In the land of Nupi Lans and Meira Paibis : The battered halves
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: November 02, 2022 -

Land of two Nupi Lans. Land of Meira Paibis.

Land of Nupi Keithel, in fact the one market place exclusively run and managed by womenfolk, a place which today is the nerve centre when people gather and rise as one against what is perceived to be great injustice meted out to the people.

This is also the land which has given Rani Gaidinliu to the world, a place where womenfolk staged the now historic nude protest in front of Kangla which then housed the Assam Rifles after the ravaged body of Th Manorama was recovered, one day after she was picked up by Assam Rifles men in 2004, a place which is synonymous with Irom Sharmila and the list can go on to Mirabai Chanu the Silver medallist at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, the land of Kunjarani etc.

Yet at the other end of the spectrum, stand womenfolk and the girl child who have been physically violated and news stories of so and so rape accused being remanded, taken into custody, sentenced, guilt confirmed etc continue to adorn the pages of all the daily newspapers published in Imphal.

Such is the recurrence of such ugly incidents that today such news items have become some sort of a daily feature in the newspapers.

Underlining the point that no girl or woman and more particularly the girl child is today safe in this land which gave the Meira Paibi movement to the world and is the place when womenfolk rose in revolt against the British Raj, not once but twice and is today observed as Nupi Lan day at the State level.

The public adulation given to womenfolk and the fact that they have been at the receiving end of some lascivious perverts just do not jell, but this is the reality. Welcome to Manipur.

Not sure if any indepth sociological and psychological studies have been conducted to get a clearer picture of the ugly trend, but rare is the day when reports of accused being sent to jail or given further remand do not make it to the pages of the newspapers and this should say something clear about society as a whole.

There is nothing to gloss over this, for here is a reflection of where exactly womenfolk stand in the great Manipuri society.

Time to shed the hypocrisy and call a spade a spade.

Where do women exactly stand in society and more importantly in the individual homes?

Given a pedestal in the public domain but reduced to nothing much more than a punching bag, literally and metaphorically speaking and this is the truth about women in the great Manipuri society.

Not all men are rapists, this is the truth but then it is also equally true that all rapists are men and the victims are always women.

Where does that leave women in the Manipuri society?

Respect for womenfolk.

This is a point which should be ingrained in the mindset of everyone and the family is the best teacher to impart such an education or a line of behaviour.

As long as eve teasing is tolerated with the line 'Oh boys will be boys,' society could be tilling the ground to rear potential male aggravators, men who will not hesitate to let their baser instinct dictate their behaviour with the opposite sex, that is the womenfolk.

It also goes without saying that teaching youngsters to respect women cannot be taught as is done with school text books.

There will be no coaching classes to teach such lessons and there will be no classrooms to conduct any class to teach this vital lesson to anyone.

It is something which can only be taught by examples and a family which treats the sons and daughters equally can be said to be setting the ground ready to rear and nurture gentle sons who will know what respecting women is all about.

It also goes that as long as sons are preferred over daughters and the preference is reflected in the manner in which the birth of a new child is welcomed, society is in a sense laying the ground work to start the discrimination process.

And it is such discrimination which can lay the ground for men to grow up disrespecting women and in such a social reality cases of rape should not come as too big a shock.

Respect women, teach the young child to respect women within the family and this will go some way in not treating women as commodities.

Assaults and rape occur when women are seen and treated as commodities.