What Lies Beneath: Mapping Repressive Practices Against Women In Meitei Society
- Part 3 -

Shreema Ningombam *

OMINOUS SIGHTS, SIGNS AND STIGMA:

A Meitei man who is supposed to be 'manly' (Nupa thokpa) is supposed to never touch a woman's phanek in public. The sight of and the contact with a phanek is considered inauspicious only when it is detached from the wearer that is when the phanek is lying unattended. The notion behind the custom is the understanding that phanek is polluted as it is or might be stained with menstrual blood or vaginal discharge which are considered impure.

The arrival of undergarments and means of remaining tidy during normal or 'those' five days is a recent one as a part of certain level of modernization seeping in our state. It would be too naïve to imagine that our grandmothers and generations preceding them would have got access to such means. Even today, there are a number of women who are below poverty line and cannot get access to such means.

The phanek as any other garments like Khudei (a traditional Meitei dress worn by men) or khonggrauw (pants) becomes soiled after use. The custom is a very sensible one if seen from the point of view of public hygiene. The problem here is the attachment of pollution and a sense of inauspiciousness to the sight or touch of a phanek regardless of its state of cleanliness or being dirty.

The custom is so entrenched that at times, the man has to helplessly watch his wife's phanek being drenched in the rain when the wife goes away leaving the phanek to dry on the clothes line or the polangkhok. The customs that I have just described renders a man weak, helpless and powerless to help women related to him in spite of his desire to do so and thereby going against his will and his wish.

The case of the Yatra Pubis/Lai Pubis (the leading lady of the ceremony especially in marriage and lai-haraoba) is also interesting. The ideal lady who should be leading a marriage procession should never be a woman who is a widow, whose child/children have died, who cannot bear children, who is married within her own clan (yek-thoknaba).

In the case of lai-haraoba, which is a pre-Hindu festival of the local deities, the maiden who carries the objects used in worship is supposed to be a virgin. And a woman who had eloped with a man (chellurabi nupi), in most cases, is not given the privilege. The foundation beneath the construction of the these practices is the understanding that participation by such defiled female members in any ritual is inauspicious as our society attaches certain stigma to such woman.

THE SECOND SEX: DEFINED AND DEFILED

Based on the above observation, a woman's health and status is defined by the health of her husband, her sons and ultimately by the health of her family. These customs exemplifies, how the association of a woman with a male is inevitable for the alleviation of her social status. A woman's loneliness, her inability to bear a male child or the death of her child or even the untimely death of her husband, events as such which are completely out of her hands, are intolerable to the society and this becomes a main reason for her exclusion in rituals and celebrations.

There are various other phenomenon described besides the ones described above on ways of defining the status and purity of a woman by associating/disassociating with a male. The society simply has no yardsticks to measure the role of men in this process of defining the second sex. What is a cause for concern is when women themselves are repeatedly made to believe in these ways of life, they themselves become instruments of perpetuating such tradition.

The need is to bring in a different perspective and vision in understanding women not as only the bearer of morality but as human beings, as complete entities in themselves. The need is to transfer the duty of defining oneself to the object of definition herself as this object of definition is a thinking, breathing, living subject. When we analyze the above phenomena we find that by virtue of unequal economic, social, sexual, physical power men are able to exert extreme if not tyrannical power over women.

Women are rendered powerless in all the dimensions – decision- making process, agenda setting process and even at the level of thought formation. In the family the decision making process is mostly the arena of man who is the head of the family. Our society condemns the family in which women's say sway the decision as 'effeminate' (nupina paanba emung). Men decide what matters to be discussed and what matters to be left out.

And to further render women powerless the women are taught, socialized, trained and indoctrinated to be an 'ideal woman'. These processes are executed diligently because the cost of deviation from producing this ideal one is too much for any family to afford. No family would like to be stamped of producing a spinster (yum-pan-khangdabi nupi).

We, as citizens of a 'glorified and horrified' civilization should with all our available wisdom filter all imported in-egalitarian customs. We should imbibe the best and excrete the worst. The dynamism of a culture is maintained this way. We should study and analyze ourselves in our own context. It is the time we bring forth such issues, evaluate them, criticize them and if need be denounce them. We can go to Mars or Venus some other day but the above issues can wait no more for their dismissal. It is the time not to make choices among the alternatives provided by man but to construct the alternatives by women themselves

RECOVERY AND RE-DEFINITION: THE ACTS OF MARCHING FORWARD

The peculiarity of the problem in our society needs to be understood. The basic human rights have been denied to all the people of the state for over three decades by the repressive laws of the centre imposed upon the state. In such a state the discrete way of demanding the rights of the women as distinct from the rights of men would be meaningless.

First and foremost the resolution of the conflict and restoration of normalcy and stability is essential for the rectification of the gender bias. First the much needed rights of the citizens as a whole have to be restored.

The utmost important social change in terms of emancipation of women is a movement towards their well being and bestowing of rights to them. The rights however much well bestowed cannot empower the women unless she becomes an 'agent' rather than a passive recipient of rights and policies. Making women economically independent thereby making them free from dependence on others is a main instrument in empowering women.

Women's ability to earn an independent income enhances her social standing in the household and in the society, commands respect from others and provides an opportunity in the public domain. Giving women the ownership right or the right to property is instrumental in making her more powerful and actively participate in the family decision making process. The provision of education and literacy to women will make them more informed, skilled and capable to grab the opportunities available.

Women themselves have to take the responsibilities of correcting the inequalities within the family doing away with the archaic in-egalitarian value system and conventions. In the most tangible sense, the knowledge to maintain her own sexuality, pregnancy, childbirth in the safest possible ways should be disseminated to all women regardless of her marital status as early as possible in her life. It is the time to recognize the difference and respect the difference as it is. And of course, courageously face the future ahead.

Concluded....