The Strength of Zeliangrong Women

Benjamin Gondaimei *

A Zeliangrong Women at Noney Keithel , Tamenglong District in August 2012 :: Pix - Daniel Chabungbam

I did not know that I was growing up under the spell of Armed Forces Special Power Act 1958 where Army personnel holds the power to arrest me without any warrant or shoot and kill me on mere suspicion. It was a time when the struggle for the Zeliangrong Homeland was at its peak (1980s). I was young and innocent and I did not know why so many jawans were standing surrounding our locality.

There came a letter on which I saw one of our village elders reading out an Order (arrest memo) to arrest one of the leaders of the village. It was early in the morning, I saw the particular leader woke up, washed up and went away from the village. By now, women of the village had gathered to counter the army who came to the village. Army personnel not finding the leader arrested some of the youths from the village. Many women came out to the street, fought with the armed personnel bared handed and snatched back the youths.

And apart from this scenario, since my childhood days I had been seeing how women in the villages and towns took initiatives to break down the culture of alcoholism, poverty, social-immorality and gambling which is the malady in our social system and in our community. Our mothers keep buzzing around checking the flaws to keep the fabric of the society intact and stable, and looking at the status of Zeliangrong people, women played an important role in making our economic activity run too.

They sweated and struggle to keep the hearth burning. Women worked on equal basis of time and work-load (sometimes more) with their male counterpart. In the economic activities, they are the backbone in our society. From the field, to the market, from market to kitchen, women took an important role holding the strength of our society.

For instance, the market places and the areas where the Zeliangrong people live, 70% of the shop keepers are women and are controlled by women in the business activities. Women control the Market (not the system) making every household livelihood possible. The women folks from the rural areas would wake up early in the morning, rushed to the fields and forest and struggle to the market to meet the daily needs of the family while they address the problems of domestic needs.

Our women have been playing safe to green the environment through the seeds they sown and in return manage the family needs. Women manage the finances, they do not invest their earning/savings, it went towards the support of the family. Women of Zeliangrong community also undertake the burden of transporting and selling their produces of the fields. Women became the bread winner making tribal economy the subsistence means of livelihood, where women must go again and assist their husbands participating in the related activities.

Women took care of the everyday maintenance of the household chores. They have little time to participate in the social life; since there is a division of labour and further women are restricted in many activities and are paid low wages (example: MGNREGS: since the MGNREGS wages is low, women are send in there). Agriculture continues to be the major field for women's employment. Looking at our women folks, majority of the field goers reside in the rural areas and outnumber men involved in the cultivation activities.

Women also perform many unpaid works and charitable deeds which are not calculated as income to the family. Works like, cooking, cleaning, washing, babysitting, kitchen gardening, etc are domestic works and these works are not counted as works by the male-folks. Only cash drawing or works in the market which are term and counted in a wages forms are recognized as works.

Mothers from Peren, Tening and Jalukie have to travel to Dimapur and Kohima to sell their produces (vegetables/cash crops). Women from Longmai areas, Luangchum and Khoupum have to travel to Imphal carrying their produces, trading to support their families. In the mid of our mother struggle they are taunted, molested and raped. There are also many women roadside vendors waiting for the customers to buy their vegetables, fruits and related products.

From Tamenglong Market to Kaikao to Sangrung to Nungba to Longmai, most of the roadside vendor holders are women. They are just small shop-keepers whose economic activity is supporting our society. But people in our society whose nature is patriarchal in its systems failed to recognize their works and contributions which stands as a backbone of our families and society. Politically women are subdued by their husbands to support whom and what they support. Women in the family have no right and freedom to choose and decide their goal and aim. On the other hand men folk have the dominant mental attitude that they are the decision makers for the women.

The Ima Keithel in Imphal is the biggest women market in Asia, where many women have made/supported their children to study, source of income and a meeting place and a place where movements begins. Likewise, the TML Bazar Shed, the Nungba Bazar shed, Keikao Bazar shed, the Longmai Bazar shed, the Jalukie Bazar shed, are all occupied by mothers of the ZLR who have been supporting their families and children in studies, clothing, sheltering and healthcare. But the grim thing that occupies, even though the mothers sit in these bazaar shed, they have no control over the said building and system of the market. Women are excelling in their studies and in their jobs.

