Impressions: Emataranithoi Roundup

 

Impressions: Emataranithoi Roundup is a collection of articles, essays and news stories on the 12 mothers who disrobed in front of the Kangla Fort. The copyright of each piece belongs to the respective website and it has been reproduced here only for educational and academic purposes.

🕮 Contents

• What made these grannies go nude in public? | BBC
  
• If you remember Manipuri women only for nude protest against Army, think again | India Today
• 17 years since their naked protest against Army, ‘Mothers of Manipur’ say fight not over yet | ThePrint
  

 

 What made these grannies go nude in public?

This image of a nude protest by a group of Indian mothers and grandmothers stunned the world in 2004. (Image: BBC/AFP)

Geeta Pandey | BBC News | 15 March 2017

Defying all stereotypes, the 12 women challenged the security forces and paved the way for real change on the ground in the north-eastern state of Manipur.

Eleven of the mothers regrouped in the state capital, Imphal, recently to speak to the BBC about their unconventional protest. The 12th protester died five years ago.

In a large bare hall, they sit on floor mats, many of them in their sunset years. Many are frail and have failing eye sight, one is accompanied by her daughter as she cannot walk unaided.

As they start telling me about that day, it's hard to imagine these women carrying out that act of protest.

Manipur has struggled for decades with an insurgency involving several militant groups, and the Indian military has for more than half a century had sweeping shoot-to-kill powers under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (Afspa).

The security forces were often accused of rights abuses, but it was the gang-rape and murder of a 32-year-old woman in July 2004, allegedly by paramilitary soldiers, that set the state on the edge.

Manorama was picked up from her home at midnight on 11 July by soldiers from the Assam Rifles, a paramilitary force deployed in Manipur to fight insurgents. A few hours later, her mutilated, bullet-riddled body was found by the roadside. It bore tell-tale signs of torture and rape.

The Assam Rifles denied any role in her death, but the state witnessed unprecedented anger and at the centre of that was the "mothers' protest".

The women were all housewives, mostly from poor families, and many did small jobs to supplement their family incomes. The oldest was 73, the youngest 45. Between them, they had 46 children and 74 grandchildren. They were also activists (called Meira Paibis, or torch-bearers). They knew each other, but belonged to different organisations.

Some of them visited Manorama's family and the morgue where her body was kept.

"It made me very angry. It was not just Manorama who was raped. We all felt raped," says Soibam Momon Leima.

The idea of a nude protest was first discussed on 12 July at a meeting of the All Manipur Women's Social Reformation and Development Samaj, but it was thought "too sensitive and radical", says Thokchom Ramani, who was 73 at the time.

But at a meeting later in the day of different women's groups, Ms Thokchom mentioned it and believing that "desperate times call for desperate measures", it was agreed that a small group of women would attempt to strip in front of the iconic Kangla Fort, the Assam Rifles headquarters.

On the morning of 15 July, the day of the protest, Laishram Gyaneshwari left her home at 5:30am.

"I didn't tell my husband or children that I was going to take part in this protest. I had no idea how it would go, I knew I was putting my life in danger and I knew I could die that day. So I touched my husband's feet, sought his blessings and left," she told me.

Lourembam Nganbi arrived in the city a day earlier from her home in Vishnupur, 30km away. Because of a government-imposed curfew in many parts of the state, there were no buses so she hired a private taxi to reach Imphal and walked the last few miles to the home of Haobam Ibetombi, another of the protesters.

"There, we removed our inner garments and just covered our bodies in the traditional Manipuri sarongs so that we could strip easily," she says.

Just after 9am, a van began ferrying them to Kangla Fort - it made three trips, carrying the protesters and volunteers, depositing them not at the fort but near enough to get there quickly.

"We were crying even before we left. We are women, all we have is our honour. And Manipur is a traditional society, we don't show our bodies. We are uncomfortable even showing our ankles," Mrs Laishram said.

The authorities had somehow got wind of their protest and a large number of police, some of them women, were beginning to gather outside the fort.

At 10am, the rag-tag bunch walked in twos and threes to the fort gate and before anyone could realise what was going on, the mothers stripped. They threw off all their clothes, beat their chests, rolled on the ground and wept.

