A group of service-oriented selfless people who decided to traverse the entire length and breadth of India from Goa to Manipur and give their selfless service heal some lives and ensure that humanity knows no boundaries and can cover any distance.
They went to provide succour to the violence-hit people of Manipur under the umbrella organisation called Street Providence, which decided to expand its horizon out of the sheer need for humanitarian assistance, led by Donald Fernandes.
A team of very dedicated people from various walks of life went in there simply to assess what they could do, with no expectations in return, and this is a story of how they managed to go and meet sufferers in Manipur, talk to the people and figure out a little bit more about the local conditions there and their sufferings.
The need at this point of time is to heal the wounds and rebuild futures through education, health care and a relatively better quality of life under these circumstances. It is also important that some bricks are laid towards the foundation of rebuilding Manipur physically, emotionally, spiritually and mentally.
Sharing his experience, Donald Fernandes, Trustee of Street Providence, said, “So the trip was basically to see how we could provide some assistance and help the people in Manipur, and it took us almost more than 45 days after the violence started to actually put a plan together. I had a fair idea that it’s not going to be easy.”
“There will be many players, many supporters, many collaborators involved and I called Caroline (Adv Caroline Collasso, Trustee of Street Providence) and I told her we need to do something and as usual she said yeah. So then I called Bishop Theodore (Mascarenhas). I told him we need to do something in Manipur. He understood what we had in mind. He put us on to the right person,” Fernandes said.
“Then I called Bosco George (former IG Prisons, Goa) and told him that we need to go to Manipur. He said yes and then I was relaxed. After a few days, he said we need to go to Manipur. I just wanted to get a sense of when we could start. So the first call was made on June 15,” he said.
“The first consignment left Goa on June 24. We sent Rs 5 lakh worth of generic allopathic medicines which we bought in Delhi. Dry ration worth Rs 1 lakh was also sent to Imphal via Nagaland by road. But I also wanted to know whether we were going to stop only at ration and medicine or would have a long-term mission. When we started our work, we required somebody to capture the moment. So we called Joseph Fernandes (journalist at O Heraldo) to come along with us,” Fernandes said.
When asked about the moment when the decision was taken that there was a need to be in Manipur, Adv Caroline Collasso, Trustee of Street Providence, said, “Various NGOs were talking about Manipur and trying to get answers as to what exactly was the trigger point there and how bad was the situation. But given the internet lockdown, we were getting very sketchy information. We just knew 350 camps had been set up having 10,000-50,000 displaced people in them. The numbers itself were deferring, depending on different reports.”
“Although on the ground a lot of groups condemned the violence and called upon the State’s intervention calling for peace, a need was still felt to go to Manipur. Unless you really go there, you can’t really make a difference. My family was very apprehensive about me going there as they thought it wasn’t safe,” Adv Colcao said.
“We didn’t want to stop at just providing humanitarian aid, which other groups were also doing. I wanted to be part of something that would have a long-term impact and try to understand the ground reality,” she said.
Speaking about his trigger points of inspiration and personal learning from this visit to Manipur, former IGP Prisons, Bosco George said, “See, when l got a call from Donald to head this mission, I said yes because I had worked in the North East previously. So, I knew the ground realities there.”
“While going to a conflict area, you have to understand the background. It is a complicated and also a very sensitive issue. If you say something factually wrong, it can just complicate things. The insecurity has grown to such an extent that you do not know what can trigger off a riot over there,” the former senior police official said.
Also, you can’t work independently in such a crisis situation. One has to work with the organisations on the ground, like the Church. The second are the government authorities.
“This helped us because unless you work with the administration, your end goal to serve the people and get your relief materials to the affected areas won’t be possible unless you get both these two on your side. Because, the Church has people on the ground and the administration helps open many doors,” he said.
“So, I thought I could contribute in that aspect. Hence, I said yes and I’m happy that I could contribute something towards the team that went over there,” Goerge said.
When asked about the ground-level humanitarian situation that he witnessed, the former IGP said the valley is the plains, surrounded by hills. The hill people are the tribals and those in the plains are non-tribals. There were conflicts between them.
“On one side, towards Nagaland border, there are Nagas and towards the Mizoram side, on Myanmar border, there are Kukis. So there has been inter-rivalry between the Nagas and Kukis. It took a long time for the Kukis and Nagas to reconcile. So, the undercurrents were there. Then suddenly the reservation issues triggered mass scale violence,” he said.
