In a typical Manipuri wedding, when the groom’s mother wept, the tense escalates into something else. It was natural for the bride’s parents to break down emotionally when they are about to depart their child. A new interpretation, and many other possibilities emerge in the wake of the other side’s sentiments. The worst of it is to assume that the new member of the family is seemingly unwelcomed. This disharmony also implies other things like the swinging of emotions in relation to the aesthetics on the dynamics of life, etc. But most people adopted the negative version of the possibility.
Is the idea of Manipur still intact? May be the notions are alive and intact, but the referent has been transmuted into something that has lost its correspondence with the original notion. Ideality must necessarily work to objectify it in such a way that there must be, at the end, the resonance and not the dissonance. Worshipping and ideal object and living a toxic life is itself a dissonance, rather than creating one.
The above dissonance is a result of the absence of eligible intellectuals and scholars and their legitimate insights. Manipur have experienced the absence of these people, and the void created by their absence, is being filled by those pseudo intellectuals. This void and the refilling of it, has been happening across two centuries. It all began during the days of Burmese occupation of Manipur which lasted for about seven years. The same situation arises, though in different form, in the last part of the nineteenth century. Attempts were made by some visionary leaders to avoid the disharmony, but distractions and discordance in time led to the failure. Again, in the middle part of the twentieth century, distractions and discordance had benefitted the opportunists, and eventually we are left with empty hands.
People learn from history, but history learns from Manipur because, recently, we are creating fool’s history. Ancient texts (both historical & legends) based on society and politics have profoundly talked about genuine politics, social welfare, and the domain of aesthetics incurred through authenticity, etc. The leap in time is marked by extreme form of modulation where authenticity is being replaced by popularity, politics is being replaced by hypocrisy, social welfare by the fulfilling of general appetite. As a result, the land and its people is being repeatedly harassed by its own predicaments in the form of oppression, occupation, cultural imperialism, etc.
All we need is the right person who knows history, in the sense that he is aware of the historical turn of a society; a complete form of awareness where he/she is in grasp of the historical past, present, and future. This awareness will levitate the society to a level where possible catastrophes are avoided, and harmony sustains. Whenever we talk about such situations, Prince Koireng always becomes the exemplary instance. The bitter truth is, the Empire had no personal/reasonable attraction to this land. The land itself fell short of all kinds of features that should characterize itself as a colony. Other reasons are so petty and insignificant for the Empire to govern this place. What really happened in 1891, and what follows it, was a historical turn caused by unmeditated events. In between the comedy that was happening few years before 1891, Koireng was aware of the colonial mindset that remain irresistibly within themselves(foreigners) above all those charms of a civilized people. Hence internal decisions were made, race of power initiated, and it becomes history. Losing in a battlefield has many justifications, but making a stand for righteousness, and convincing people of the greater cause, is nothing short of what the Pandavas did during the days of Mahabharata, and what Lord Rama did during his days in Ayodhya. Khuman Khamba’s life of suffering too echoed across time, that intelligent and alert mind took their stand for righteousness in defeat or in glory, in pleasure or in pain, etc.
If the class of people endowed with the capability to think begins to lose their originality, and goes with the mere sadistic populism, hovering around the game of numbers, partially or totally influenced by the truth in disguise, then it always tantamount to another Seven Years Devastation. When the statement ‘truthful is good’ is open to discussion, for the sake of morality, originality and creativity does not necessarily seek to find ‘truthful is bad’. Originality also means to hold fast, unto truth, or, to the claim that ‘truthful is good’.
Now, minds with negativity loses that sight of the fairness of the righteousness, and thus misses the bus called historical turn of the events/ significant historical turn of the events. Like the Empire never plans to invade Manipur, the torturous seven-year devastation could be a result of a sadistic General, rather than the general intentions of the Avas, etc. because occupation, generally, in those days were monarch’s basic feats.
Your random speech in a random place will somehow reach the people’s ears. Impressions will be recorded in the human mind, and David Hume says, when these impression bundles up, it become a case of knowledge. In this era of internet cheap thoughts get circulated faster than wildfire. This does not mean that general people are substandard, but what it truly means is that they are simple and innocent. Your speech becomes a liability, because general public must be led to the right path by the right mind through right decisions, and not to be mass hypnotized to some kind of hedonistic ends. This continuous mass hypnotism has led to the events and its interpretations claiming that ‘Manipur can only be preserve if you stop using the title Manipur on the front of a vehicle, etc.’
The writer is Assistant Professor, Imphal College
