Though a generation apart, Arambam’s war museum reflects the early life of Ima Ramani, who grew up during World War II and was one of the mothers who took part in the nude protest at Kangla.
As a child, when the battle was going on, little Ramani’s cherished game was ‘Bomb, Bomb’. She and her friends would start running if one of them blew a whistle. Another would pretend to be an airplane and a third would dive for cover, leaping into a small trench they had dug with a spade borrowed from her mother’s small kitchen garden.
She learnt this when they were in Singjamei in Imphal where they had to run for cover to survive bombings from the Japanese airplanes. The trenches too were not safe as often there were snakes and insects inside them. The sound of falling bombs felt like thunderclaps. Her family was a part of the phenomenon called ‘Japan Ianchenba’ or running away from the Japan war, where people of Imphal ran away to different villages.
Life at their makeshift home at Thoubal was difficult. She knew there was no food and her mother was trying to prepare heikrak, also known as water chestnut. Scientifically, it belongs to the trapa species. Resembling the samosa, it grows in bunches and its soft, hollow stem is a delicacy in Manipur. It is seldom cooked and is generally had raw as part of a salad. Her mother used to finish cooking early before it got dark as there was no electricity and no kerosene to light the lamp. Everything had to be over before dusk set in. There was a scarcity of rice and salt, and everything was very expensive. There were no plates and they had to eat from banana or cabbage leaves.
She recalls how her family trudged the stretch from Singjamei Thongam Leikai to Thoubal. Often, she was too tired to walk and her mother carried her on her back. It was almost a 20-km distance. She was some eight or nine years old and was in the second grade and had to quit school then. She often participated in a cultural programme called Sanjenba, which is based on the life of the god Krishna, and describes his birth, childhood and youth.
“The Japanese soldiers used to play with the children during the day, but at night they would knock on the door and ask for young girls. There’s a strange kind of similarity with the present-day situation in Manipur. Every mother was paranoid about the safety of her daughters,” she says. Her childhood was full of struggle — there are no happy memories. No good stories, only heartbreaking ones. When things calmed down a bit, they came back, but had to flee again, this time to Wangoi, when the aerial bombings started anew.
Ramani’s tryst with the war zone she was born in is far from over.
It was getting dark as we sat on the stairs of the verandah of the newly-constructed part of her house. I could see a rather old and battered car parked in the garage. Its white paint had yellowed with age, and it was covered with patches. Inside, there was no electricity. Her sparse living room looked ghostly in the half light. The walls held photographs of political leaders, including Sonia Gandhi. And at one side, there was a red refrigerator with a voltage stabiliser sitting on top.
Ramani’s is a typical Meitei household. She lives in an east-facing house with a courtyard in front and a tulsi plant in the middle. There are other houses adjacent to it, also facing east. She has a big family — three sons and three daughters. Her youngest son passed away a while back.
She also has grandchildren — six grandsons and three granddaughters. As we talked, a petite young girl came and sat with us. Ima introduced her as her granddaughter, Th Mamta who was studying in Chennai. She sat with us and helped her grandmother recall her past by giving her leads. Obviously she’d heard Ramani’s stories before.
It’s almost as if Ima Ramani enters a time warp and begins to tell us about some lesser-known slices of Manipur’s history. Men, women and children, all part of her family, come out and watch and listen as she starts speaking. A few women sit near her and cut vegetables and prepare to cook dinner.
Almost instinctively, she tries to cover her ankle and feet with her phanek. Traditionally when the phanek is worn it is supposed to hide even the feet of a woman. If a woman wears the phanek above her feet, she is considered high-handed. She feels uneasy even when it is pulled up slightly. She is also very particular about the upper garment, the enaphi. So much so, she even covers herself when she goes to sleep.
Her husband sits quietly on a wooden armchair in the courtyard, occasionally giving us a curious look. He is bare-chested with a khudei (a printed loin cloth used as a cotton handwoven towel) tied around his waist. “He does not speak much. He’s not keeping well either,” she tells us. She tells me that her husband used to play a musical instrument called “climat” in a band at marriages and on other happy occasions. “Climat?” I ask, looking baffled. She raises her voice with a mischievous smile as she explains, “He played a long instrument, like you blow a horn.” Her granddaughter smiles and corrects her, “She’s talking of the clarinet.” Ramani smiles and adds in a matter-of-fact manner, “Yes, whatever.” She then tells me more about her husband. Later he was employed as a compounder in a hospital. Now he is leading a retired life. “I am his second wife. He has no contact with his first wife,” she adds.
Ramani is also a good traditional dancer and has worked in the traditional courtyard theatre known as shumang leela. These are plays where women’s roles are enacted by men. She’s also formed an All Women Shumang Leela group. She says there’s nothing unusual about this. A group of women got together and they decided to do it. But they did manage to break a long-established norm. She became a big hit for her role of Nongban (a villain) in the legendary love story of Khamba Thoibi. In fact, her husband too became a big fan of the play. And she has won several State level awards. He encouraged her and accompanied her when she went to other places to perform.
All these accomplishments notwithstanding, she is now much better known for the famous Kangla protest. It was not an easy decision for her. But, as she said, this time round, she listened to her heart. The brutal molestation and death of Manorama shook her as she felt it was a violation of the dignity of the women of Manipur.
As she narrates the events of the fateful day, she says, “It was almost like the last day of my life. It was such a difficult decision that I did not think that I would be alive after that. Such a protest should not happen again. If it has to recur, it will destroy the reputation of all Manipuri women.”
The night before the protest was unyielding. She could not sleep. She was filled with apprehension about the fallout of the protest. “There were no second thoughts. We simply banged the gates of Kangla inviting the Assam Rifles to kill us and rape us,” she says.
She says the security personnel have no respect for women in society. This is why there is no point wearing clothes. “By stripping, we wanted to deliver a message — you can see whatever you want and for as long as you want.” The women had decided that on principle, stripping was almost as good as dying. “The government never tried to understand the heart of the mothers,” she tells me, with tears in her eyes. She did not tell her family what she was going to do. The secret was not easy to keep. The women had decided on a protest that would be singular and unprecedented in the history of Manipur. They were unsure what would happen. The decision was taken to make people aware of the pain of the people of Manipur and unite against the AFSPA. And Kangla Fort was the ideal destination as the perpetrators were stationed there at the time.
She agrees that it is not a joke to stage a protest of this kind. The women did a puja before they removed their inner clothes. Wrapped only in the phanek and enaphi, they reached the place. Kangla is considered a sacred place and these women prayed to God when they saw Kangla.
Teresa Rehman is a journalist based in northeastern India