"Manipur
is the Jewel of India and
Switzerland of the East"
-Pandit
Jawaharlal Nehru
Just like Punjab or the Deccan, the geographical
feature of Manipur is unique. Its dance and music, rich
culture heritage, amazing martial arts performance, extremely
rare orchid, flora and fauna and scenic beauties are beyond
imagination. The place, the people and the climate to create
an atmosphere to make the Manipur an ideal holiday resort
through the year. Manipur (Kangleipak) the birthplace of
Polo is perhaps as one of the most beautiful state of India.
Manipur has both hills and plain topography.
Moreover, different tribes with different cultures are also
found in this small area. So, we need to analyse both physical
and cultural environments of this region. It is an ideal
place for geographer to work for different branches of geography.
Previously when the valley was formation, the local inhabitants
were settled on the top of hills. Slowly and steadily the
valley formation was developed when the water level of the
valley was receded. It was mainly due to earthquake movements,
which moulded the land area tilting from north to south.
Finally, all water was drained towards south
through the present 'Loktak-lake' and new settlers were
migrated from the surrounding towards the valley areas.
The surrounding hills (i.e Khangkui, Songbu caves etc.)
were settled by prehistoric men (i.e palaeolithic culture
for stone age people- 30,000 B.C. to 40,000 B.C).
Recently, Manipur is inhabited by a number
of tribes. The majority of the populations are Meeteis community,
commonly known as Manipuri. As many 29 tribes generally
inhibit the hills. These may be broadly divided into Naga
and Kuki. The physical appearances among these tribes are
almost the same. Moreover, the cultural aspects among these
tribes were also in homogeneous nature. Intermarriage among
these tribes is also freely allowed. But marriage inside
one clan is highly restricted. Moreover, the names of the
original tribe of Meitei are having some historical significations.
For example Tangkhul means spear village of Meitei; Kabui
means cowherds man (especially Mithun) of Meitei, who was
originated from holy koubru mountain; Maring means God-father
of Meitei or stray brothers or sisters of Tangkhul etc.
All of this tribes including Meitei community are having
seven clans system. The old religion, language, costume,
art and culture etc. were almost the same among these tribes
having seven clans system, but some difference and restrictions
are there on their food item ( Mangang clan never consume
some foods like white pumpkin, ell fish, etc. ) clothing
or style of dress; ritual or hymn or offering to God for
a particular clan or Salai etc.
In short, the present scheduled tribes (i.e
Tangkhul, Kabui, Maring etc. and Scheduled caste (i.e Sekmai,
Pheiyeng, Andro etc.) inhabitants of the state are the real
brothers and sisters of Meitei-community and Meitei, Nagas,
and Old Kukies are the 'sons of the soils'.
As little change had occurred among these people
in their culture activities when they adopted foreign religions.
Plain people ( especially Meitei) were influence by Hinduism
whereas hill people ( Naga, Kuki) were influence under the
spell of Christianity. Here, some of the pioneer-preachers
of Hindu religions were Guru Vishnu Goswami, Santidash Goshai
etc. and Sir Pettrigrew and his adopted Mr. Purum Singh
of Pheiyeng village were the pioneer-preachers of Christian
religion. Thus, the hill and plain people were separated
and later on, it created a lot of problems.
Meitei (including original Naga groups) are
generally classified as pro-mongoloid group of people. They
are physically well built. Their eyes have slight fold eyelids
and their eyes are small. They have a prominent flattened
nose and fair complexion ranging from brownish to yellow
brown. They have dark black hair. Their original height
is about 5 feet 5 inches but tall person also visible. They
also enjoyed a typical monsoon climate. They're cultural
and religion is very rich and old. Meitei possess plenty
of literatures of all subjects written by its own scripts
known as 'Meitei-Mayek'. These literatures are called as
puyas (accepted and regarded by all). Their language is
known as 'Meitei-lon'. Meitei-lon is a lingua franca among
the different tribes in the state and it is not a dead language
like Sanskrit.
Moreover, Manipur was included in the eight
schedule of Indian constitution along with Nepali (Gorkha
Bhasa) and Konkani language. Manipuri language bill (78
amendment bill no.142 of 1992) was passed on Thursday 20th
August 1992, by the parliament (i.e Lok Sabha & Rajya
Sabha). Here, one point should be noted that Meiteilon (Meitei's
language) and Meitei Mayek (Meitei script) belongs to Tibeto
Burman languages whereas Manipuri (Mixed language of Meiteilon)
written by Bengali script belongd to Indo- Aryan languages.
So, Manipuri means the mixture of Meiteilon (Abnormal language
just like Sanskrit of Hindu) and other language like hindi
(hindi also derived form Sanskrit and Arabi language etc.
just like Manipuri). So, Meiteilon and Meitei Mayek (Language
of minority people of India) should be protected. Indeed,
Manipur is a developing state of India. There are many hopes
for Tourism industry in the state. But inner line permit
system (i.e. under foreign act 1946 and foreign protection
area order, 1958) give some hindrance to the foreign tourist.