“In our country, because of the reservation, if you are tribal, there are chances that you may get into the Civil Services with greater ease, while the General Category people don’t have it easy. These are layers within layers that have caused anxiety and insecurity in Manipur,” IGP George said.
Arturo D’Souza, environmentalist and volunteer, narrated the situation he saw on the ground and the challenges people living in relief camps faced.
“I have never seen such bitter rivalry where neighbours have attacked neighbours. Colleagues attacked each other. The only solution now is to bring peace. At least we should provide a homely atmosphere in the relief camps. People need psychiatric care. The children have seen their homes being set on fire. They must be getting nightmares,” D’Souza said.
“They can’t speak. We need to reach out to these people and bring some peace in their lives. That’s the first task we have in hand. Unless this is worked out, just providing them with homes is not going to be the answer,” he said.
What struck the relief team hard was to see people in a distraught condition at a Meitei relief camp. Meiteis are usually the well-settled group of people. It was an emotional experience to see the scenario there, especially the type of food that they were getting. It was not very healthy and also insufficient for them to survive.
“While trying to give some monetary help to the camp inmates, a lady burst into tears. Usually, the Meities are well-settled people. It must be very hurtful for them to accept such a meagre amount. The emotions over there made me also cry with that lady,” D’Souza said.
“I felt very much connected to the ground realities. There were some camps that did not even have privacy. They could not take bath in a separate place. So, there was a common place for bathing. I therefore felt that my experience will enable me to tell people about what the Manipuris were going through,” he added.
He lauded the Street Providence for handling the relief work very meticulously and taking care of the people.
“People also appreciated that we were there for a genuine cause. So I think when we tell these stories to our people back home, the emotions will get surcharged and many people will come forward to help their countrymen,” he added.
So, what were the challenges and how was the whole operation planned? What was the more immediate need - was it food and shelter or was it medicines? How was this gigantic exercise of sending relief material planned? What are the future plans and what were the challenges?
Sharing details on these aspects, Fernandes said, “So basically, we are sourcing materials in Assam and Imphal. As of now, we have sent about 33 tons of food grains to Manipur, three huge consignments of generic medicines which was sourced from Delhi, because there is no generic medicine available at that rate and in that variety. We sent it by road. Two consignments went to Nagaland and now one consignment is going to Mizoram.”
“So this consignment put together, if they had to buy allopathic generic medicine, it would have cost them more than Rs 15 to 20 lakhs. In fact, the order which went recently is a huge one. So we have sent only half of it, containing mainly painkillers, for fever, blood pressure and diabetes. There are about a thousand organic sanitary pads which we have sent from Goa. Organic because you know you don’t need to burn it. These will disintegrate,” he said.
“We also have given about Rs 1 lakh worth of inner wear basically for ladies and some other items like baby diapers and baby napkins. This is what we have done. But what we are going to do now is focus on education,” Fernandes said.
“When they are resettled, there will be a lot of children who will have to go to school and that needs to be addressed because one can sustain with ration till the time the violence continues. Once it ebbs, the children have to go back to school. In fact, that is the biggest concern for the people of Manipur right now,” Fernandes said.
But the schools have been destroyed. Till now the children are scattered in various relief camps. So there is no school to go back to. There is a possibility that temporary schools might operate from smaller apartments, because in some cases there are schools which have no hope of being rebuilt.
“Buildings have been razed to the ground and smashed to smithereens. If it were tents or some temporary structure which were partly burnt or something, perhaps one could consider refurbishing them. But these schools have been damaged beyond repair. So, it’s like starting from afresh. That’s why the need was so much more to rebuild schools, otherwise the children won’t have any future,” Adv Caroline
Collasso said.
“The added difficulty in Manipur is that they don’t have government-aided schools and I often thought, how privileged we are. I mean, we don’t even think that there is no State backing at all for schools. So right from fees to books to any kind of sports, the need is so strong,” she said.
“There was one particular girl whose certificates had been burnt. She was staring at a completely dark future because no one will give her admission without any certificate even though she was a graduate from Imphal University. Students were attacked. The Kukis were specifically targeted by checking their ID cards. The students were forced to hide their identity cards and other certificates bearing their names,” Adv Collasso said.
