Manipur News

By Chitra Ahanthem
One wise saying has this for people to ponder over: you fear what you don`™t know. And if there is one stage of life where fear plays a central part, it is the world of childhood where in each one of us try to make sense of the outer world. The growing up years is when we want to explore our surroundings yet scared to step out. It is also the stage when grown up people in their own beliefs of protecting us or trying to steer us out of trouble, tend to fill our ears with stories of doom and punishment. I am pretty sure that most our parents or family elders used the medium of stories to scare the living day lights out of children in the belief that they would be more obedient (with the threat of punishment with `proof` from stories).

The scare factor in my younger years was Tapta. Looking at the story now, one cannot help but be impressed by the very basic premise of Tapta: a creature that does not exist with the two main protagonists (the tiger and the thief) both believing the worst of this non-existing creature. But the narrative power of the story when the mother trying to soothe down her wailing baby says `tapta laak ae` (Tapta has come) and the immediate aftermath of the child stopping its wails immediately builds up the suspense of this `creature` and how hideous and mean it would be in its appearance. Lai khutshaangbi was another creature who made the windows in our house assume a very terrifying structure. The thought of a long stretchable arm that would swoop down on `children who do not behave` looked like a reality given my rebellious nature. Since there were no comic books then with local fables, it was our imaginations that drew our own mental pictures of the ogress with the stretchable arms. For me, she was someone with bloodshot eyes, unkempt straw like hair and hands that would go on and on. I remember a part of me trying to visualize how she would have rested her long arms when she tried to sleep. My imagination failed me but made up with the heart stopping terror of being lifted away. When my grand father told me that the `red` patch that we find in sugarcane is actually the blood of the lai khutshangbi after a father of a child cut her arms off, it bred more questions for me: would her arms grow back? No one gave me any answer and that scared me further. Thinking of an injured ogress meant conjuring the image of a very angry woman who would want revenge!

Yet, Tapta and Lai khutshaangbi sounded more mythical but with Churanthaaba, it was a different chapter altogether. Here was another entity whose features we were not told about, a being who was supposed to go about with a huge sack to collect unruly children. One major concern that occupied a lot of thought was what would happen to the children so caught. But the scariest `explanation` about what happened to the children caught by Churanthaaba was that they were being used as sacrifices while building huge bridges. The elders in the family said that Thong Nambobi (the humped bridge that connects Waheng Leikai with the bazaar area) was full of children!

I can only laugh at my naivete then. Yet, the fear of these entities were more or less shared by many of our generation and earlier. With later generations of children bred on story-books and fables, the terror made out by fictional characters just does not stay since they would discover much earlier in life that they were make belief. With TV and cartoon shows and video games exposing them to visual imagery, they did not have their imaginations creating a greater atmosphere of fear. They have no baggage of heart stopping terror of the unknown. Rather, they come up with startling conjectures. I remember my now 6-year-old son coming back from his school about a year ago. He looked very excited as he blurted it all out in a rush, `Mama, Tapta does exist! He sings songs. One is called `sambru`™ (mole)!` He was connecting the fictional Tapta with the singer`™s artistic identity and that was his discovery for me to acknowledge.

End-point:
Child psychologists may not approve of the tendency of parents and elders to tell children about scary characters or stories. Also, there is a certain feeling of being let down when we discover that our elders have often lied to us to make us behave for often, the stories were not often told as mere stories. Rather, they were used to scare us into `behaving`. Of course, it is now a different story altogether for the children we see around us now. Their world reflects the environment around them. The sad reality for them though is that their world of bandhs, blockades, murder, gun violence and more is scarier than the make belief characters our own parents told us about.

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by Rajen Singh Laishram
I have no travel experience beyond parts of Oriental Asia. Yet encounters from such sojourn are reminder of the visible contrast of conviviality among the officials and people in Asia and glacial attitude of my fellow Indians.

One does not face the harrowing tales of harassment, physical attacks, and continual attitudinal discrimination while living and travelling in India for being a Chinki. Chinkiness rather paves way for a normal bonding, unusual in many parts of India. Not surprising, though, as various communities are interspersed along the political boundaries with history of shared migration.

It is probably also the cosmological union and Karma that is reorienting our curiosity, memories, quest for restoring normal pattern of relationships with East and South East Asia.

