It seems like caste and woman are inseparable from the time immemorial!
We are yet to pass few more decades of miserable stereotyping of woman and caste. Just like the two sides of the coin, from one decade to another decade it just pass on like a tradition.
The two are subject of discussion and controversies and suppressed categories in our society. Let it be anywhere. There is nothing new to discuss about the caste system and the extreme way mistreating woman in Northern India, set examples are dowry killing, forceful marriage and all time high percentage of domestic violence. While criticising and looking at the culture of other community, would not be a high time to discuss and count the number unfortunate incidents of domestic violence, socially ostracizing a woman for meeting a man in the dark restaurant, for the MMS scandal, man out rightly putting his wife name in the newspaper as "Missing Wife".
Rape of minor, killing of woman by unidentified person and no one claiming a hand for such killing and police, booming market of social organisations and everyone blaming the woman for the killing and finally trading the woman who are killed as immoral. So, immorality become a reasonable ground for terminating the life of a woman in the present Manipur. Where is the rock music loving, western influence society heading to? This is something to introspect before we lost ourselves in a racial war with the people who could never understand us. Main and biggest hypocrite being the people behind the printing press who are working beyond the reasonable man in order to entertain the psychologically ill bulk of man and woman in our society. So newspaper is truly a piece of entertainment at the cost of dignity of a woman. You could find people in the bus, roadside, in the local hotel, reading loudly with a sarcastic smile of the news heading titled "Missing of my wife " "My wife eloped with a younger man" etc. There is no law and authority who would cross check such a shameless crime of husbands defaming a wife and newspapers owe no morale responsibility as they get money and more subscribers for publishing such news.
Coming back to another topic is the furious and ultimate reaction of patriots of Manipur when they saw a woman from Manipur marrying a man from Mainland India, perhaps dating per se. The kind of the language and abuses each of them used in the social networking site is truly scary. Few months back, someone just tag me in a photo where few girls are drinking beer in a personal party and may be they have uploaded the photo in their FB, and the gonna be saviors of Manipur culture upload them in a group and called them with every name they could. The most fearful site I have ever encountered was some group in the Orkut saying "killed those Meitei woman who marry a Mayang (non-manipuri)". That was a shame and totally showing to the world or the people in other part of India that the concept of liberal culture, a society where woman are treated equally with man etc, is just a myth and I must say that it's still a myth.
I would not say every Meitei man do ostracize and talk bad things about woman. There are man and woman who understands that every choice made is a personal and one should not interfere it but what surprise me as well scare me is the part of anger, disheartening and revenging attitude of man of my own society towards the woman. It wonders me whenever they celebrate December 12-Nupilan Day and asked the woman to come wearing the traditional dress when the man do come comfortably in any dress they wishes. So, if we declare to the world that in our society, woman are the decision maker, they are the pioneers and it's the woman force which is protecting this trouble state of ours then why do the man in the society feel that they should police, advice and order woman for the dress, make-up and the man they should marry or date. We just make noise to the outsiders within and outside India that we have the woman market, we have meira-paibi association, we have nupilan memorials, woman top every competitive exams and it's woman who runs the home financially and morally then where is the man standing to do that job of policing? Our much hype convent school breeds who are proud of their exceptionally stylish English and rock music still feel uncomfortable to talk about woman, their fundamental and property rights and their problems. They simply ignore and become deaf and blind when it comes to the issues related to woman. They all have very traditionally inherited what their descendants used to say 'nupi naha gi wari se kya heinade".
Everyone is an activist and celebrity in the age of social networking. One writes about politics, Modi, RaGa, Kejriwal, development, insurgency but no one is interested to talk and discuss about the very woman who they endorse to the world as an alternative form of their culture, in short the synonyms of woman is culture and again the synonyms of culture is our dress. Every day there is death of a woman, domestic violence, rape but everyone accepts it being a part of the "soon becoming " globalized Manipur? So, basically, the most favorite topic about woman would be when there is a controversy run around them and everyone gets a chance to hurl abuses about the girl or woman in the social networking site. In addition to this there is Romi Meitei and Co, who are defining and redefining the moral, honest woman and the immoral, fallen and different type of woman in their movies. Why is no one defining the immorality of a man, it meant to say that our society also accepts the same theory said by Mulayam Singh Yadav, "boys are boys, they make mistake and why should hang them for rape". They may be making lots of money and enjoying the whole process of representing woman as pathetic, pitiable and irresponsible but this will cost hugely to the coming generation where every growing up boys will start treating woman as their property and object they can use and throw anytime. Every growing up girl will feel insecure, pitiable and pathetic about themselves.
After a long time, I went home, surrounded by little cousins who are not as fortunate as I'm to study in good school and colleges. They suggest I should watch a movie with them. I agreed and sit down to watch series of Manipur movie, in one movie, the girl from a poor family brought up by a widow eloped with a handsome rich family boy. The boy's family insulted them and the girl suicide, reason being she was left nothing to live with dignity. She is the fallen one, the mother followed and suicide. I just sip my coffee and said yuck, who is the bastard making this movie?? I started enjoying the weather and the torture of Manipur movie, I shift to another movie, an older man forcefully kidnap a beautiful young woman and his parents advice that you are a woman and your dignity will be over if you deny this marriage, so here no IPC, no criminal law applied. There is traditionally acceptable culture of eloping but it should be between the consensual but our film makers still endorse the idea that woman lost their dignity even if it was a forceful eloping or kidnapping, so they should get married to the kidnapper. You have to marry the man who forcefully kidnapped you instead of filing a case as per the law so this is like how Eistein law of gravity failed in Rajnikant's movie, similar situation is with the Manipuri movie. In the serious note, it tremendously affects the growing girls, kills their confidence to be themselves and make them feel that they are living the most vulnerable, pitiable and meaningless life.
After a long time, I went home, surrounded by little cousins who are not as fortunate as I'm to study in good school and colleges. They suggest I should watch a movie with them. I agreed and sit down to watch series of Manipur movie, in one movie, the girl from a poor family brought up by a widow eloped with a handsome rich family boy. The boy's family insulted them and the girl suicide, reason being she was left nothing to live with dignity. She is the fallen one, the mother followed and suicide. I just sip my coffee and said yuck, who is the bastard making this movie?? I started enjoying the weather and the torture of Manipur movie, I shift to another movie, an older man forcefully kidnap a beautiful young woman and his parents advice that you are a woman and your dignity will be over if you deny this marriage, so here no IPC, no criminal law applied. There is traditionally acceptable culture of eloping but it should be between the consensual but our film makers still endorse the idea that woman lost their dignity even if it was a forceful eloping or kidnapping, so they should get married to the kidnapper. You have to marry the man who forcefully kidnapped you instead of filing a case as per the law so this is like how Eistein law of gravity failed in Rajnikant's movie, similar situation is with the Manipuri movie. In the serious note, it tremendously affects the growing girls, kills their confidence to be themselves and make them feel that they are living the most vulnerable, pitiable and meaningless life.
I always believe that education will change the people and their thinking. But current generation of rock music, fashion lover and Korean style infected generation is redundant, retarded and sometime incurable.They simply become educated illiterates and their skill of language and the social networking is rather leading to a more chaotic society. So simply it becomes like technology being fed to the worms.
We are yet to pass few more decades of miserable stereotyping of woman and caste. Just like the two sides of the coin, from one decade to another decade it just pass on like a tradition.
