Derogatory opinions against Women in article in e-pao.net

By Chaoba Phuritshabam *

Dear E-pao,

This is regarding some of the articles published in e-pao which is intentionally directed to defame the women folk from Manipur & NE, without any scrutiny from the e-pao team.

Well said that e-pao is a public platform and it's the only e-paper from Manipur. It needs to keep up to the expectations of the readers. But the question is - do we have to publish everything regardless of whether it is offensive, derogatory and insulting to a certain section of the society? Since it is called a public platform isn't it our responsibility to check the consequences of such articles?

I would like to know that e-pao team really felt that articles which drags into the issue of live-in relationship, NE girls having an African boyfriend/ non-manipuri boyfriend then ultimately questioning to the morality of women is worth sharing to the readers? Can we dissect some of these articles and think what is the pupose of such articles in terms of knowledge gained?

What is exactly such writer wants to portray the women from NE and Manipur?

From the articles of some of our own famous writers such as Mohen Naorem, Ranjan Yumnam, Deke Tourangba, Mr. Robin, Mr. Gautam and Deepak Yumkhaibam, what I can grasp is that they are trying to map an image of Manipuri & NE women as devoid of any sense of morality. Strangely the question of morality as always is pointed only to women. If such an idea as morality do exist (which many right thinking men and women would find offensive) why is it only a women's prerogative to uphold?

E-pao sends a standard reply to all the contributors stating that the article/ poem/ write up/ contributed will be checked for appropriateness. Is this just a lip-service? Why the pretense of checking article/s for appropriateness when clearly it is for all to see that such a thing is quite a far cry!

Let me just dissect just one article among many such put up in your website- An article by Deke ends up justifying the act of rape and harassment to the NE girls in Delhi with a derogatory comment "if such girls are not rape then who else?" implies to the article is that women should be rape if they wear a short skirt or spaghetti.

All over the world it is agreed that rape is about power and it is quite a regressive idea that women are raped for what they wear. It is however not strange that some men may subscribe to this point of view, what is strange is that such ideas get to be webcasted.

Some articles like that of Deepak Yumkhaibam could be used to point at the way people looked at a cognisable offense so lightly. What he did is both harassment and a cognisable offence for which he could be behind bars. E-pao publishing such an article where a person gleefully describes his offense is shocking!!!

As a reader I would request e-pao team to take some ethical responsibility for the people who are reading this website. There are thousand other readers who do not even know about our culture and customs. If e-pao really feels that it does have a responsibility towards the people who reads and contributes to the site it also have some onus of scrutinizing before publishing the articles.

By saying this I'm not trying to devalue the efforts of the e-pao team. I really appreciate all the efforts by the e-pao team. Thank You.

Link of article by Deepak Yumkhaibam here