Manipuri dance in focus

Sharmila Banerjee demonstrates the genre at Arts Precinct

Zahangir Alom

A wide array of demonstrations made the event engrossing. Photo: Prabir Das

Ahead of the third Bengal Classical Music Festival next month at Army Stadium in Dhaka, Bengal Foundation has been organising a monthly series of lecture and demonstration programme titled “Understanding Classical Dance” that will be presented by celebrated dancer-choreographer Sharmila Banerjee. The first of the series was held at Daily Star-Bengal Arts Precinct on October 21.
Giving insights into the nuances of Manipuri dance, one of the nine forms of Indian classical dance, Sharmila Banerjee talked about the origin and history of the dance genre and demonstrated essential steps and hand movements with the assistance of a team of young dancers – Sonia Rashid, Afsana Farhana Ahmed, Ira Bala, Krishna Roy, Sudeshna Swayamprabha, Meghomala, Elvis Mostafa, Rikhia, Ruponti, Awditiya and Anisha. Two visiting mridangam players --Amrita Sinha and Labu Sinha from Kamolganj, Sylhet also took part in a pungcholom performance. The event featured audio-visual contents, live dance pieces, verbal explanations and pragmatic demonstrations. 
The performance set off with a pure Manipuri dance style named Guru Vandana by Sudeshna. Sharmila, with mridangam in hands, demonstrated the performance one after another. The next piece titled “Maibi Jagoi” was a dance form of pre-ariyan stage. It is commonly performed in Lai Haroba Festival. Invocation of God along with creation of world through dance was the main theme of the piece. Demonstrative dance pieces including lashya, tandava, bhromori and sitting stances followed.

A wide array of demonstrations made the event engrossing. Photo: Prabir Das

Incorporating lashya and tandava rasa and styles, Sudeshna and Sharmila beautifully displayed Pantho Jagoi, an entire gamut of Manipuri dance showcasing hand gestures, footsteps, body language and corporal dance-hand activity. Later, two young artistes presented the dance of Gope Raas called Balya Krishna Nartan.  
Sudeshna superbly showcased an abhinaya dance form titled Nonichuri that is generally presented during Ulukhol Raas. Evoking Lord Krishna's Raasleela of Vrindavan, a performance of jugal nartan (duet dance) together with a shongkirttan dance or pungcholom followed. Tagore, who contributed much to the diffusion of Manipuri dance, composed a song “Dui Haat-e Kaler Mondira Je Sodai Bajey”. Based on the song, several artistes performed mondira nartan in Manipuri style that wrapped up the event.
In Manipur, surrounded by mountains and geographically isolated at the meeting point of the orient and mainland India, the dance form developed its own specific aesthetics, values, conventions and ethics. The cult of Radha and Krishna, particularly the raasleela, is central to its themes, but the dancers usually incorporate the characteristic symbols (kartal or mandira) and double-headed drum (pung or Manipuri mridangam) of sankirtan into the visual media.
An alumnus of Visva-Bharati University, Shantiniketan, Sharmila Banerjee was bestowed with the Nartan Visharad title after completing her post-graduate course in Manipuri dance at the Manipuri Nartanalaya, Kolkata under the renowned Manipuri maestro Guru Bipin Singh and Srimati Kalavati Devi. Sharmila Banerjee is currently head of dance department at Chhayanaut and runs her own dance school Nritya Nandan.
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They told people from Northeast India to leave, shaved my head, says Gurgaon attack victim

Gurgaon: Even as the police ruled out a racist attack angle in the attack on two Northeast Indians in Gurgaon, one of the victims had alleged that the people who attacked them said that all Northeast Indians must leave the city. "They told us that all that people from Northeast India must leave. They shaved my head. Are people from the Northeast not Indians," the victim said.
The victim's friend said that he was taken by a group of people on the behest of taking him to a party but beat him up later. "They were called to have a party and for a drink and then they were beaten up," the victim's friend said.
An FIR has now been registered in Gurgaon after two men from Northeast India were allegedly beaten up by locals. The incident occurred late on Wednesday night.
The victims claim they were beaten up by over seven locals for 3 hours. They have been admitted to a hospital.
Sources say one of the men has received injury to the backbone. The police say they are probing the issue and have ruled out calling it a racist attack.

