Before Memory Fades

(On the Commemoration of the 29^th Kuki Sahnit Ni (Black Day)

 “There is one place where all the people with the greatest stories are gathered. One place. And that’s the graveyard “_Viola Davis (American Actor)

This article seeks to address the concern that the commemoration of Sahnit Ni or Black Day over the past three decades has yield no positive political results and therefore its continuance must be discouraged and stop. The article agrees otherwise.

In the days of changing space of politics and amidst the animosity to the Kuki identity in the current political scenario in the state of Manipur, Black Day occupies an important space for dialogue about Kukis history and political aspirations. Apart from being an important historical event in the history of Manipur, it is also a significant memory that has evoke our collective conscience as Kukis which has continue to affect our image, identity and politics in the state of Manipur; in the Indian diaspora and around the world.

On this 13^th of September, we will mark the 29^th commemoration day of Sahnit Ni/Black Day for all the Kukis around the world. The date is marked to remember the brutal killing of Kukis carried out by the Naga Lim Guard (NLG); a proxy of Naga militant group- the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah). The massacre was a result of ‘quit notice’ issued by the United Naga Council (UNC) to the Kuki villages in Naga dominated hill areas of Manipur to vacate their lands. (Nehginpao Kipgen “Memories that don’t fade to black” Sept 13, 2013 The Hindu).

As a result of the ‘quite notice’ many Kuki villages were evicted by NSCN-IM. One of such unfortunate incidents occurred at Zoupi village in Tamenglong District; the village Chief was warned to vacate the village by the 15^th of September 1993 but subsequently killed even before he could make such arrangements. Thereafter, the defenseless and helpless villagers sensing a greater harm to their lives vacated the village two days in advance hoping to escape the wrath of NSCN-IM. Unfortunately for the villagers, NSCN-IM ambushed them on the way and carried out a killing spree indiscriminately without differential treatment to women, children and infants. Eye witness account reports that ‘machete’ was used in the killing of infants. Similar actions were also carried out in Gelnel village in Senapati District and surrounding areas resulting in the death of more than hundred of Kukis on a single day, making it the highest number of Kukis killed in a single day; and one of the bloodiest massacres in Northeast India since post-independence.

Today, the Kukis around the world continue to observed this day in respect of the memory of victim of an unjust and brutal act and as a symbol of an unserved justice by the Government of India.

Nearly after three decades of the observance of this day, question have arose as to whether the continuance of Sahnit Ni/Black Day serves any purpose? This question stems from two thoughts. One, that the observance has borne no political advantage or success, and two, that both the parties (Nagas-Kukis) are Christians and therefore must practice Christ like character; forgive and forget the wrong doings of an adversary.

Firstly, the observance of Shanit Ni/Black Day is not merely an act of political stance but also a personal one. Personal because it provides us an opportunity to pay respect to the memories of the victims and in doing so make alive their memories and hear the defenses that they were denied. We do not commemorate the date merely to point out the crimes of an adversary but as a collective make known that we disapproved the injustice that was carried out to our people because it had affected our collective conscience, as the hundreds of people who were killed met their fate because of one political crime - being a ‘Kuki’.

This day allows us to turn their memories into our collective conscience and help us to understand what our identity and history represents to other groups and people around world. This is an important element; no group or nation can create a political identity without the preservation of its own memory. Black Day is a reminder that Kukis are a distinct political group whose human rights were uprooted and political rights sideline, but whose history is embedded in the land as much as the sands are to the sea. Alternatively, by not observation the Black Day we only assist in distorting our own memory and thereby our identity. If we are to loss this part of our memory we only distort our own political identity as ‘Kukis’, but, if we are to truly protect our identity, which we must at all costdo so by collecting the pieces of such memories. The observance of black day therefore holds a significant symbol towards this process.

Secondly, reading a New-Testament Biblical moral to a politically charge animosity is as good as seeking the righteous party in a conflict of war. Each is justified in its own right. To forgive is one of personal choice but to forget a mammoth incident which evokes the identity of the group is not at the liberty of the personal but personnel.

In fact, this whole argument is taken out of context and misleading. Because ‘Sahnit’ (a literal translation implies a period of non-consumption of red-meat due to an unfortunate event or circumstance) is an aged old customary practice of our ancestors which is observed when a member of a community has faced unnatural death or in the conflicts of war a member is killed unjustly and no acceptable resolution has been arrange or agreed upon between the aggressor and the victim. During such period the corpse is left unburied. The moral of this practice lies in the fact that no person shall be sent to the grave without due acknowledgement of the cause of his/her death. And, if the cause of death be an unnatural one; appropriate remedy was undertaken to ensure that the soul in the afterlife does not suffer.

Therefore, the observance of Sahnit Ni or Black Day has a customary implication rather than a Biblical one. Reading it out of context is misleading and uncalled for. In fact, speaking of the moral to forgive and forget is impractical in this case because for the victims to forgive the aggressor, the latter has to show or express remorse which in this case has not been witness (NSCN-IM has never in any form formally or informally apologised to the Kukis). How can a victim really forgive when the aggressor has not desired for one?

For the Kukis around the world, the Black Day incident does not only remind us of the hundreds of persons that died on the fateful day of 13^th September 1993 but also the thousands more victims after that day and the lakhs of people that were displaced in the aftermath. This day marked the beginning of the Kuki political turmoil affecting our psyche to this day. What happen in Zoupi and Gelnel villages may not have seen the scale and extend of violation experienced at Auschwitz where the Jews were persecuted by the Nazi party during the Holocaust period but the harrowing experiences of the witness account tell no lesser tale. The history of the Kukis will find a gap to be filled without the record of the memories of the lives whose blood were spilled in cold blood.

Therefore, this day binds and compels us to awake the stories of the victims buried in the graveyard and enable them to speak their stories because their stories have become a part of our collective conscience which has defined and shaped our political consciousness.

A people without conscience can have no memory; and a people without memory can create no story; a people without stories can write no history; a people with no history can have no identity and a people with no identity can have no nation.

If we are a nation with a political future, we must protect the collective national conscience before memory fades because we do not own this memory as it belongs to the collective, we are mere custodian of it for the next generation which will seek to build their history based on our memories.