Is phanek feminism the right feminist struggle?
Reading Tattooed with Taboos an anthology of poetry by three women poets from Manipur

Kumam Davidson *

ILP : Police crackdown on Students at gate of Old Secretariat complex on August 03 2015 :: Pix - Shankar Khangembam

Recently when a girl student tried to lash her own phanek at the policemen who were violently charging against the students during the ILP movement in Imphal, debates sparked around the topic of lashing by phanek. While the common view celebrates it as a powerful act of resistance and humiliation against the policemen (feminising the men) some people are beginning to give a different viewpoint.

The fact that lashing the phanek on men exemplifies emasculation thereby robbing off the masculine power; isn't the act a perpetuation of the idea that feminisation is a state of powerlessness? Apart from the interpretation of an empowered woman in the act of lashing the men can one also read it as a reflection of the gender stereotypes that exist in the society? Does the act further perpetuate masculine and feminine myths in any sense?

Should one investigate the constructed meaning of phanek as untouchable attire flawed as well? Why is it untouchable in the first place? Why do we accept the notion without ever being questioned? Since feminist theorising in the society has such an inextricable link with the symbolic phanek that I wish to term my engagement as phanek feminism before I unpack the myths associated with it. The term also partly comes from my reading of the admirable poetry anthology by three women poets from Manipur called Tattoed with Taboos first published in 2011 where the symbol of phanek is repeatedly used. After the success of its first edition Patridge India is bringing out the second edition this year.

While we dwell on the local brand of feminism which centres around meira paibi (torch bearing mothers) and nupi lups (women groups) it has become increasingly crucial to engage with the larger questions of feminism as well. There are few questions that immediately pop out along this line. Are the phanek wearing women empowered as mainstream perspective says? Is there a different narrative? Is feminist empowerment just about being part of the economic transaction (Ima Keithel) or possessing certain political authority (Meira Paibi and Nupi lups)?

How about the place of women in the domestic space? Aren't there other questions beyond economic and political authority when we talk of feminist emancipation? Do these women enjoy agencies when it comes to choices of sexuality and desire? What exactly is feminism for that matter? This is long list of which one might not have all the answers.

"Tattoed with Taboos" do give some insights. While the image of phanek is kept intact in the anthology (even the cover has a phanek design on it) it marks a shift in feminist theorising of the context by taking a shift from the chastised "meira paibi and nupi-lup" centric feminism to the "desiring but tabooed" women.

First, the anthologytries to demystify the unquestioned "symbols of power" by shifting the focus from the cultural symbols like the phanek to the body of the women and the experiences felt. phanek then must not be necessarily a symbol of power but can possibly be the reverse as well.It also attempts to break away from the image of chastised and motherly Meitei women and celebrate "sexuality, desire and waywardness" which are intrinsic elements in feminist theorising.

The introduction says,
The collection is written in celebration of the long overdue call for detachment of morality from sexuality. It is the nuances of her thoughts and feelings that is revealed through words and also the demystification of the forbidden, the secret as well as scared nature of sexuality of women in our society. Desire must be emancipated, washed and liberated from behind the veil, and from mere whispers. Women's desire must be recognized and be conceived as a natural act of fulfilment, not be condemned through taboos placed on clothing or in her womb.

Celebration of female desire, sexuality and freedom are notions that remain largely unacknowledged in the Meitei society. Even popular culture uses cliché representations of the cultured and wayward woman as opposed to each other. The cultured women wear phanek and have sober habits. In contrast to it, the wayward women wear "western" outfits and have deviating habits. Such popular stereotypes remain largely unquestioned. People are fed with notions about women and a large section of them concede to it. Let alone the critique of all these concerns what is left completely untouched is the fundamental question of the untouchability element phanek carries and the way gender power operates on that premise.