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Manipur hails SC directive

KHELEN THOKCHOM

The Supreme Court

Imphal, Sept. 25 : Human rights activists in Manipur have welcomed the Supreme Court’s directive to state governments to probe all encounter killings, as a “positive” development.

Chief Justice R.M. Lodha and Justice R.F. Nariman yesterday gave the directive while dealing with a PIL filed by Peoples Union for Civil Liberties.

The two-judge bench ruled that all encounter killings would be probed by the CID of the state concerned or any police station except the one under whose jurisdiction the alleged encounter took place.

“We welcome the Supreme Court’s ruling, calling for probes into encounter killings, given the track records of fake encounter killings in Manipur and the government’s inaction over them,” Babloo Loitongbam, executive director of Human Rights Alert, Manipur, said.

Loitongbam expressed the concern that the role of the security forces — the army and Assam Rifles — in encounter killings could not be brought under the directive of the Supreme Court.

The army and Assam Rifles have been given protection by the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act from prosecution. Without the sanction of the Centre these forces could not be prosecuted.

Two identical petitions filed by Human Rights Alert, Manipur, and Extra-judicial Execution Victim Families’ Association, Manipur, seeking constitution of a special investigation team to probe 1,528 alleged fake encounter killings in the state are pending before the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court has constituted a committee, headed by Justice Santosh Hegde, to probe six cases chosen at random from the list of 1,528 cases. The committee’s findings said all the six cases were fake encounter killings. The apex court will hold the next hearing in the fake encounter killings petitions on October 14.

While welcoming the rulings, rights defenders expressed doubts over how far the state government would follow the guidelines.

“It (ruling) is a positive outcome. However, given the indifferent attitude of the state government we cannot say fake encounter killings will be checked after the ruling,” Rakesh Meihoubam, director, Human Rights Law Network, Manipur, said.

Rights activists said in most cases of alleged fake encounter killings, the state government remained silent and only ordered inquiries if there were public uprisings. Moreover, the government usually does not act on the findings of the inquiries.

The cases of fake encounter killings came down drastically after a public uproar against killing of a pregnant woman and a former militant by police in Imphal in an alleged fake encounter in 2009.

The Supreme Court also ordered mandatory filing of FIR in every case where death occurs, inquiry by a magistrate and “video graphed” autopsy by at least two doctors.

The apex court also banned immediate out-of-turn promotions for police personnel involved in such alleged encounter killings.

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Mary Kom — the forgotten queen