Go to a particular village and inquire the statistics of the school and college drop-out. Women craving towards excellence and channeling of changes in mostly went ignored by the chauvinist Men. Most of the young girls at home are helpful than their counterparts, who would help people, behaves and knows the art of approaching and interacting with people.

Nisha Bandh Movement a Boon

Then in January, 2011 my father was kidnapped by NSCN (IM), on the basis of local land issue, where the NSCN (IM) tried to snatch away the village Church Land for a private firm: and they did so exploiting and by-passing the law of the land, where compensation of Railway line is seen forth as a good source to satiate their greed. By the time when they intruded into our living room with guns at midnight, my mother interfered in the combat, but they over powered and took away my father.

My mother followed them some yards where she was stopped by the guerrillas. My uncle was awoken by the shout of my mom, my uncle came and pleaded for the reason of kidnapping him. This appeal was flatly rejected, and the request for arrest memo was rejected. So the next day, everyone present in the village went down to Longmai for a rally on which they were sent back stating that he would be released sooner or later.

But time flew by, i imagined how my mother went through, maintaining the family chores and daily livelihood. She had sleepless nights praying for my father's safely release, and thus the after one month my father came home. But he had to flee and thus ended the year 2011. But I wanted to point out some encouraging points and contribution made by a certain woman whom I will not mention here worked so hard to release my father from Bunning Camp of NSCN (IM). She ran from Imphal to Dimapur to elsewhere and to Bunning in order to bring my father home safely. The very woman became a revelation where women can work to liberate the captives.

The emergence of Nisha Bandh in Manipur was since 1970s, was due to the rise in the sale of alcohol and the menace created by the drunkard husbands to their wives. The husbands spent all their income in drinking and when they came home they would start beating, throwing tantrums at their wives for petty reasons.

The women who have been at the receiving end to different forms of violence find it difficult to face such humiliation for long so the women folk started sensitizing women on dealing with alcoholic sale, purchase and drinking of liquor in their locality forming Nisha Bandh Movement. Nisha Bandh movement became a turning point and an eye opener for the people of ZLR and our society as a whole. I remember the Nisha Bandh Movement in Longmai areas TML emerging with a good impact in controlling and protesting against social malady.

Nisha Bandh is formed by the women groups from each and every village to check on the people who drink alcohol, and squander hard earned money.

The impact of drinking resulted in wife beating, broken families and divorce, children are affected, violence and diseases. Women in our areas began to understand the evil of alcoholism and took to the movement. Women would come out protesting, nabbing the drunkards, brewers, sellers and parade them in the street, imposed fines on them or would even go to the extent of shaving their heads. Drinking has retarded the wages that should be supporting the families and lead to poverty.

It is compounded the burden of women and sabotage on family income thus lowered the degree of children supporting considerably. Nisha Bandh women have also rescued so many innocent lives from the clutches of the law AFSPA infested Forces. Women took initiatives to bring peace and justice in our society. But our mothers are also frustrated; even if they are poor, they have the challenge to manage and put their children in schools and colleges, but the prescribed social system is not on merit and quality. Their children do not get the job until they pay bribe and thus many poor youths take up arms.

In our areas our women's burden is added with another dimension-besides the security aspect, they are also forced to feed the UG groups and serve them when they come to their villages. Many of our mothers are illiterate and need the support of the educated youth but seldom get it. Women Joint Action Committee Tamenglong is on the move now for a fair society fighting the callousness and social evil of the days.

Taking in turn of their sentry work, the women group has been on prowl checking the characters and activities that degrades the sanctity of the community. Veteran freedom fighter Rani Gaidinliu who took over the Naga Raj Movement after the British execution of her godfather-elder brother Haipou Jadonang Malangmei in 1931, demonstrated how women everywhere could stand up like men if given the stage for any venture.

She laminated the remote corner of a part of the global sphere as Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru compared her with Joan-de Arc of France and Rani Luxmibai of Jhansi. She even led the Zeliangrong People's Convention Movement for the Zeliangrong Homeland and statehood to be carved out of Assam, Manipur and Nagaland in 1980s-90s. She was born to Lothonang Pamei and D Kachaklenliu Pamei of Longkoa village in Tamneglong District, Manipur on 26 January 1915. She passed away on 17 February 1993, but her footprints remain as fresh as ever. Zeliangrong women are now on the move.