In the poem "Five Days' Untouchable" SoibamHaripriyaaddresses a woman who laments her menstruation not because of the pain but because her body remains impure for five days of menstruation. This is a cultural practice in the Meitei society. A woman who is menstruating is practically an untouchable throughout the period. The poet writes,
For five days
Quarantined from the rest
By this unholy fluid
Wrapped with the untouchable phanek
phanek after phanek
Carrying my untouchable-ness
Accused piece of cloth
Contaminated for a lifetime

Thephanek and the body of the woman become equal untouchables. However, the woman also suggests a tinge of prejudice or a lie hidden somewhere. There is an ambiguity about the last paragraph where the poet says,
Neither nocturnal tryst nor daytime assault
Defile the hands that tore it away
Yet lying apart from me
In the pale weatherbeaten bamboo polangkhok
He watched the muga fabric

"The hands that tore it away" can be read as an act of sexual advance by the man towards the menstruating woman. The sexual advance or even copulation behind closed doors might have bypassed taboos of untouchability during the period. And "the hands" which touch the untouchable phanek and the woman is not defiled at all. The woman wonders why so. The poet gives no explanation but instead leaves it to us. Why are the "hands" not defiled? Why are menstruating women untouchables? Perhaps these are only social and religious constructions.

In the poem "In Defiance" Shreema Ningombam addresses the questions of purity and impurity, objectificationand ideas of beauty attached to woman. She uses the first person "I" to defiantly speak against such notions. She writes,
Let me cast aside these jewels
The adornments in my ears; the golden rope around my neck
Who am I waiting for to be watched with such longingness?
For whom am I waiting with such burden?
Let me cast aside the inner layers beneath my phanek
Let my blood flow along the smooth of my thighs
With a freedom that it has never known
Beyond all shame let it be seen by all.
Why my breasts are being bound so with such tightness
Is it the crime of shedding the maternal milk?
They say it's a pair of divine beauty.
Divinity! Oh you always come with chains.

Shreema's concerns in this poem are universal rather than just local. The poet defies certain conventional notions of women's beauty those notions come with bondage. Bondage is what the poet hates.

In the other poem titled "To the Ema Lairembi" Shreema questions the myths of purity and impurity in a local context. In the Meitei society menstruating women are forbidden to go inside religious spaces and here it's the EmaLairembi, the deity. The poet questions the deity why she will be forbidden to enter the laibung, the religious and sacred space on account of her menstruation. She addresses the deity as,
Mother, answer me once!
Have you never felt the blood in your palm?
That warmth: that scent
You are a deity so are you free from this flow?
They say we are your daughters
They say we are your sons
How can we celebrate your flourishing procreation?
Without your bountiful blood
I, a maiden mother
As unsolemnised wife
Yet my mapan naibaphanek will not be waist up tonight.

The poet almost equates the deity with human as both the deity and woman would have gone through blood flow if not in menstruation but at least in procreation. This is a bold attempt where religious element is mixed with the poet's individual stance on womanhood to the extent of confronting religious beliefs about deities. The single mother who is also menstruating at the moment defies gender-religious conventions and plans to step in the sacred space. She will not raise the phanek and wrap above her breasts as married women are supposed to do.

The poet doesn't believe that the phanekor the body can be sites of purity or impurity. phanek may be often touted as a tool of resistance or power against the other sex. But everything that the attire embodies is meaning of femininity. It is not only untouchable; it also epitomizes a singular construct of Meitei women. A Meitei woman wears phanek, follows rituals of impurity religiously despite "contaminated for a lifetime". Any deviation from it is blasphemous or simply unacceptable. The woman becomes a fallen one.

The phanek as we see in the above poems are feminising mechanisms of patriarchy. The poets give the readers different stories of Meitei women living under patriarchal values. Some of the values are manifested and exercised through certain sites of power.phanek becomes a crucial one. It's meant to keep the women within the control of patriarchal institution. It also attempts to strengthen the masculine and feminine roles of gender in the society.

There is no scope of transgression for both the women and men. If women wants to fight men there has to be other available tools for it. Lashing the men with the phanek might give an immediate sense of empowerment to the women. But let's look at the larger picture. She is just fighting the man. She is not fighting patriarchy. Those two are very different things. While one lauds at the spirit of the woman it might also be imperative to see the flipside of it.

Lashing the policemen by the phanek may not be necessarily a feminist struggle, but fighting against masculinity, patriarchy and investigating the pitfalls of femininity is definitely a struggle of the feminist movement. So phanek feminism has become an intrinsic aspect of the Meitei society but one also needs to discuss it within the larger ambit of feminist struggle. What we need is a thorough discussion on feminism and locate where the struggle of the Meitei women stands.