Identity Crisis - The Struggle To Come With Terms

Deepa Khomdram **

Numerous upheavals have been experienced by the people of Manipur irrespective of their ethnicity. Ever since the advent of Hinduism in Manipur, clashes among different cultures and ethnic groups have been witnessed by the State.

A series of epoch making encounters have taken place over the centuries which have only led to widening the gap among the people of the Manipur on the basis of communalism and ethnicity. Digging into past, traces of Hinduism can be seen since the 17th Century i.e. during the reign of King Charairongba.

However, it was only after the ascension of King Pamheiba that the imposition of Hinduism swept across the State. This gave way to the evolution of two traditional culture and worldviews, which only led to further widening the gap. Thus, the ancient Asiatic land of Manipur experienced a major change. There were, no doubt various other factors leading to this major change however, the seed of confusion was sown with the advent of Hinduism in Manipur.

The cultural onslaught that took place in the 18th century with the burning of the Meitei scriptures during the reign of King Garibiniwaz during the conversion of Meiteis into Bengali Vaishnavism led to the transmutation of the original culture. The conversion and the transformation had a major influence in the Meitei Mayek.

The elimination of the society's identity, its traditional belief and culture were viciously subdued. New words were introduced into the Manipuri vocabulary and Bengali script replaced Meitei Mayek, the indigenous script. The Meitei script that nearly became extinct is now available in three forms.

One form of Meitei Mayek consists of 18 characters only out of which 15 were consonant characters and 3 characters were pure vowels. The second form of Meitei Mayek consists of 27 characters, which was initiated by Naorem Phumdrei and is known as the Naoriya mayek. The third form is said to consist of 36 characters. Tracing the origin of Meitei Mayek would be a next to impossible task. However, the earliest use of the script is found to have recorded in the early 11 and 12th AD.

As a matter of fact, Meiteilon as stated by Dr. Irengbam Mohendra Singh, in his article, "The origin of the Meitei language", is a 'language isolate' i.e which has no proven relationship with any other living language (until proven otherwise).

It has not descended (cognate) from Tibeto-Burman (TB) languages, but has 'language affinities' with some i.e. similar in some structure that may suggest a common origin. There is no evidence that it has taken any leaf out of the books of neighboring languages. It has no known common ancestry with any other language. Nor are there any available facts that it has been borrowed from any other language.

Language is the epitome of holding societies together and it is one of the most important components that relates to the ethnic politics. During those periods, only the clans of the Kings were referred to as the Meiteis as they belong to the ruling class.

Later on, the principle of the ethnonym "Meitei" restricted to the clans of the Kings was overruled and people from different social groups were absorbed to form a new ethnic group called "Meiteis", which today populates the valley. The religion of the Meiteis constitutes its own myths and legends, rituals and festivals, and it was, nevertheless more or less akin to the animism of the tribals. Back then, caste stratification was something unknown to the Manipuri society and marriage outside one's clan or tribe existed in those days.

So far, all that I can presume is, Manipur, before the sanskritization took place, when only Sanamahism existed, was bound by its own faiths and beliefs. There wasn't much difference in the practice of rituals. Even today, the festival of Lai Haraoba is considered as incomplete if our tribal brothers are not present in the festival.

Despite the difference in language and ethnicity, all the people of Manipur irrespective of whether they belong to the hills or the valley, was bound by a common faith. The eating habits were similar, preparing rice beer was a common practice in every household. Even the language spoken back then was similar to some extent.

Later on, after Sanskritization, an intrusion that created a wide rift between the ethnicity of the people of the valley and the hills in the name of religion took place. The rift of the conversion slithered so deep that today, it has taken the shape of communal hatred.

Besides this, the introduction of caste system in the meitei society further contributed to separation. Lois and yaithibis are the set of people who have been regarded as the low caste which otherwise belonged to the same caste. Before the advent of Hinduism, there was no caste system in Meitei society.

However, lois still existed in the said period. Lois were people who were exiled by the Meitei kings to far flung places for various reasons. Today, all of us are suffering from identity crisis and we are still struggling to come with terms.