Exploiting the apparent similarities in language, culture among the communities in North East India and East and South East Asia may augment the Indian state`™s foray in East Asia with its stress on Look East policy and public diplomacy.

Involving communities from North East India can be a fillip in erasing the perception of neglect, provide some scope for participation in the developmental process, bridge the cultural and racial hiatus with the Indian state, hence worth deliberation as a policy option.

Many communities in India traces their origin south of the Yarlung Zangbo, source of the Brahmaputra River, including the Tai-Ahoms or Ahoms, an offspring of the Tai people who are called Shan in Myanmar, Thai in Thailand, Lao in Laos, Dai and Zhuang in China and Tay-Thai in Vietnam.

The oral history of Chin-Kuki-Mizo communities places their origin to Sinlung/Chinlung or closed cave, probably the Great Wall in China. The exodus of Chin-Kuki-Mizo people from China was necessitated by the forcible conscription of people for the construction of the Great Wall by Emperor Shi Huang Di around 200BC. The personal names of many Chin-Kuki-Mizo groups have many similarities with the Chinese hint to a connection.

Cathay is the old name of China then, the term Kathe which is used by Burmese to describe the Meitei is a pointer of the possible migration rather an original or early settler of China proper. Similarities in the nouns between Chinese languages and speeches used among communities in Northeast India and Southeast Asia are also a point worth investigation.

Many of us are not aware that the Meitei, who is assumed to be a part of the Black Tai, out of the three kindred of Tai: White Tai, Black Tai and Red Tai, are addressed as Tai mi meaning Tai people by many hill tribes in Manipur. Even the Manipuri vernacular meaning of the universe as Taibangpan, meaning the world in which the Tai reign, is suggestive of the old connection with the Tai community in Yunnan.

The similarities in the name of places may be no coincidence. A predominantly Loi village Tairenpokpi, which is situated at the foothills of Imphal West may be one of the early settlement of the Tai people who probably migrated from Yunnan, as the name suggest.

In Yunnan there is a place called Damenlong, pronounced as Tamenlong. Whether Tamenglong in Manipur and Damenlong has any mythological and historical connection even in the oral history and tradition must inspire our Anthropologist, Linguists and Historians alike.

I am also reminded of Professor Horam, who mentioned in passing over our habitual rounds of Scotch and Royal Sekmai that Tangkhul Naga legend has that Yunnan is the place of origin of the Tangkhul. Many Naga friends from Nagaland, when inquired about the origin of the Naga shares that some of the Naga may have migrated from South East Asia, as there are oral history and discovery of fossils and shells peculiar to ocean.

While staying in the Montien Riverside Hotel in Bangkok, the food and beverages manager of the hotel, who happens to be from Chiangmai, took special care of me once he learnt that I am from Manipur and volunteered assistance. The manager was aware of the Trans-Asian Highway and talked about possibility of having renewed contacts through this.

Exploring the similarities in the cultural and settlement patterns of the Chiangmai in northern Thailand and Sekmai in Manipur could be the beginning of Manipur`™s nongpok thong hangba. In an international conference at Gwalior, Amara Prasithrathsint, emeritus professor of Linguistics in Chulalongkorn University, narrated Manipur is known as Manipura in the Thai chronicles.

If the Khasi, one of the few matrilineal communities in India, have migrated from Yunnan before being pushed out of the Red River delta of Vietnam, then what should interest us is the possible connection between the Khasi and the Mosuo community of Lugu Lake in Yunnan.

The Mosuo is one of surviving matrilineal community in China and has been attracting internal and foreign tourists. The Mosuo community practices a system of marriage called zouhun or walking marriage, where one can choose a female partner for a day, months, and year or for a life time.

Although Hinduism became a state religion of Manipur in the early part of the 18th Century, influence of Hinduism was traceable in 1474 with the worship of Pha (God) ? stone image of Lord Vishnu ridding over the Garuda, when Pong (Shan) king Sabwa Khekhomba gifted to Meitei King Thangwai Ningthouba also known as Kyamba.

