram: Population Engineering is the process by which the natives of Sikkim and Tripura were reduced to a minority. Meiteis fear the same fate.
Lucio: Of course, Meiteis have a right to protect themselves from meeting the same date as the native Sikkimese and Tripurans, overwhelmed by Nepalese and Bengalian settlers.
Equally, the Kukis have the same right, too.
Hypocrisy is when Meiteis pretend that their right to self-preservation entitles them to Genocide and Holocaust the Kukis, and more so that their "self-preservation" is possible only by genociding and holocausting the Kukis!
KT: Why would Meiteis at 53% credibly fear that they could be reduced to a minority in Manipur?
Nepram: The Census is yet to come out, Meiteis believe that the new Census will show that their numbers have reduced.
KT: There has been no census data collected after the last census of 2011. There is no data showing that the Kuki population has been inexplicably increasing.
Nepram: There are "Lies, true lies, and statistics." The question whether the numbers of the Kukis have "inexplicably" increased, or the number of the Meiteis reduced, is best decided by the judicial commission of inquiry.
Lucio: Only an idiot, and a profound idiot at that, could, or would suggest, that data that can only be accumulated by means of a census, and which data just does not as yet exist, can be "adjudicated" by a Judicial Commission of Inquiry!
KT: Biren has been acerbating, vitiating the Meitei communal attitude towards the Kukis. Isn't it best that he step aside, to give peace a chance?
KT: Should Biren step aside, or be removed from the way?
Nepram: Gujarat Riots were ended in 3 days. Why, then, has the Manipur situation been allowed to continue? This is not a civilian war, it is a war fought with sophisticated weapons and armaments. My niece was killed by a bomb placed by Nagas targeting a Kuki politician, blown to bits, couldn't even have her funeral. Tell those who engineered this, that they will not prevail.
Lucio: Non sequiturs. Red herrings. Hydraulics. And the compulsory Anti-Kuki Dogwhistles. All to evade the question: "Should Biren go, or be forced to go, to give peace a chance?"
Were the 2002 Gujarat Riots "over in three days"? I lived through that time, though I was in Bombay, not Gujarat. I know that the Gujarat Pogroms lasted over a month.
KT: The women of the Catholics and Protestants in Ireland brought about peace. Can that be replicated by the Meiteis and Kukis in Manipur.
Nepram: 45 million people live in the NorthEast, distributed across 272 ethnic communities. "In the darkness, a rope looks like a snake." We are already together, we met for the 4th North East Women's Initiative for Peace, we called for peace. We stand against "Engineered Divides." We started the International Mother’s Initiative for Peace. Without hope, we will all perish. We are calling for a Truth & Reconciliation Commission. Women’s Initiative for Peace say that, if Government of India cannot manage, can't disarm the men at arms, to get the peace process moving, it should allow in the Red Cross and UN Peacekeepers.
Lucio: It is Government of India official policy, adhered to by both the Congress, and the present BJP regime, that they will not "compromise the sovereignty and Integrity" of the Indian State by allowing in International (Supranational) entities such as the UN.
This is a red rag to the Indian Bull. It's very certainly not an overture to peace!
It is not calculated to make the Government of India receptive to your petitions. Quite on the contrary.
KT: Who in the Government of India have you met to get the peace process rolling? How disheartening it is that the Government of India is ignoring you and your initiatives for peace? You’ve managed to bring Meitei and Kuki women together but the Government of India won’t meet you.
Nepram: There are 17 separate Peace Processes with different ethnic insurgency movements in the NorthEast, but not one woman involved with these Peace Processes.
Lucio: Meitei women are in the forefront of Meitei Racism, Supremacism, Chauvinism, Rapes, Murders, Genocide of the Kukis. Truly "Torchbearers," giving the women of Nazi Germany a run for their money! No one needs such savage, brutish, maneating, viciously misanthropic, orcish "Peace-lovers" in any "Peace Process"!
KT: Can the Kukis' demand for Separate Administration be considered as a last resort for peace?
Nepram: Try and separate nature. Do not try to divide us. Lay down your arms. End this war right now. PM is like parent. How dare you keep silent? We the women of Manipur are crying. We were promised in 1949 that the territorial integrity of Manipur will be maintained.
Lucio: A whole load of bullshit.
Nature on earth is divided into more than 200 "countries" (Polities). Nature in India is divided into some 30 provinces.
Nature will not be harmed by sundering the artificial and forced subjugation of Kukiland to Meiteiland. On the contrary, the God of Justice, and of Truth, Creator of Nature, warmly supports the Separation of Kukiland from the inhuman monsters that are the Meiteis, as the "Declaration of the Independence of the United States," or the separation of Switzerland from Austria and Germany over 1000 years ago, among other instances, bears witness.
"Do not try to divide us"?
God and humanity commands that the abused be rescued from the abusor!
"PM is like parent. How dare you keep silent?" How Dare YOU, the Meiteis, who are the PERPETRATORS, make this hypocritcal, mealy-mouthed talk, you HYPOCRITES!
Stop your Genocide and Holocaust of the Kukis, confess your crimes,repent of your crimes, hand yourselves in! That is all that is needed for peace!
Modi doesn't have a magic wand to force you to own up to your blatant malice!
Why should Modi speak!
Modi didn't rape Kukis.
Modi didn't kill and genocide Kukis.
Modi didn't try to steal the lands of the Kukis.
It is YOU Meiteis that have done all that.
You can throw mud in the eyes of India only so long.
Central Forces in Manipur have cottoned onto your Hypocrisy and Criminality. That's why they're increasingly hostile to you Meiteis.
All of you Meitei BASTARDS think that you are oversmart.
The fact is: You're playing with fire.
There are two million Meities. There are half a million Kukis. So you think that you can eat up the Kukis, exterminate them.
What you forget is that there are over 1 billion Indians.
Once the Indians realise that you are attacking the Kukis as Proxies for the Indians, that is when the party will start.
That's when you'll need to spoon up the remains of the Meiteis.
Modi's not a fool. He's silent for good reason. The Hindu Bigot Modi Adulates the Hindu Bigot Meiteis. But there's also the 56" SuperPatriot. And there's also the Pragmatic Modi.
So don't rely on Hindu Bigot Modi to come to your rescue, to save you.
Once the billion Indians get up, Modi knows that, if he tries to get in the way, he, and all his gang, will be obliterated.
If Modi tries to get in the way, India will replay it's reaction when Mohandas Gandhi was assassinated.
And then they'll descend on you.
Happy obliteration!
Lucio Mascarenhas