Such hindrances are not found in some border areas of India
viz, Punjab, Jammu & Kashmir etc. Moreover, Arm Special
Power Act 1958 is prevailing in Manipur state. Thus, the
violation of human rights, misadministration, bad law and
order situations etc. are becoming a common feature of the
state. According to common saying " in the eyes of
God we are not same but in the eyes of law we are same".
So, dutiful people would like to fight for their rights
and evils of their society. Recently her ancient capital
i.e Imphal-Kangla was hand over to the people of Manipur
on Thursday, 13th August 1992 by the home minister, Govt
of India and the authority of Asaam Rifles, the former occupants
of Kangla. Here the second temple of Sri Govindaji was constructed
insides Kangla by the Nara singh (1844-50). Still was destroyed
by earthquake. But " Kangla-sa, "Kangla Sanathong",
" Utra Sanglen", wall etc. were destroyed by the
Britisher.
During the reign of King Pamheiba ( Garbaniwaz:(1709-48),
all of those old literature (puyas before Hinduism ) were
collected by his Gurus Santidash Gosai ( A Hindu priest
of Pamheiba ) and those puyas were burnt down to ashes at
Kangla ( capital of Kangleipak ). Moreover, he ( pamheiba
) forcely baptized his poor subjects into Hinduism and changed
the name of kangleipak ( land of kanglas or land of seven
city states ) as Manipur ( Land of pearls or Gems ). Afterwards,
they ( Pro hindu pandits or hindu Scholar ) wrote many fixed
puyas under the will of king Manipur. Those puyas were intercourse
by hindu literatures, ideas, philosophy, history culture
and religion. These intercourse were not only in literatures
but also in reshuffling the structure and anatomy of their
original scripts , and even changing the name of their land
and people.
Now-a-days, awakening movements are lunched
by some organizations of meetei to search out their half
lost identity, culture, history, literature, script, etc.
But on other hand, hill people are very slow in tyhis field.
Here some of the movement leaders of Sanamahism like Naoriya
Phullo of Apokpa Marup, Oja Bokul of Meetei-Marup etc. were
worth to mention.
Manipur has two distinct cultures with different
physical, demographic, social and economic characteristic.
The central valley is characterized by a high-density population,
a develop social set up, fertile soil, use better technique
of production and hence, a higher rate of economic activity.
Surrounding the valley are the hills sparsely populated
with economic and social backward tribals. The technique
of production are very primitive and hardly is there any
surplus which could be traded.
These dual characteristics are likely to continue
and solution for development should aim at improving the
socio-economic conditions of both these sector. In the light
of the forgoing statements, it will try to make an analytical
appraisal of the information available in respect of the
different physical condition, area and population, productivities,
levels of development, various social services and infrastructures.
It also taken into account, the aspirations and preferences
of the local people.
Here refer to a common saying of Meitei that
they don't a double death ( Nongmada Poka Machana Nini Siba
Hounade ). The urgent need of Manipur is self-reliance or
self help. Like other state of India, the Manipur state
also facing the unique un-employment problem in large scale,
both amongst the educated youths. But if we recall the past
history of manipur, we had never found such a acute problem.After
Hinduism and British rule.manipuris have lost there cultural
harmony and self-reliance. It also starts to affect on the
local artisan and make them complicacy. Not only this, identity
crisis like production, reproduction, Tradition and tradition
making are also greatly affected.
Thus, they were rightly called as "sleeping
iron" and forget the value of self-help or self-service
or self-reliance or dignity of labour. Moreover, every month
they have hindu festivals along with the customary feasts
and they enjoy without any consent.
Slowly and steadily, they became a consumer
society under such hardships and our modern free market
competitions and monopolistic exploitation etc. Thus, they
were reduced to below poverty line. All of their ancient
production units were decay and turn to a nice market place
of monopolist.
One of the most crying is that the " Diginity
of labour" (exist during the reign of King Loyumba
and his division of labour system i.e Loyumaba Sinyel) of
the ancient traditional society had fled away and new society
approaches. Thus, the distortion of the occupational structure
from the older system to new system makes a severe loss
of the meitei society and deems to need a cultural reorganization
for their selve reliance. Like, other states of India, this
backward state of Manipur needs to increase its own productions
both in agriculture and industrial sectors.
For doing this, we should make apart from those
devils of our present society and should cut down unnecessary
expenses on luxury goods and customary feasts for the time
being and should rebuild a healthy and a melodious classless
society for achieving and brightening our old long traditional
society where dignity of labour is counted and highly honored.
Our ancient traditional art and culture should be improved
systematically to adjust our modern scientific society.
We also need to use the local products. Here one of the
most extension techniques to be done is that the encouragement
of viable agro-based small units runs by individual enterprises.
Here, trained and dedicated services are always necessary.
Later on, such small unit will acts as a secondary unit
to the larger one own by public or cooperative sectors.
Obviously, for achieving these goals and perspectives,
we needs co-operative from our Govt. and from other conscious
voluntary socio-cultural organizations. Thus we can stand
nicely on our own legs.
