Tag: Chitra Ahanthem

That chip on the shoulder?

By Chitra Ahanthem Having missed out on so many Sunday pages of Imphal Free Press,… more »

By Chitra Ahanthem
Having missed out on so many Sunday pages of Imphal Free Press, it sure is a relief to be able to write again: the blame lies entirely with the Electricity Department in between. Meanwhile, a lot has been happening in Manipur all this time – regular surrender ceremonies that armed groups say are staged and security forces tout as successful initiatives for peace; the hide and seek game of picking up children for recruiting as child soldiers take v/s children leaving homes on their own accord to join armed groups take despite the fact that those under 18 as not having gained adulthood cannot make decisions on their own and guardians have to step in to do the same; the regular MLA tours of their constituencies accompanied by photos in papers and nothing much happening afterwards et el. But the burning topic is a huge issue called “racial discrimination” that has popped up in the national media in a twist of irony.

The ‘ironic’ bit comes in because Manipur and other states in the North East region are often blanked out in national newspapers and TV channels: so if highways are blocked for months on end, some media folks (on the national level) may pontificate on their social networking avatars about it but not give much coverage or raise the issue; if fake encounters are happening left, right and center the statistics will end up as tickers on the TV screen and has 1 paragraph reports but not go further than that. At best, the national media has only looked at the region as ‘exotica’ and surface reporting, not bothering enough for analysis or understanding of the region, its issues and its people. So, there will be generalizations: “so, one person in every 100 in Manipur is HIV positive?” That was someone in a mainstream news outlet asking me and I merely wanted to laugh out loud at his ignorance. For him, it did not matter that 4 other states in India (Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Nagaland) have the same HIV/AIDS epidemiology trends. He was much too intent on making a story out of it without getting into the details. There are just too many generalizations about the region than I would care to write here.

It took two unfortunate deaths of two young people from the region in two metro cities to get the media panting with feverish zeal. The bit of where the deaths happened is critical to the story. If the deaths had happened in the region, the media attention would not have happened and neither would the buzz over ‘racial discrimination’ threaten to become a rousing bandwagon. The discussions on social networking sites are currently adrenaline fuelled with outbursts of being “racially discriminated”. Only a few voices call for internalizing the issue and ask whether the same persons are also not discriminating of other minorities within their own groups. Predictably enough, these voices are shut down with vitriol.

Everyone on the bandwagon has stories of being called names by other people, of being teased. The convenient amnesia is over the bit of these same people using names for other people different from them, over how over-zealous males strut with ‘how dare our women change their surnames when they marry outsiders’. With regard to how police are dragging their legs over the death of Richard Loitam, no one wants to talk about the real thing: that the legal and police system is greatly flawed and that it takes either power and position or public protests to make sure that even a complaint is registered regardless of the nature of the crime and who commits it. Richard Loitam belonged to a lesser power position as someone not from the state (Karnatake) but that does not mean ‘racial discrimination’ was the only root cause as it is made out to be. Many other people in the country and the NE region have died without getting justice while many others languish in jails because the legal and police system plays into the politics of power, pull and position. But it took the chest beating over ‘racial discrimination’ to get the media all excited. Then came the hangers on: political posturing (for brownie points) and certain people getting their moment(s) of fame on national media time and space. More power to them but has anyone thought about the core issue of whether the charge of ‘racial discrimination’ is true at all?

That infamous manual for people from the NE region released by the Delhi Police some years ago was a serious issue of discrimination. It asked people from the region to follow certain codes of dressing and what sort of food to eat (“non smelly”!!). But apart from this uncalled for guideline that was meant for everyone in the region, the rest cannot be called as discrimination upfront. Let’s go back to history and look at the Black’s Civil Rights Movement: when public transport systems had separate seating for Blacks and whites, when there were separate and segregated spaces for the Black people. That was racial discrimination: when everything boiled down to race and the rights of the Blacks were not considered at all. Do people from the NE region have a segregated space in public life? In getting their due when they have merit? The answer is a big no for people from the region have made it to the top in various professions and can sit in Competitive Examinations. Racial discrimination is a civil and political issue whereas the current outpourings over not being made to feel to belong are emotive ones. The sooner we realize this and the national media gets it, the better mind-frame we can get in to engage on the various layers that confront us today.