The women carried banners that read "Indian army, rape us" and "Indian army, kill us". Even though Manorama had been taken away by members of a paramilitary force, most Indians don't know the different branches of the security forces, and so army is used as a loose term to describe them all.

Although there were no leaders, Mrs Lourembam shouted the loudest, chanting slogans in English "because we wanted to shame them in a language they and the rest of the world understood", she said.

"I was thinking their action must stop, they must be punished. Women should not be raped anywhere in the world.

The women tried to storm the fort, but the soldiers locked the gates. "Two sentries pointed their guns at us. We dared them to shoot us and they lowered their weapons. I think they were ashamed," says Mrs Laishram.

Soon, a large crowd gathered and Mrs Thockchom says most people, including many police personnel, were crying.

The protest continued for just 45 minutes, but those 45 minutes have had a lasting impact on the lives on the 12 women and the story of Manipur.

The mothers became celebrities who were feted at neighbourhood receptions. But they were also harassed by an embarrassed government which began a systematic destruction of their offices and organisations.

Nine of the women were accused of arson and waging war against the country and were sent to jail for nearly three months.

Their protest, however, did have the intended impact of putting the spotlight on the Manipur problem.

"The mothers' protest came too late for Manorama, but it played a crucial role in forcing the Assam Rifles to vacate the fort four months later, for the first time since they occupied it in 1949," says Babloo Loitongbam of Human Rights Alert.

India also promised to look at the demand to repeal Afspa and then prime minister Manmohan Singh promised a "healing touch" to the Manipuris.

Thirteen years later, though, Afspa remains in large parts of the state and reports of rights abuses by security forces still come in, but campaigners feel the situation has improved.

Along with the 16-year fast by the state's most celebrated activist Irom Sharmila, the mothers' protest has entered the history books.

The mothers, however, remain angry.

"We are still naked," Mrs Laishram tells me. "We will believe the government has clothed us only on the day Afspa is removed from the whole state."

 

If you remember Manipuri women only for nude protest against Army, think again

Women in Manipur lead the battle against drug menace, human rights violation, corruption, Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) and now the Citizenship Bill in the northeastern state.

Snigdha Choudhury | India Today | January 22, 2019

The women vendors of the Khwairamband Bazaar have been active in taking political stand
Far away from the national media glare and the political manoeuvring in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, women in Manipur lead the battle against drug menace, human rights violation, corruption, Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) and now the Citizenship Bill in the northeastern state.

The women in Manipur have always been at the forefront of leading campaigns on political or social issues. They have made obvious strides and have a strong foothold in the state and often act as powerful influencers in the state.

This time, the women activists in Manipur are hitting the streets to protest against the Citizenship Amendment Bill.

They have been asking the Biren Singh government in Manipur to clear the air on the controversial bill in Assam that seeks to provide Indian citizenship to Hindus, Jains, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan after six years of residence in India. They believe that the Citizenship Bill is a threat to the balance of the indigenous people in the region. They said the influx would disturb the original settlers in Manipur, Assam and the Northeastern states.

On Sunday (January 19, 2019), the women vendors of the Ima Keithel Khwairamband Bazaar staged a sit-in to protest against the Citizenship Bill. For all the uninitiated, Khwairamband Bazaar is a prominent market in Imphal where women vendors numbering around 4,000 lead the show. It is a market that is run by only women. Last year, the Manipur government banned male vendors in the bazaar.

The women vendors, besides doing business also play a crucial role in taking political stands. They have not shied away from taking part in demonstrations and often been called torch-bearers for leading drives against any political or societal issues.

However, the protests may not have been so intense like the iconic nude protest but it definitely got their CM clearing the air about the bill. Biren Singh said the Manipur government opposes the Citizenship Bill in its present form. He said the Manipur government will oppose the bill unless there was a clause to protect the indigenous people in the region.

The last time Manipur received undivided attention was on July 15, 2004 when dramatic scenes were witnessed at the Kangla Fort in the Imphal valley. Twelve Manipuri women stripped naked in front of the Kangla fort and held a banner that said 'Indian Amry Rape Us'. Standing outside the fort with their bare body and hair let loose, the women held placards that read "Indian Army rape us...we all are Manorama's mothers" and "Kill us. Rape us. Flesh us."

