Thokchom Veewon’s cause belongs to all of us coming from areas far away from the heartland, physically and psychologically. The assault on Kashmiri students in Dehradun and Kashmiri employees in Jammu in a display of Hindutva nationalism is our cause too. It’s the cause of every person living in this nation state with a conflicted and an imposed sense of identity. The state apparatus is against our very existence and that is clear from the way the local court in Delhi easily granted the police remand to take him back to Manipur- a homeland that has seen so much violence over the past 70 years. Let’s not forget that Thockchom knew what was at stake when he decided to speak against the government policies having grown up in a place where the traffic control is done by army men carrying loaded rifles and AK47. He knew what the consequences could be, yet till the very end he stood firm on ground. On 12th February, two days before being arrested, he had posted on social media that the police had visited his house in Manipur and threatened his parents.
Author: Shradha T K Lama
a third year history student at lady sri ram college, delhi
We who come from the north-east of India to feel a sense of guilt for reading English books, watching Hollywood movies and soaps and not regional cinema, let alone popular Hindi movies and for hearing and singing English songs. I also found myself sometimes, defending the fact that cinema halls in Darjeeling and Sikkim did screen Hindi movies, which were widely watched and that south Indian movies were much awaited and enjoyed as well. But to much dismay, this still did not alter the attempts at fitting in well to engage in the cultural dialogue that existed among the lower classes in mainland India.
Sikkim in the Light of Abrogation of Article 370
On 5th August Monday the Home Minister announced two critical measures on the floor of the Upper House, the revocation of Article 370 and 35A or the “special status” granted to the state of Jammu and Kashmir. In the immediate aftermath of these events the Rajya Sabha MP from Sikkim, honorable Hishey Lachungpa, delivered a speech on the floor of the house where he first congratulated the Central government on its actions and then went on to plead saying, “but I hope the government won’t do the same to Article 371F in Sikkim for Sikkim joined India through a referendum”
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