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Public nudity was never honored with dignity until the fateful morning on July 15, 2004. Until then Manipuri women appeared to be just a piece of sex object before the eyes of the Indian army specifically the Assam Rifles. But when 12 women unrobed their Phanek and paraded their bare bodies before the men in uniform, it was more than sex appeal in flesh and raw meat. It was the most respectful unprecedented naked message, Manipuri women gave to the country and the world - We have guts, self-respect and determination beneath our modest clothing. My respect to the bare mothers.
Thank God the follow up action is a rare phenomenal wisdom in oneness, in a rather duplicate Manipuri
society. Take it or leave it - none other than the Manipuri women put Manipur in the limelight. She has become bolder, more dependable and getting dangerously drifted away as she is being manipulated.
The defiant act was not any local sari and salwar business by any means. So what does the sari obsessed local women have to say about it? For this materialistic class who has traded their self-respect to the capacity of their wardrobes, they do not have the moral right to claim their share of dignity of a Manipuri woman. The society does not question their individual preference of attire and self-expression. The sari is all
right. It is their moral illusion of feeling beautiful and perfectly all
right in the color of their betrayers and oppressors that the Manipuri society is ashamed.
The vice is the misuse of education. It has only privileged them to enjoy the stereo-vision of their liberated hypocrisy. Their moral nudity before the Indian mainstream has misrepresented the virtues of the divine Meira Paibis. What are the radical Meira Paibis upon whom Manipur depends going to do about it? Will they favor reducing the freedom of Manipuri society and culture to a copying machine of the 'sari culture’? Attend some charming army civic action gathering for some free blankets, sewing machines, gifts etc. and medical service camps with their children, only to be raped and tortured before they realize the gifts are too good to be true?
Manipur is not against the Indian Army. It is against their indiscipline and ignorance of the purpose of their lives - human lives. It is against the Indian political pundits who take Manipur and the North-East as fake Indian freaks. The question that hangs in the Manipuri air is - how determined are the people and the State Government in shaping the future of a people sunk in quick sand. That the Government cannot save civilian life and does not cater to the society is a daily public message. But has the public maintained law and order? Scores of
misutilized laws, mismanaged and abandoned development projects, fill the landscape.
Is it the short sighted and faulty Government blue prints or their leaking money bags and frozen laws. Or is it the divided individualistic cult of clubs and social organization or
Underground/Army mental pressure that is pushing Manipur to the edge. While all these questions contribute to the gravity of failures in their own specific terms, the biggest question confronting Manipur’s deterioration lies in the lack of discipline among the people. When civilians lack discipline and honesty among each other and show respect to the society, a disciplined Government cannot be exploded.
We kept looking at undisciplined acts in our every day regular life and in the course have trained ourselves not to see it. Traffic rules violation, defying public conveniences etc. are regular habits of the local people. Yet, they are the very basic undisciplined habits, which have promoted mass
misutilization of opportunity and power by the public.
What is discipline and honesty by standards of the Indian Army personnel, bureaucrats and politicians is baffling for the public. Perhaps Chief Minister Ibobi himself is puzzled. But before he finds out the answer he has already found himself in a dilemma. As of now, Manipur is not interested in the fate of any CM. They are interested in the fate of a plundered people deprived of their freedom to exist with dignity, discipline and respect.
No other public leaders have ever been put under rigorous trial like Ibobi is facing. An invincible wild fire ignited by prolonged misgivings is spreading from the core of the circle. The angry Gods have sent unprecedented calamities from the north.
Political liabilities are attacking him from the East and South. Besides, his Delhi gurus in the West have fooled him with sweet mantras. Above all, his easy earned coveted prize of Disturbed Area extension and AFSPA imposition is the ultimate test for
Ibobi. If he fails, our wise man from Khangabok constituency would have to start a fresh lesson from the nursery rhyme "Humpty
Dumpty". Once fallen from his high fence, not all his soldiers and servants can put him back up there again.
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