The nude protests of the "Mothers of Manipur" was against the brutal rape and murder of 32-year-old Thangjam Manorama by the 17th Assam Rifles. Manorama was picked up from her home on the pretext of interrogation by the Assam Rifles under AFSPA over being suspected of being a militant. Her body was found the next day with 16 bullets, her genitals destroyed and several marks in her thigh.

"We all felt like we are mothers of the hapless girl who was gangraped and murdered. The women of Manipur have been the worst victims of insurgency. Both the militant groups and a section of security forces torture women as we are soft targets. Our mode of protest then came from within," 66-year-old Gyaneshori, who was one of the women to lead the naked protest, told news agency PTI in November, 2017.

The incident forced Assam Rifles to vacate the Kangla Fort, and the AFSPA removed from seven Assembly segments in Imphal. However, the AFSPA continued to remain in the rest of Manipur.

Manipur has had a long-standing fight to repeal AFSPA, the rule under which the Army men can fire upon, use force, arrest or even cause death at their will merely on the pretext of a suspicion.

Irom Sharmila, also known as the Iron Lady, was on a seven-year hunger strike against scrapping AFSPA in the state. Sharmila started her hunger strike on November 5, 2000 and went on to continue it till August 9, 2016. During her fight of seven years, Sharmila was arrested by the police and charged with an "attempt to commit suicide". She was also force-fed on many occasions to keep her alive. She maintained that she would call off the strike only if the act was unreservedly removed from the state.

Since colonial period, Nupi Lan (women's agitation) movements have been evident in the state. The first two movements that set the base for the women agitation in the state was in 1904 and in 1939. Rani Gaidinliu was a local hero back then when she played a significant role in driving out the Britishers. Also in 1925 and 1932, the women led a water tax movement against the king.

In 1969, when the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was addressing a rally in Imphal, the women staged a black-flag vigil demanding statehood.

The women in Manipur have defied the patriarchal norms of the Indian society. Often than not, the women in Manipur have played a role that could be compared to a revolutionary without being exaggerated.

As Karl Marx said, "Anybody who knows anything of history knows great social changes are impossible without the feminine ferment."

 

Ima Gyaneshwori holds a picture of herself protesting in the early 2000s. (Image: Simrin Sirur | ThePrint

17 years since their naked protest against Army, ‘Mothers of Manipur’ say fight not over yet

On 15 July 2004, 12 Manipur women disrobed in front of the Assam Rifles HQ in Imphal to protest against the killing of Manorama Thangjam who was also allegedly raped.

Simrin Sirur | ThePrint | 22 July, 2021 

On 15 July, eight imas — or mothers in Meitei — from across Manipur commemorated the 17th anniversary of a protest that shook India and transformed the state forever. Three of them held a quiet ceremony in Imphal to mark the day, with two imas joining the event in spirit, their garlanded photos propped up on a table in a corner.

The remaining two of the 12 imas who participated in the protest were too sick to join. A day after the observance, one of them succumbed to her illness.  

On 15 July 2004, these 12 imas had disrobed in front of the historic Kangla Fort in the heart of Imphal — then the headquarters of the Assam Rifles — carrying banners with messages painted in red. “Indian Army Rape Us”, read one. “Indian Army Take Our Flesh”, said another.

The women were protesting against the brutal killing of Manorama Thangjam, a 32-year-old woman who had been picked up by Assam Rifles personnel in suspicious circumstances four days prior.

Manorama’s bullet-riddled body — with gunshot wounds to her private parts and thighs — was found near a paddy field hours after she was taken away from her home.

Semen stains reportedly found on her clothes in a forensic exam suggested she had been raped. A judicial commission set up to look into the case painted a scathing account of torture that Manorama allegedly suffered in her final hours.

The case proved a flashpoint in Manipur, where anger against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), 1958 — which allows use of force in certain situations in disturbed areas — was already pervasive. At the time, activist Irom Sharmila was already four years into a hunger strike against AFSPA that would last until 2016.