After being evacuated from the riot-hit areas, many of these students have been staying in the camps since July, with no education; no college, no books and backup certificates. These students don’t even know where the documents are and whether they would ever be able to retrieve them.
“Women are disadvantaged and quite often they told the Street Providence team about the lack of privacy because of course the camp and the lack of sanitation. That’s what women would need. Lactating mothers need clean potable water to feed babies, to prepare baby food for the infants, and during menstruation they require more water for cleanliness. But the number of toilets per camp was abysmally low. In one camp there were only 10 toilets for 1,000 people. Everybody wanted to go home. But no one knew where they could go,” she informed.
Adv Collasso said that there are hardly any proper houses in Imphal. There are mostly shanties, made of tin. Due to shortage of sand and high cost of cement, many people can’t afford a proper house. “We could rebuild a home in just Rs 5 lakh. That’s all they are looking forward to.
It is not really much they are asking for,” she said.
Former IGP Bosco George was sceptical about any kind of reconciliation between the warring communities, even after the current spate of violence ceases.
“I have been more of an administrative man. But I was looking at the after-effects. From my point of view, reconciliation cannot be seen in the near future. There is so much bitterness and hatred between the Kukis and Meties. One of the community members asked how could there be any no scope for talking with someone who raped your family members and killed them in front of you,” IGP George said.
He said that there is a sense of revenge amongst the communities. There’s so much bitterness that there is no immediate answer for reconciliation.
Another complicated issue is to keep the children occupied. There is a need for providing materials like drawing books, colouring sets and toys to keep them going. Otherwise, idle minds can lead to children recollecting the horrors of violence.
“So, if you get vocational trainers, occupational therapists, child counsellors who can go and stay with the camp inmates for 15 days, then the next team moves in, it will help a lot,” Fernandes said.
“Going ahead, there will also be greater demand for employment. Then finally, there will be a need for building homes. Because, how are these poor people going to live once the camps are dismantled? They all will become homeless once again and land on the streets,” the Trustee of Street Providence said.
“There will be a lot of people who will be having psychiatric problems because of the stress they are going through. I would like to cover as many aspects as possible in the next six months because the aftermath would be felt for at least a year,” Fernandes said.
“Let’s hope it lasts less than one year. There are 50,000 affected people in Manipur, almost 15,000 people in Nagaland and around 12,000 in Mizoram. How will society be able to support them? There are many questions that need to be answered,” he said.
“So even if we do whatever we have planned, it is going to be just 0.5 percent of what is required to be done on a long-term basis,” he added.
There are a lot of legal and human rights challenges. At the end of the day, for people to get justice they have to fight for it. Now they are only thinking of surviving, but surely each of them have a ground to proceed legally and get some of the rights. At this point of time, it seems like a very small priority in the light of what they have gone through. But, going ahead, maybe after three months or four months or five months, can there be any kind of legal advocacy for them to get some of their rights back?
“There will be a large need for legal advocacy. When they were sharing some of their experiences, lot of things were going on in my head. For example, in the case of the female student who lost her documents, will need a direction from the high court to say that an affidavit to the effect that the person has lost her documents is sufficient proof that she had valid documents,” Adv Collasso said.
“But for this you would need some kind of directions or orders from the court. The second aspect is the huge large-scale sexual violence that has taken place in so many cases. Entire legal machinery would have to give confidence to the women victims that they can go to court and get justice,” she said.
Manipur very clearly needs a resurrection and efforts like these contribute towards that hope of some amount of rejuvenation and resurrection from the abyss that this wonderful state has fallen into. It’s not about ticking one side on the other side, there is pain all across. Some may feel it more, some may feel it relatively less.
But, humanity needs to be healed and at the same time let us not forget that the people who are mandated to govern, to serve, should introspect and rethink so that Manipur is not lost to India forever. That should never happen and a lot of things need to be reclaimed and most importantly, the legal systems, infrastructure, humanity, sense of brotherhood, sense of peace - everything needs to come together.
It is commendable and all those volunteers who are going to Manipur to help the victims of violence, like the Street Providence, should be saluted. They have at least made an effort to move out of their areas of comfort and decide to do service with an absolutely selfless motive to touch hearts and heal lives, irrespective of where they are and how far they are from their homes.