Why The Three-Finger Salute Is Going Viral In North East India

Remember the famous three-finger salute from the 2015 movie Hunger Games, a mark of people’s resistance against the autocratic regime of its fictional world? The same symbol has come to represent Myanmar’s pro-democracy protests ever since its military junta overthrew the democratically-elected government in a coup, last month.

This three-finger salute has been quietly going viral in the Northeastern states after the region’s popular artists used it to show their solidarity with the protesters.

Hunger Games, The Three-Finger Salute and Myanmar Protests

The Hunger Games salute has quickly become the most defining symbol of the 2021 Myanmar protests. In the film, the symbol marked the struggle of people against a totalitarian dictatorship. But how did this happen? Didn’t the American movie, Hunger Games, come out long back in 2014?

It all started with the 2014 protests in Bangkok, Thailand against the coup de tat which coincided with the release of one of the Hunger Games sequels. Protesters began flashing the three-finger salute in public places almost immediately. It did not take very long for the symbol to become the defining one for the protest.

Given the immense connectivity of Thailand and Myanmar, the history of the Hunger Games symbol crossed the border. So when Myanmar had a military coup of its own, the symbol became like a knee-jerk reaction of the Burmese people.

However, the three-finger salute had other vitalities too. Given the popularity of the Hunger Games films in the West, the symbol was bound to attract immediate international attention. According to internet social movement researcher, An Xiao Mina, having a symbol that can be easily understood by the West helps reduce the loss in translation. “They can look at it and immediately go, ‘Is that what’s happening in Myanmar?’”

The Hunger Games salute has become for South Asia’s anti-military protests, including in Myanmar, what the peace symbol and raised fist were to the UK’s nuclear disarmament movement and the USA’s Black Lives Matter movement.

Why is North-East India supporting the Myanmar protesters?

Four Northeastern states – Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, and Mizoram – share a 1,643 km border with Myanmar. These states also share ethnic ties with Burmese citizens across the porous border. Mizoram is known to have felt the impact of any unrest in the neighboring country more than the others.

Two days after the nascent democratic government of Nobel Peace Prize awardee Aung San Suu Kyi was overthrown on February 1, 2021, a student body in Mizoram occupied the streets of Aizawl in solidarity with the anti-coup protesters. The Mizo Zirlai Pawl – an apex Mizo student body – continued to organize sit-in demonstrations for the next couple of weeks across Mizoram.

By end of February, famous Mizo artists like Rebecca Saimawii, Esther Hnamte, and Moitea Adhikari flashed the three-finger salute used by protestors in Myanmar. Saimawii, a revered Mizo singer, belted out revolutionary Burmese songs A Yay Kyi Pi and Kabar Ma Kyay Bu on her YouTube channel. Four-year-old Hnamte, whose cover of Vande Mataram went viral earlier this year, shared photos flashing the Hunger Games three-finger salute.

As the protesters grew in numbers, the Tatmadaw allegedly issued orders to use firearms against the protesters resulting in over 60 casualties to date. One such protester was 19-year-old Ma Kyal Sin who was shot dead in Mandalay later in February and became the face of the resistance. Soon after, Mizo artist Moitea Adhikari was seen sporting a t-shirt with artwork showing Ma Kyal Sin holding a Burmese flag and the tagline “Everything will be ok”, as a tribute to the deceased protesters.

Myanmar continued to increase its crackdown on protesters. Soon after organizations in Manipur and Nagaland joined their Mizo counterparts by extending support to the civil disobedience movement against the military junta.

On March 11, it was revealed that the Myanmar police officers were being ordered to shoot the protesters till they died. The news soon gained international traction, inviting harsh criticism for the Myanmar government from the US, UN, among others.

“As the Civil disobedience movement is gaining momentum and protest(s) held by anti-coup protesters at different places we are instructed to shoot at the protesters,” they said in a joint statement to Mizoram police. “In such a scenario, we don’t have the guts to shoot at our own people who are peaceful demonstrators,” they said.

What’s happening in Myanmar?

Myanmar’s military junta staged a coup on February 1 and deposed the country’s civilian government. Since then, daily protests against the coup are being staged across the country, and security forces have cracked down. More than 60 protesters have been killed and more than 1,800 detained, according to advocacy group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Among the detainees is Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who led the civilian government.

The military “is using increasingly lethal tactics and weapons normally seen on the battlefield against peaceful protesters and bystanders across the country,” Amnesty International said in a report.

“By verifying more than 50 videos from the ongoing crackdown, Amnesty International’s Crisis Evidence Lab can confirm that security forces appear to be implementing planned, systematic strategies including the ramped-up use of lethal force. Many of the killings documented amount to extrajudicial executions,” the report said.

The UN, the US, and a host of other countries have condemned the killing of civilians in the crackdown against anti-coup protesters in Myanmar and called on the authorities to exercise restraint. The military has dismissed criticism of its actions and said it is ready to withstand sanctions and isolation after it seized power.

How is India planning to intervene?

Meanwhile, on the Indian border, more than 100 people managed to escape from Myanmar to Mizoram since the military coup. They crossed into India over the bordering Tiau river, a 250-mile stretch that forms part of the boundary between India and Myanmar.

Zoramthanga, Mizoram’s chief minister, has declared that his administration would provide temporary food and shelter to those fleeing Myanmar. But also said that the final decision on repatriations will be taken by India’s federal government.

On March 12, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) communicated to the four Northeast states bordering Myanmar to maintain strict vigil at the international borders and not allow anyone to enter India. “While we are seized of the situation unfolding in Myanmar, we cannot allow all and sundry to enter the country. The states have been advised to deal with the issue on case to case basis,” a home ministry official said.

“Further, it is reiterated that State Governments and UT Administrations have no powers to grant ‘refugee’ status to any foreigner and India is not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention of 1951 and its 1967 Protocol,” the MHA letter to Chief Secretaries of all four states said.

A brief history of Myanmar

Myanmar, also known as Burma, became independent from Britain in 1948. For much of its modern history, it has been under military rule. Restrictions began loosening in 2010, leading to free elections in 2015 and the installation of a government led by veteran opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

In 2017, Myanmar’s army responded to attacks on police by Rohingya militants with a deadly crackdown, driving more than half a million Rohingya Muslims across the border into Bangladesh in what the UN later called a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.

Reference Sources: BBC, CNN, Reuters, Scroll