AFSPA was used sporadically in the hill districts of Manipur to tackle insurgency before being imposed across the whole state in 1980. Resentment against the security forces’ alleged excesses began as early as 1974, when a local woman named Rose committed suicide after she was allegedly raped by a BSF officer who faced no action for the suspected crime.

“Since 1974, the imas’ hearts were overflowing with sorrow. With every murder, rape, abduction, our hearts sank further,” Ima Gyaneshwori, 71, one of the Kangla Fort protesters, told ThePrint, sitting on a couch at her home in Imphal.

“When Manorama happened, we couldn’t take it anymore. It had already been 24 years of struggle. Something within us broke,” she added.

The protest, whose anniversary is observed by activists in the state as ‘Anti-Repression Day’, brought the world’s gaze to alleged military excesses in the state and the number of extrajudicial killings in Manipur has fallen since. But justice for Manorama and 1,528 other victims — who were either killed or went missing in similar circumstances — remains elusive, and the AFSPA is still in place.

As age and disease take a toll on their strength, the imas — known widely as the “mothers of Manipur” — hope the fight will continue beyond their generation.    

Among the 2004 protesters, Ima Momon died on 16 July, succumbing to Covid-19 after a long battle with the illness. Ima Ramani, 92, is sick with Covid-19 as well. The two women photographed and garlanded at the ceremony, Ima Loitam Ibetombi and Ima Mutum Ibemhal, died in 2012 and 2018, respectively.

While Gyaneshwori suffers from diabetes, she insists it is manageable.

“They (those who died) should be remembered as freedom fighters, who fought for this nation, and who proved that anything can be done for our people. The fight isn’t over.”

The making of a protest

Footage from the 2004 protest shows the women taking off their clothes in front of the Kangla Fort, and shouting “Rape us!” while beating their chests. An enraged Ima Nganbi, now in her 70s, makes it a point to shout “We are all Manorama’s mothers. Rape us, kill us”, in English (“a language the world and the Army would understand”, she told ThePrint).

The idea of the protest was hatched a day before, on the sidelines of a meeting of civil society organisations.

“There was a meeting with the Apurna Lub (a body consisting of 32 civil society organisations) on 14 July 2004 to figure out what to do and how to protest against Manorama’s rape and murder, but the deliberations were endless and I was becoming impatient,” Ima Anandi, a retired school teacher, told ThePrint.

Ima Anandi, 72, who founded a women’s rights organisation called Macha Leima at age 14, is regarded as one of the “masterminds” who organised, supported, and planned the protest.

“The women were sitting in a separate room, and I went to join them. I broached the idea of protesting naked, and my thought was, what is the point of wearing clothes when we aren’t treated with any dignity?” Anandi said. “They agreed. The idea of this protest could never have come up when we were in discussions with the men.”

No one was informed of the imas’ decision. The women went home, but didn’t tell their families.  

“I couldn’t sleep the night before. I stayed at a relative’s house. I was consumed by thoughts of how we could do more for Manorama. For me, I didn’t think twice about participating nude,” Anandi said.

Ima Gyaneshwori said she “secretly” sought blessings from her husband, touching his feet when he asked where she was going early in the morning on 15 July. “I couldn’t risk telling him. So, I bent to touch his feet, and, in my mind, asked for empathy, understanding and forgiveness after the protest was over.”

Although the protest was a spectacle, the quiet defiance of what went behind it — of not informing the men, not informing their families, and taking complete agency of their bodies — is why Anandi felt it was the best thing to do.

“I think it didn’t sit well with the other organisations that we went over their heads. But look what happened,” she told ThePrint.

Among the most significant outcomes of the imas’ protest has been the return of the Kangla Fort to the Manipur government, in 2005.

“Things have changed radically since 2004. Extrajudicial killings have come down and are now almost non-existent after peaking around 2009,” Babloo Loithongbam, director of the Imphal-based NGO Human Rights Alert, told ThePrint.

The imas are still active in civil rights movements, but have also shifted their focus to a variety of other causes.