There is something about a late-night film show that triggers nationalism like few other things can. Maybe it is the lit-up screen where all assembled people look at — thus connecting all of them in a common experience, may be it is the post-dinner contented feeling that frees the mind to think about things beyond ourselves, like the nation. The Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s produced, Omung Kumar directed, Priyanka Chopra starrer Bollywood film, Mary Kom, ended with the national anthem of the Indian Union. This was part of the film by design and not some random brain-wave of the cinema-hall owner. Thus started the loyalty to the nation-state test at midnight — who stands, who doesn’t. A friend reported that righteous and upstanding citizens at a Delhi cinema hall beat up disloyal sit-downers. It is only natural that a film themed around boxing will inspire some of the spectators, especially when that warm ‘India’ feeling bubbles up inside an air-conditioned cinema hall. Paisa wasool.
Mary Kom, is a bio-pic about the struggles of Mary Kom, a real life woman boxing world-champion from the Indian state of Manipur, which had a democratically elected state council that was bypassed when its constitutional head signed a merger agreement in 1949 with an Indian Union that was yet become a democratic republic. Different issues come into the Mary Kom story — some fleetingly, some prominently. They include, the socio-political instability in Manipur, the prejudicial behaviour of Hindustanis towards Manipuris, armed forces of the Indian Union, Manipuri terrorists (or armed insurgents — take your pick) and so on. If the personal trials and tribulations of Mary Kom is the meat of the story, these other issues are the masala. The meat may be of top quality but without the right amount of masala applied in the right way, the dish cannot be served. The masala has to be of a particular kind, given that the customers of the dish come primarily from the halls and multiplexes of the Indian Union’s small towns and big cities. Every day, Mother Hindi serves food cooked in her Bollywood kitchen to millions of her state-loving offsprings spread all across her nation. This is the kind of meat that adds to the muscle of the four lions atop the Ashokan pillar. Nowadays, everyone is a little experimentative and wants to try some variations in their cuisine — a little ‘unity in diversity’, if you will. Hence, Mary Kom is a hit — a daughter’s tale, a mother’s tale, a woman’s tale, the tale of a thoroughly Indian Manipuri’s eventual Indian acceptability, the tale of north-east taking centre-stage, the tale of mischievous daughter Manipur’s relationship with Mother India. The Indian state is a liberal one now. It can take stuff like this — a little self-critique here, a little dose of common humanity there. But not all meats can be served everywhere. I hear that some Nagas dishes are so out there that no amount of tri-colour garam masala makes their story palatable in Delhi, Mumbai, NOIDA and Gurgaon. Every snake-charmer knows that it is risky to show off a snake which still has its fangs intact.
In Mary Kom, the heavily pregnant heroine is going towards the hospital with her husband. She is nearing labour. There is curfew on the streets. The husband tells her to wait and advances a bit. He is in the middle of a group of khaki-clad Indian security force men out to weed out trouble-makers. He tells them about his wife. A jawan finds her. The story matches. They arrive safely at the hospital. Many such images of an agitated Manipur break into ‘Mary Kom’. I use the word ‘images’ very deliberately here, for some realities are somewhat different. In July 2009, Mary Kom was selected for the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award, the Indian Union’s highest sporting award.  It was in the same July of 2009 that khaki-clad government forces surrounded an unarmed Chongkham Sanjit in a busy bazaar at Imphal, the capital of Manipur. Sanjit does not resist. He is whisked away to a dark area beside a roadside medicine shop. A few minutes later, the Khakis come out with Sanjit’s bullet-ridden dead body and throw it onto a truck. Wait. There is another corpse on the truck. It belongs to Rabina Devi, a pregnant bystander killed by police a short while ago. This whole sequence gets captured on camera, just like a film. A little Googling will do. Not all pregnant women and young men on Imphal streets get the ‘Mary Kom’ treatment. There is no market for these pictures of Manipur. The story of a decade-long hunger-striker protesting the ‘special powers’ granted to Indian Army in Manipur is no formula to Bollywood success. The picture of Irom Sharmila Chanu with the force-feeding tubes stuck to her nose is sure to take the pop out of popcorn. And if nothing else, the censor board will happily oblige in its mission of catering fairy-tales to citizens and protecting impressionable minds from such naked images. Sports are a better bet. A Manipuri woman’s struggle for legitimacy in Hindustan and Hindustan finally coming around to embrace her back. Mother India’s bosom is big enough for all. Taaliyan bacchon.
The day ‘Mary Kom’ was released, Indian Union’s prime minister gave a widely beamed ‘Teacher’s Day’ speech to school students. There was some Q and A too. A 17 year old school student Nickson Laisram of Imphal asked ‘How can I become the PM?’. Poor Nickson probably already knows that his ethnic origin unofficially rules that out already. The best he can hope is that his sisters will not have the fate of Thangjam Manorama, an insurgent who was picked up by security forces from her home in 2004. Her body, covered in sperm and bullets, was found the next day. 30 Manipuri mothers stripped themselves in protest outside an armed forces outpost with the banner ‘Indian Army, Rape Us’. I am waiting to stand up to the tune of the national anthem of the nation that will have the story of Manorama and her mothers in the night-show, without the garam masala.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 23^rd, 2014.