This idol which is still worshipped in a temple at Bishnupur bears resemblance to Chandis temple of Java as in the Chandi Punta Deva of 7th century such as the corbelled arch in Borobudur and ventilation holes in Chandi Pawon. This should be reason enough for us to ponder over the early connection.

Balinese dance and Manipuri dance form may have visibly similar gestures. But we are reminded by a lady Professor from Chulalongkorn University, who led a troupe at the Jawaharlal Nehru Manipur Dance Academy that some of the Thai dance forms have more similarities with Manipuri Dance. The Balinese dance gestures are played above the shoulder with direct eye gestures and contacts, whereas Manipuri and Thai dance form are gestures from below the shoulder with no direct eye-contact.
I am not a temple-hopping Hindu, but the bliss of visiting a Hindu temple was experienced in Besakih temple?derived from Sanskrit word wasuki which means saviour?in Bali, Indonesia. There are no touts and beggars imposing their service and wares in this temple, largest in Bali.

Manipur history has valorized King Khagemba`™s defeat of Chinese giant Khagi king of China. Inquiries into this matter with some Chinese scholars suggest that there was no such record. There are suggestions that King Khagemba might have defeated one of the chiefs of the Yi tribe and the word Khagi probably means Kha Yi meaning South Yi. Nonetheless this testifies the fluctuating links either through conquest or expeditions on either side.

The ubiquitous yellow color among the Tais in Yunnan reminds me of the yellow khudei Meitei grooms traditionally wears day after the wedding and yellow muga silk suit that adorns the bride on the mapam chakouba the possibility of Tai lineage.
The copper plate used in the Umanglais bust and in idols at Kondong Lairembi and Eengourok are reminder of the Buddhist influence from South East Asia. A Mahidol University faculty is tracing the possible routes of this past.

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IMPHAL May 28: Among the six people injured in a poll related incident at 19/9 polling station at Mahabali Rongmei LP School of ward No.19 on May 25, the condition of Sumitra Palmei, 32, d/o (L) Laldun Lungpu who was severely injured on her face and scalp area has worsen and is now admitted in the ICCU of Shija Hospital, said Lamta Golmei, 54, who was also badly hurt during the incident, in a press conference held at Mangge Makhong, Bhamon Leikai, today.

Narrating the incident, Lamta Golmei, strongly denied the statement made on several local dailies by the supporters of Y. Ratikanta, BJP councilor candidate for ward No. 19.

He said that on May 25 at 19/9 polling station at around 3.30 pm, a grey colored Bolero came speeding along the narrow road leading to Mahabali Rongmei L.P. School and came to a sudden halt without any concerned for the people who passing by the road.

He stated that the sudden commotion caused a gust of dust to blow all around the place that caused serious inconveniences to the nearby people, and added that he saw Y. Ratikanta, BJP candidate for councilor of ward No. 19 came down with few of his associates from the Bolero. On seeing the commotion a woman complained to him of the consequences in which he readily showed unbecoming attitudes to the people present at that time that later led to the altercation. He alleged that the candidate himself came with an intention as there were already 10/20 workers stationed in that area who later joined in to the altercation.

The candidate along with his several workers beat several people including women and drove off leaving no time to react for the others, he said alleging the action as a premeditated and well thought out plan.

Lamta further alleged that without any reason he was also beaten up black and blue along with his son Rocky Golmei, 27, who came running after him on seeing the situation. He stated that all of the injured persons were supporters of RK (ongbi) Bina Devi, INC councilor candidate.

He further condemned Y. Ratikanta, BJP councilor candidate for making false charges by tarnishing the facts. The other injured persons were Maja Gangpu Palmei 25, brother of Sumitra Palmei, Jolsian Golmei 25, s/o Amusanna Golmei, Bijoy Malingmei 26, s/o Khuman Singh Malingmei, Abui Kamei 32, Asing Puina Golmei, 26, and Konjengbam Nanao, 27, all from ward no. 19, Mahabali, he added.

Talking to the media persons, Thounaojam Vikramaditya, president Yaiskul Block Youth Congress committee, the convenor for the press meet refuted the charges and alleged that Prof. S. Tiken, vice president of BJP state unit had wrongly labeled charges by concealing the facts and encouraged Gundaism or hooliganisms. He charged that the high honourable esteem position held by such national party like BJP has been maligned by fielding such an incompetent person.

