The immediate impression one gets from the name “Manipur Human Rights Protection Guild” (MHRPG) is of a registered Non-governmental Organization espousing causes that its name suggests. Interestingly, MHRPG is an armed outfit in Manipur. Formed recently, they announced their arrival in the media as recently as 1 April, 2003. According to Robinson, spokesman and political affairs in-charge of the organization, their goals include wiping out corruption in public life, ensuring administrative transparency, ending the use of money-power in elections and promoting self-employment. Their goals, in other words, is to replicate the functions of a Vigilance Commission, a Administrative Reforms Commission, a Election Commission and the Ministry of Human Resources Development.

That an armed outfit has emerged with the sole objective of replicating specific functions of the state is significant for a number of reasons. It reflects the extent to which state agencies have failed to deliver; not surprising in a state where corruption is all pervasive. While the objectives spelt-out are undeniably in the interests of the public and are expressive of popular discontent with the prevailing state of governance in the state, there is no condoning recourse to violent propagation. Alternative forms of engagement with the system like civil society activism, mass mobilization against corruption, and media activism must be explored. They promise less human and material costs but also sustainability and long-term effectiveness to check social and systemic ills.

Secondly, this is reflective of a kind of departmentalization within the insurgent fraternity. The MHRPG has declared its support for other valley insurgent outfits that are demanding self-determination while limiting its own goals to specific spheres of governance, suggesting a ‘departmental’ division of tasks. It is unlikely that ‘departmentalization’ has resulted from a consciously coordinated effort, but this could be the result of a search for new spheres of ‘legitimacy’ in a fast eroding milieu of public goodwill towards armed struggles. The public must keep strict vigil against such beguiling attempts to make them condone recourse to arms on their behalf in the attempt to legitimize the armed crusade and its accompaniments like extortion, wanton murder and torture. The government must realize on its part that the challenge to its sovereign authority can no longer be met by repression of armed activity, and gear itself to meet the new challenges to governance and winning popular goodwill and support.

Thirdly, the emergence of the MHRPG could reflect the lessons learnt (by the ‘tribe’) from the experience of increasingly discredited and unpopular fraternal groups that are facing public antagonism, apart from that of the security forces. The MHRPG, however, is not the first outfit to take up a populist social agenda. The Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) had done so in the 1980s and the Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup (KYKL) had taken to fighting corruption and other social ills more recently. The problem with such endeavors is that these outfits started off to fight the lack of accountability. But insurgents are not accountable to the people, both in the short and medium term, for their acts. They wield unrestrained power in a sense, which is far more dangerous and prone to abuse than state power.

Given that many outfits are already active in the state, the emergence of another armed group needs to be given serious thought. This is because of the new armed challenge to the state that is emerging. The objectives of the new outfit leave no room for negotiation with the state. These are neither demands to redress political grievances, which the state can meet by doling out enhanced autonomy, nor economic ones that can be met with special economic packages. The challenge is clearly that of governance. The role definition which the new outfit has laid out for itself is not dissimilar to those of the legendary Knights of foregone eras. The problem with these modern day Knights is that they often turn their weapons on the people they set out to serve and protect, thereby adding to their misery.

While the state needs to blunt the armed capacity of such groups by the use of counterforce, it must realize that the crucial battle has to be fought in the field of governance, and can only be won by making its regulatory and service administration effective. Armed groups are capitalizing on the grievances of the common man to wreak havoc on the law and order situation. By relieving the people of these afflictions and by demonstrating that armed activists are in fact promoting these problems by extortion, abduction and unaccountable decrees, the government can expect to effectively and permanently tackle these issues.