“The women are still active in the public space, and several are involved in the anti-drug movement in the state. Ima Ramani, who is now sick with Covid, was deeply involved,” said Loithongbam.

Then and now

For all the results they have received, the women said they have had to chart a difficult path in the years since.  

In Bishnupur district, Ima Lourebam Nganbi, out of breath and sweating profusely, grabbed a small fan and placed it in front of her. Nganbi was diagnosed with diabetes a few years ago. Most of her life, she said, she has participated in movements defending human rights. Now, however, she has become cautious on account of the pandemic and her illness.

“Still, if someone needs me, I am there, at whatever cost,” she told ThePrint.

Last year, she said, she dropped everything when her neighbour was charged with sedition and held under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act for allegedly publishing an op-ed about militancy in the state. She waited outside the police station till he was released, she said.

Since the 2004 protest, Ima Nganbi added, she has been arrested six to seven times. Her family, she said, has faced random checks and harassment from police and security personnel over the years.  

“A few years ago, Army officers came to my home and one of them was wearing a black mask and pointed at my son. He was so afraid, he urinated. When things like this happen, your mind goes to whether or not you will see that family member alive again,” she said.

Ima Gyaneshwori has similar stories. When a car was once apprehended and found to have a gun, her husband was blamed for the incident, despite no proof linking him to the crime, she said. The Army, she added, showed up at the shop they own, and tried to intimidate them.

“I stood in front of him (my husband) with my arms stretched out. I argued with them and they eventually left. But things like this have happened a lot,” she said.

There are a few lessons to learn as newer generations shape the civil rights movements in Manipur, Ima Gyaneshwori said.

“Always stay true to who you are. Don’t lose your empathy. Work genuinely. Listen to the wisdom of your elders. Change can come from that.”

‘Still no justice’

The situation in Manipur is described as decidedly better now, but no action has been taken so far against Manorama’s suspected killers.

Soon after Manorama’s murder, the Manipur High Court ordered a judicial inquiry into the circumstances of her death and constituted the Manorama Death Inquiry Commission in 2004, led by the late C. Upendra Singh, a retired district and sessions judge.

The contents of the report, submitted in November 2004, were only released to the public in 2014. Singh called the case “one of the most shocking” custodial deaths in Manipur, and said the bullets to her vagina “expose not only the barbaric attitude but also their (the Assam Rifles’) attempt to fabricate false evidence with a view to cover up the offence committed by them”.

While the Assam Rifles labelled Manorama an insurgent who was shot while trying to flee custody, their claim has been widely questioned — they said they shot Manorama in the legs, but no bullet was found in her legs. The commission cited her autopsy to claim she had also been shot from the front — bringing the “chase” account into question.

In 2009, a collective called the Extra Judicial Execution Victim Families Association Manipur was formed that subsequently identified 1,528 people who had been murdered or had gone missing between 1979 and 2012 in similar circumstances. In 2017, the Supreme Court directed the CBI to investigate the cases, but progress has been slow: Only 39 FIRs and 13 charge sheets have been filed so far.

In 2015, on the Supreme Court’s direction, the Union government paid Manorama’s family Rs 10 lakh in compensation. Two years later, the court questioned the Army (which controls the Assam Rifles operations) over what was described as its silence on allegations of rape and murder against its personnel.

According to an April 2017 report published by The Hindu, the Army told the court that an internal inquiry had revealed some “violations of laid-down procedure” in the Manorama case. However, the Army counsel reportedly told the court that the operation involving Manorama was based on reliable intelligence, and said the force was not averse to an inquiry by a high-ranking officer.

In October 2018, The Week reported that the Army had started a court of inquiry into the case whose proceedings were yet to begin. ThePrint reached an Assam Rifles representative in charge of operations and media with queries about the status of the internal inquiry — if any — and about the alleged visits to the imas by security personnel, but he declined to comment.

“It’s important to remember the brutal rape and killing of Manorama, and our protest, because after all these years, there is still no justice. Compensation isn’t enough,” said Nganbi, adding, “I’m wearing clothes right now, but it’s just in name. My protest is just as visceral and naked as it was that day. We won’t rest till the killers are brought to justice and AFSPA is repealed.”