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Manipur woman gives birth to five babies

IMPHAL: A 32-year-old woman gave birth to quintuplets—one boy and four girls—at the Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) hospital here on Monday afternoon, creating history in the state.

Geeta Devi, the mother, was referred to RIMS by gynaecologists of Bishnupur district hospital on Monday morning. In the afternoon, Geeta gave birth to the five within seven minutes under the care of three doctors. But one of the four girls, weighing 700 grams, died a few minutes later.

Of the remaining four, two, including the boy weighing 900 grams each, are healthy, doctors said. They added that Geeta's condition is stable.

All the four babies have been kept inside the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), they said. They added that Geeta has set a new record in delivering five babies naturally in the state.

A resident of Thanga village on the banks of the Loktak lake in Bishnupur district, Geeta already has four children — three boys and a girl — all born naturally. The eldest one, a boy, is 15 years old.

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Government takes steps to protect non-locals in Manipur

The students' wing of the Joint Committee on Inner Line Permit System suspended the indefinite curfew imposed on non-locals till September 19, after the government agreed to release all of its arrested members.

Following the imposition of curfew, as a precautionary measure, the government had shifted a large number of non-locals into relief camps at different places.

Tight security is in place throughout the state to prevent any untoward incidents.

Raghu Rai, a non-local said, "The Manipur government has brought us to this safe place. But they should find a permanent solution to this so that we do not face problems in earning because we have our families and we have to work daily to support them."

Meanwhile, schools and colleges that had been shut down by the state government since September 11, keeping in view the law and order situation, have been reopened.

The decision was taken after a high-level meeting between the Chief Minister and various top officials and security personnel.

Pushpa Devi, a student said, "I am happy that our schools have re-opened because I had thought that we won't complete our syllabus on time. But now, our syllabus can be covered.

Premila Devi, a local added, "Because of the ILP issue, I do not want the schools to be shut down, as it is a great loss for the students. Even if the schools are shut down, it won't bring any solution. As my children are studying, the schools should function properly, otherwise it will be a problem for the students."

The protests for implementation of the Inner Line Permit system in the state have gained momentum in the last few months.

Protest marches and demonstrations have been taking place all over the state, asking the government to find an immediate resolution to the issue.

The Joint Committee for Inner Line Permit had recently called for a day-long general strike that crippled normal life in the state with vehicular traffic remaining off the roads and markets being shut down.

Chandani Devi, another local resident pointed out, "We do not want bandhs. There are lots of people who have to come out daily to earn their livelihood. Moreover, there are so many people who are sick. So, if there is no vehicle, how will they go to the hospital? So, we do not want any such bandh."

Kiren Rijiju, Minister of State for Home Affairs said, "We will talk to them and listen to their grievances properly."

The Inner Line permit system restricts the entry of outsiders into a state without authorized permission.

Locals believe that this move is required to check the influx of illegal migrants.

The state government has set up a committee to find an immediate solution to the problem.

The government is also taking steps to address the issue so as to restore peace and avoid further violence in the state.
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Fighting all odds to make Manipur proud

Two states in India are known for producing women hockey players of repute — Punjab and Manipur, besides Jharkhand and Odisha. But the comparison of the sporting infrastructure and hockey facilities in these states are a study in contrast. While Punjab has around 15 astro-turf stadiums with some of them having world-class facilities, strife-torn Manipur got its first professional hockey stadium in 1999 when the National Games was held there. Before that, athletes used to practice on grass turfs.