Unfortunately, the innate nature of minority voices being shut down has also meant that the juggernaut on ‘racial discrimination’ is drowning out saner voices though a few have stood out. Swar Thounaojam a young playwright and a theatre director based in Bangalore raises some core issues: “Why are the prime time news channels, all based in New Delhi, enthusiastically taking up the Fight Racism against the North East cudgel? Because it is the most lightweight of cudgels to pick up and you can use it to pontificate on national integration and the diversity of India. Another offshoot of this debate is the sporadic growth of a stereotyping of the Mongoloid population from the NE as a bunch of people with attitude and victim complex issues. The greatest problem with the current racism debate is conflating region with race. India doesn’t yet have a full-fledged articulation of the discrimination faced by its minority Mongoloid population. No contemporary Indian philosopher, intellectual or social scientist has contextualized the stratification of this particular population – from NE, Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, China etc – and we are all struggling from the lack of specific political and social idioms that would have helped us examine the state of the nation critically.”

End Point:
As this piece ends, I can almost sense the amount of hate filled comments that will emerge from within my own community. But if we had no space for debates and discussions, aren’t we falling prey to the “either you are with us or against us” phenomenon that is the root cause of all forms of discrimination? Discrimination is not of race alone, it has also got to do with minority voices. I end with another sane opinion made by a young friend Devakishor Soraisham : “TV channels and prominent members of the `civil society` of Manipur, enough with the discussions about `racism discrimination of NE people by the rest of India` for now! Please! Let us not divert from the real problem here, that of justice denied to a student killed! And before we accuse others of being discriminating, let us look at ourselves first.”

Just a note again: Anyone remember the names of the 18 migrant labourers who got killed a few years ago? The diktat by an armed group asking ALL migrant labourers to leave the state, failing which they would be killed? Now, what was that? And what did we do?

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/05/that-chip-on-the-shoulder/

Flood flashback

Chitra Ahanthem The rains it seems are good only in films. The languorous pitter-patter of rains over the past week in Imphal has led to the inundation of small lanes… Read more »

Chitra Ahanthem
The rains it seems are good only in films. The languorous pitter-patter of rains over the past week in Imphal has led to the inundation of small lanes and many roads across town. On a happier note, the rains have not spared anyone but merrily mired people in slush and mud, regardless of social hierarchies and flooding embankments and residential areas and office complexes. Whoever thought rain could turn out to be a great social leveler? The rich and the powerful with all their might and the grandeur of their homes have to face the ignominy of having their homes encroached upon by water from nearby drains that in turn have become mere slivers of water being clogged with plastic and other rubbish. Drains have more or less disappeared from sight over the years following the concrete jungle fixation, the greed for more land and the presence of the evil plastic bags that everyone seems to love throwing everywhere.
And while nothing about floods can be romantic, the current situation of flash floods arising out of water deluge following brief showers brings back the memories of excitement associated with floods, and a big one at that. The 1989 floods happened sometime in summer, which makes that spectacle more than two decades old. We were in school then, a period that was yet to be marked by internet or mobile phones or even cable TV. Doordarshan and All India Radio were the only means of entertainment and news but our own inherent tendency for kumhei meant that people would go out in droves and move about town taking stock of how the flood was advancing. They called it “eeshing chaoba yengba”  and it was more or less effective in warning people about when to pack things in the house and get ready for the flooding. Sometimes, people would set up their fishing nets in places where there was flooding and come back boasting about their catch. In most cases, it was the news that came from this ventures that would warn people much before the local news on AIR!

