Manipuri women aren’t that gritty feminists: Teresa Rehman

Posted on January 25, 2017 0 Comments5

Women in Manipur have a decisive role to play in the upcoming elections with more number of women voters than men in the electoral  rolls. Yet, journalist Teresa Rehman feels that Manipuri women are far from the gritty feminists that many imagine them to be.

“Most of the women, specially the imas (grandmothers), are ordinary, next-door women. Most of the Meitei women come from a deeply patriarchal and conservative Vaishnavite community, and they come out to be part of anti-AFSPA protests because the men let them,” she says.

Rehman broke the story of fake encounters for Tehelka newsmagazine in 2009, which was followed by a national outcry and international consternation. And she has since then not stepped back into the state, as anything can happen to her. In Jaipur, as part of a panel on the northeast at the ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival, she also spoke about her new book, The Mothers of Manipur. The book focuses on the 12 imas who stripped down naked to stage a powerful protest against the Assam Rifles of the Indian Army at Kangla Fort in 2004. At the panel, she spoke about how one of the imas told her that she would cover her face, too, while sleeping.

“For a woman like her to take off her clothes was a powerful, political act,” she told the audience. “This is not New York, it is a deeply conservative and hostile society. And their grit under resilience was extraordinary.”