“In Manipur, there was just one ground, in Imphal. Therefore, we used to get very less time for practise. The ground was also in a poor condition,” said Chanchan Devi, a hockey star from the state, who debuted for India during the 7th Asia Cup in Thailand in 2009.
“If any player from Manipur makes it to the national side, the entire credit must be given to him or her, thanks to lack of support from the government and sporting bodies,” she added.  
“Being from a Northeast state means, if you want to go to your home, it would take three to four days, as most of the places where training camps are conducted are far from Imphal… We cannot afford planes fare,” she said.
Chanchan Devi, who achieved the rare distinction of earning 100th cap during a match against South Korea at Glasgow in 2014, rues the fact that she has not got any support from the government.
 “It has been 10 years since I am playing hockey and I have not received a penny from the government,” lamented Devi, adding that there is still support for the athletes who play individual games, but same can’t be said about hockey players.
Devi takes her inspiration from Suraj Lata Devi, former captain of India women’s hockey team who hails from Manipur. Lata had led the team to the Gold for three consecutive years: during the 2002 Commonwealth Games, 2003 Afro-Asian Games, and 2004 Hockey Asia Cup.
“I keep talking to Didi over phone, she is an inspiring for players like us,” said Devi.
The other Manipuri players in the team Sushila Chanu—current captain of Indian women’s junior hockey team and defender in the national team—too echoed the sentiment.
“We recently won the junior World Cup under my captaincy, but when I returned, there was not a single official from the state government to receive me at the airport,” an emotional Chanu recalled. - See more at: http://www.hindustantimes.com/news-feed/asiangames2014/fighting-all-odds-to-make-manipur-proud/article1-1265279.aspx#sthash.QrA7pkrY.dpuf
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Insurance firm seeks 'crowdfunding' for Mary Kom's sports academy in Manipur

By Bella Jaisinghani

MUMBAI: A private life insurance company is helping sportsperson Mary Kom set up infrastructure for a boxing academy in Manipur through "crowdfunding".

Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project by raising contributions from a large number of people. In fact film-makers who are short on finance often use online portals or social networks to seek crowd funding.

This particular initiative hopes to raise Rs 10 lakhs for her academy. Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance, which has supported Mary Kom, will contribute the initial Rs 1 lakh or fill the shortfall. The month-long campaign comes to an end September 21. The firm has also provided her an insurance policy worth Rs 2 crore.

Edelweiss says it supports champions like Mary Kom to seek success at the Olympic Games through its philanthropic arm named Edelgive. It plans to help other sportspersons in future.

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Paul Sworn-in as Manipur Governor

IMPHAL: Meghalaya Governor K K Paul was today sworn-in as acting Governor of Manipur.

Manipur Chief Justice Laxmi Kant Mahapatra administered oath of office and secrecy to Paul during a function at Raj Bhavan which was attended by Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh, his cabinet colleagues and high civil and police officials.

Raj Bhavan sources said Paul "will act as Governor of Manipur till the new appointment was made."

The outgoing Governor V K Duggal was given a warm send off by the Chief Minister and his cabinet colleagues yesterday, sources added.

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CRPF Personnel to Be deployed at NIT Complex in Manipur

Imphal, Sep 15 : Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel would be deployed "immediately" at the complex of National Institute of Technology (NIT) at Langol area in Manipur's Imphal West district following an altercation between two sections of students.

"The state government has decided to deploy CRPF personnel at the institute immediately both as a confidence building measure for the students from outside Manipur as also to strictly maintain law and order within the campus", a government order said here today.

The decision was taken after an altercation between students from the outside the state and local students of NIT on September 12.

"In case of any reports of ragging, physical violence, fights, intimidation etc, the authorities of NIT Manipur must immediately take strict and prompt punitive action against the responsible students including rustication from the institute, black-listing from joining any other institution in the country or even filing of FIR in any concerned police station", the order said.

The Director NIT was also told to submit daily reports to the state government on the atmosphere prevailing in the campus for the next one week.

Chief Minister O Ibobi Singh and Education Minister M Okendro personally visited the institute and discussed the matter with the NIT authorities yesterday.


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