Nude wires over the Nambul river, plastic garbage in background Photo credit: Chitra Ahanthem

Looking at it now, it is rather strange that before my own experience of the 1989 floods, we had only the hearsay of our own parents of their flood experiences during their own childhood. This gave it the rose tinted outlook: floods sounded like so much fun! That would be an understatement in more ways than one. For starters, my father ended up joining his friends for a “eeshing chaoba yengba chatba” expedition and it was while he was away that the floods decided to come calling! As my younger siblings slept through the night, I was slogging with my mother: we had to pack books and clothes and keep them on higher locations inside the house. We had to wedge in bricks under the hen-coop and repeat the same exercise for the small thatched granary that we had at home. Father came in home after we had done the first stocktaking and calmly said, “the floods have come.” It was as if we still had that fact to be pointed out to us when we had been already been scrambling about with water swirling around our ankles in the house!

Scene in the heart of Imphal: Paona Bazaar. Photo credit: Chitra Ahanthem

But that frantic rush as it turned out later, was not enough. My treasured comic collection was sogged and so was a large part of the granary. My younger brother who had been besotted by two small ducklings and had them in a small cage was heart broken to find later that the waters carried away the ducks: cage and all! Much later after the water receded, the paddy that got wet developed white moulds but the price of rice had gone up after the floods. So we ended up eating pungent smelling rice for a long time and I pestered my parents asking whether our paddy had turned to the huikap breed (it is said that huikap is so called because the taste is so vile as to make even dogs cry!) because of the floods. This would come later but after the scrambling, there was the element of fun that started out with the first morning after the floods came: the sight of an uncle and a cousin rowing on a raft made of the trunk of banana plants. Of course, the lanes in our locality will no longer fit such a contraption now but back then lanes within Leikais were broad and people asked about the welfare of their neighbours. Uncle was telling us that people had started packing their belongings and taking shelter in his building and other tall structures. He sent in a rickshaw to ferry my siblings and myself and we spent 3-4 days with our extended family in their building, a tall one that was still being constructed.
The most vivid memory of that time is the picture of all of us surrounding grand-father as he would tune into the local news on AIR and hearing about when the flood level would go down. There was great excitement and chaos when some snakes came out crawling and the usual circus following naughty children trying out water adventures: the later got taken care of through some trashing! But the fun times did not last long: we had two doctors in the family and they promptly vaccinated all of us children so we did not get any funny infections (am not sure what those injections were about still). Then my maternal grand mother came to fetch us to her home at Kakwa, which was not touched by the flood. I stayed with her for 2 weeks till it was announced that schools would be open once again. That brought the end of all excitement but the after effects of the flood was still around when we got back. We came home to the sight of our mother scrubbing the mud off the hens!
End-point:
That was then and much has changed. While there are many places around Imphal and its outskirts that stay under flood for a day and more, thankfully they do not remain submerged for days on end. Having said that though, it would be disastrous to remain complacent about floods. The sight of nude electric power lines and cables hanging oh so near above the water surface on the Nambul river is enough to give me ulcers. The flash floods that happen after every brief downpour also continues to be an eye-sore and speaks volumes of how we are not taking care of waste disposals and drainage and sewerage around our houses. Most houses have got added height in their ground floor structures following ground leveling but if each of us can care enough to also think of what lies beyond our own homes, then we could actually get down to living without the slush and the mud. So long as drains remain clogged with plastic or worse, get to vanishing point, the sight of concrete surrounded by slush will remain.

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Read more / Original news source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Kanglaonline/~3/RdToN5YZ9WA/

Let children be themselves

Chitra Ahanthem. This week threw a major surprise in the form of a newspaper advertisement in a daily Manipuri newspaper. It was an announcement for a “Manipur Barbie Queen contest”… Read more »

Chitra Ahanthem.

This week threw a major surprise in the form of a newspaper advertisement in a daily Manipuri newspaper. It was an announcement for a “Manipur Barbie Queen contest” for under 12 year olds to be held at in the hall of the memorial to Subhash Chandra Bose at INA, Moirang! While there is no dearth of shocking developments taking place around us like the very recent warning to private mobile service providers to wrap up their mobile towers and the deafening silence from the civil bodies; this small advertisement made me blink in shock. Just how have we reached this plane where sensibilities have disappeared?