He added that it was very unfortunate that several baseless labels were also framed by S.Tiken on Rk. Dorendro husband of Rk (ongbi) Bina Devi, Congress councilor candidate of ward no. 19.

He further termed the derogatory remark made by Tiken as unfounded as no such incident of threatening with a licensed revolver to anyone by Dorendro took place, Th. Vikramaditya added.

He has also demanded that Prof. S.Tiken, should immediately clarify on the derogatory remarks and wrong allegation made on several local dailies on May 26 that were subsequently published on May 27.

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By Amar Yumnam
The Mega Manipur School recently had her Sixth Foundation Day. This function is going to be particularly memorable for me. After my speech at the function and while I was coming down from the dais a little girl, lovely one at that, of the Pre-Primary Class and whom I had just met asked me straight on my face as to what all I was talking about. This had multiples of lasting impact on me. First, in any case, I was completely floored by her straight innocent query. Second, what was my point of speaking any if I could not communicate with all who were present at the function? Was it a case of my suffering from the usual community habit of taking the children for granted? Should we not be altering our way of looking at things as in every generation the children were getting smarter? Above all, I was taught a lesson by this little girl about the need for communication. In fact, there cannot be any thriving society without an effective communication flows across communities, ages and space. Thanks to that little girl of whom I have taken photographs; I would forever cherish her refreshingly inquisitive face.

The necessity of communication is further reinforced by what is happening in connection with the political conclave at Senapati. The absurdity of all sides is being established by this and the reactions to it. It is absolute and unwarranted political gimmick which amounts to nothing more than a social noise for a head of people of one province trying to fan political instability in the neighbouring province. It is equally funny for the opponents of such political gimmicks to come to a reactionary mode and organise actions dictated by this. Neither side has nothing to gain nor proves any point whatsoever. While the organisers would presume to themselves as barking successfully, those opposing are to be blames for their own failure to endeavour for effective communication and surfacing only when something is being planned. The political class has to be cursed for its failure to evolve a system of communication and inclusiveness while being busy in self aggrandisement.

Absence of Enlightenment: All these make one seriously think of as to when Manipur would usher into a phase of Enlightenment like the one experienced by Europe in the eighteenth century. Well here it would be relevant directly to quote from a recent book on the phenomenon and impact of what we call Enlightenment: `Radical Enlightenment is a set of basic principles that can be summed up concisely as: democracy; racial and sexual equality; individual liberty of lifestyle; full freedom of thought, expression, and the press; eradication of religious authority from the legislative process and education; and full separation of church and state. It sees the purpose of the state as being the wholly secular one of promoting the worldly interests of the majority and preventing vested minority interests from capturing control of the legislative process. Its chief maxim is that all men have the same basic needs, rights, and status irrespective of what they believe or what religious, economic, or ethnic group they belong to, and that consequently all ought to be treated alike, on the basis of equity, whether black or white, male or female, religious or nonreligious, and that all deserve to have their personal interests and aspirations equally respected by law and government. Its universalism lies in its claim that all men have the same right to pursue happiness in their own way, and think and say whatever they see fit, and no one, including those who convince others they are divinely chosen to be their masters, rulers, or spiritual guides, is justified in denying or hindering others in the enjoyment of rights that pertain to all men and women equally.` (Jonathan Israel, A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy, Princeton University Press 2010)

We do not observe any of the Enlightenment principles taking roots in the soil of Manipur. While all are busy with communitarian-based politics, the society in Manipur today does not show any signs of positive engagement on issues capable of taking the collective forward. The long years of non-inclusive governance and development interventions had had a lasting impact on the propagation of non-inclusive politics. Now this has reached such a level that we are at a stage where it looks as if nothing positive is going to happen at the politico-economy-wide level. This indeed is the issue the political leadership has to address in right earnest so that a legacy of exclusion and chaos is not left for the generations to come. What Manipur needs today is initiation of a cycle of honesty, honest communication, inclusive approach and initiation of a cycle of positive loop for collectively shared progression. The current ruling paradigm of looting through contracts, supplies, nepotism and favouritism have failed and would fail to serve any social purpose today, and the scenario would only worsen once the larger Asian integration process starts impacting Manipur.

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