Two contestation dramas have been enacted in Manipur amidst the mass agitation for the removal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). The actors are the Indian Army and the Commission of Inquiry set up by the Manipur Government in one drama, and the Government of India and the people of Manipur on the other. The sequence of events and its consequences should raise some uncomfortable questions about the way in which the discourse on security is pursued in the Northeastern States. The sooner this confrontation is overcome , the better it will serve India's nation-building project.

Can security be pursued by ignoring human emotions? Should a system of legal redress not be made a part of the larger plan of counter insurgency? Has insurgency become the black hole into which all injustices dissolve and cannot be pulled out to face justice? The scenario prevailing in Manipur underscores the urgency of these questions.

In the first drama, the Assam Rifles, despite its promises of cooperation to the Inquiry Commission instituted by the State Government, refused to comply with its summons on five occasions citing a threat to the physical security of the personnel involved. The Army also went to the Guwahati High Court challenging the jurisdiction of the Commission. This was done despite clarifications that the personnel were called not as accused but as witnesses. Following the High Court orders, the personnel could be examined in camera on 29 August.

The second drama follows the response of the Government of India to the agitation, marked by callousness rather than confusion. Displaying anger at the inability of the State Government to deal effectively with the crisis, the Central Government maintained that it was 'waiting and watching'. This was to encourage the State Government that it must suppress the movement or face President's rule. Meanwhile, the Home Ministry and the Defence Ministry were engaged in a duel whether the Assam Rifles could be withdrawn from the State or not. The most significant of all statements by the GOI came when Minister of State for Home, Sriprakash Jaiswal, stated on 25 August that various civil society groups in the Northeast that were demanding the withdrawal of the AFSPA had links with the insurgent organisations.

What is being repressed in these two parallel dramas is a set of values and principles on which Indian polity stands viz. that rights and justice are not denied to any particular section of people. The refusal of the Armed Forces to attend the summons of the Commission, the fact that the Commission is only a fact finding body, that no legal proceedings can be instituted against personnel involved under the AFSPA emphasise that democratic entitlements are not extended to a section of the people. In this background, Jaiswal's statement comes as one more humiliation for the people of the region, since it would seem that only insurgents and their sympathizers can protest against custodial death. It is true that there people can have different political beliefs: after all, insurgency was born in our society. But the blanket accusation plainly intended to delegitimise the movement has only added to the prevailing anger. One need not be a sympathizer of insurgency to join the protest movement.

One must, however, note that there are no contradictions in the responses of the Government of India (GOI). The specter of doubt cast on the protest movement in Manipur augments the AFSPA in which the writ of suspicion runs throughout its text. It is the effects of this legalized suspicion that security planners and thinkers should seriously ponder - how have they served the cause of fighting insurgency in India's northeast? This suspicion may explain the deficit in understanding that has come to characterize communications between the GOI and the people of the Northeastern region. The continuation of this paradigm of security only serves to encourage a reciprocity of suspicion between the Indian State and the people of the Northeast.

An analysis of the sequence of events will reveal that all efforts to establish the truth leading to the death of Manorama have been subject to the constraints that are firmly supported by the existing legal system. At any stage, the parties involved and indicted could have exercised their discretion not to cooperate with the whole process. It is in this context that the Indian State needs to rethink its security paradigm. The discourse of security may embody modernity at its cruelest core in that it does not recognize any room for finer sentiments or emotion. But a nation needs to be ethically responsible while dealing with its own nationals. Enabling the administration of justice is the foundation of that responsibility. The emotional security guaranteed thereby will only strengthen the Indian State.