Children Beauty Contest Advertisement in a Daily Manipuri Newspaper

First of all, the sheer madness of it! How can girls younger than 12 years compete in a beauty contest? And then, a contest that is named after Barbie; the classic prototype of blond and anorexic? Won’t a beauty contest for young children be a classic case of child exploitation and rights violation? What parameters would be used to judge the young participants? These questions trouble me deeply. A child is beautiful in his or her own way regardless of features or attire. It is their inherent innocence and playful nature. So why should beauty contests happen where children will be made to look like caricatures of adults?

Children can pull at heart-strings. They can also be a market decider. That is why most print and visual advertisements feature children, regardless of whether the product being sold is a toothpaste, soap, noodles, car and other vehicles, electric appliances et el. The strategy works because when a child sees another child possessing something that he/she does not have, her concentration goes to that
object. Try saying a “no” to a child who after popular advertisements for snacks wants a packet. You can risk it at the cost of your ear-drums being shattered by unending wails. My own soon to be 6 year old explains to me kindly: “Mama, they also say brushing your teeth twice a day keeps off all germs. So why can’t I have a pack of Uncle Chips/Bingo/Mamoos…?” Try getting past that logic! And while building a brand with a child appearing in its advertisement is another matter altogether, the concept of beauty contests for young children may well be unethical and violating norms of child protection. Some of the Constitutional rights that may well end up being violated are Article 39 (vocation unsuited to age, protection of children against exploitation), Article 45 (no child below 14
years shall be engaged in hazardous employment) and Article 46 (protection from social injustice and exploitation). Also, every child has a right to participate in cultural activities that may include songs, dance and any other artistic pursuit recognized to be healthy. But a beauty contest for young children cannot be termed “healthy” by any stretch of imagination.

But how do such contests tend to go towards exploitation? The answer is clear on this: with children as the main players, there will be parents who will happily assume that the contest is a platform for their child to show her talent, to prove herself. Some critics can even turn around and question my disquiet saying: “but if the parents are comfortable with their young children taking part in a beauty contest, why raise a hue and cry?” The fact is that most parents will not look critically into the question. They will get carried away by the hype, the shot at 3 minutes of fame n local channels and newspapers, the few amount of prize money but not consider that such a contest will only serve the interest of everyone concerned but for the children taking part in it. That is where the child would end up being exploited by all parties concerned.

Some time earlier, there was intense debate on a national level around the nature of “talent contests” on TV channels that featured child artists and hopefuls as participants. The debate happened following the emotional and mental break down of a young child participating in a music reality show. She had been given a public and very vocal criticism of her performance and went into such trauma that she had to be hospitalized. Following this incident, there was a public and media scrutiny over the nature of children taking part in such talent contests: how many hours would they have to practice before they went on TV, how many hours they would get to rest and sleep and play and how much can children take in as public criticism. Soon, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) came up with strict laws for TV shows involving children. These call for a counselor on the sets of the show, limited working hours and no deep make-up for children.

End-point:

Competitions are part of the process of growing up but when it is tied to the concept of beauty, it gets into a difficult terrain. Perhaps the organizers of this soon to be held contest have not thought much into it and gone ahead with their planning. But it is not too late to consider what demons they might well unleash in the lives of the young girls. Small little girls who will walk under public scrutiny and perform songs or dance or whatever it is they have to do to take way a crown that will be meaningless in a place where they don’t have a clue over their future and its safety. PS: A photograph of the advertisement along with a calling attention has been sent to the Chairperson of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights to alert them about this forth-coming event. This step had to be taken up on an individual level following the silence from NGOs working for Child rights Protection in the state at the time of writing this column.

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Read more / Original news source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Kanglaonline/~3/YC8weDCXoCk/