FILM REVIEW

A Letter From A Father to A Daughter:

State Repression and Resistance in Manipur

In another time, a father wrote from the confines of the jail, letters to his daughter- letters giving glimpses of world history. The writer of those letters became India’s first Prime Minister and in his tenure – in the year 1958 – was introduced an Act called the Armed Forces Special Power Act.  The AFSPA was introduced first in Manipur and Assam. It was later amended in 1972 – during the tenure of the ‘daughter,’ who was by then the Prime Minister – and applied to the rest of the North-Eastern States. Armed Forces Special Power Act led to virtual army occupation of the areas it was imposed in, and it can be truly called the mother of all black laws in the country. It is an Act that has violated the fundamental rights of the people of the North Eastern States for the last 46 years in the name of countering insurgency, including the Right to Life.

While people in the country are taught the history of the celebrated father – Nehru and daughter – Indira, the struggles of thousands of other people (including the people of the North Eastern States) and their resistance and contribution to the struggle against British colonial occupation is uncelebrated, undiscussed and unrecorded.  Thus, even the historic resistance of Tikendrajeet against the British, the women’s rebellion against the colonial occupation in the first Nupi-Lal of 1904, or the second Nupi-Lal of 1939 are unheard of even in the listing of anti- colonial struggles handed over to children in other parts of the country. In  1904, the women resisted and ensured the withdrawal of the forced labour (Lalup Kaba) imposed by the British and in 1939 the women rose against the economic and administrative policies of the Manipuri Maharaja, who was operating under the supervision of the British rulers. The movement later led to constitutional and administrative reforms within Manipur.

This silencing of the past has continued with a silencing of the present. Representation of the North East in the Indian media, with the active encouragement of the State, has remained either as an exotic fantasy or as a “security” nightmare. Either as people dancing in colourful clothes, in ‘mera bharat mahan’ ads of Rajiv Gandhi days, or as an army triumph, with pictures of the likes of Indo-US anti-insurgency operations in a Mizo village in early 2004. The lives of the people, their aspirations for democracy, their suffering under the Army tyranny have all the while been dismissed with sepulchral silence.

In 1987, the stories of horror came spilling out, though briefly, with the gruesome Operation Blue Bird in 30 villages in and around Oinam, Nagaland. Resistance continued but so did the silence of the media and the national press till 2004 when angered by the daily torture, humiliation and violation- old, middle aged mothers of Manipur, shed their modesty and clothes and dared the Indian Army to rape and take their flesh. Raped and mauled as their society was by torture at the hands of the Army, the mothers (an indomitable force leading social and political movements) knew they had already lost everything and decided to challenge the army outside the Kangla Fort – which till recently was the headquarters of the Assam Rifles. Swooping down on a sensational story, the national press broke its silence and showed the anguish of the people. However the agony of a violated society was never completely shown and it is this silenced suffering that is captured in the film A Letter to my Daughter by Soumitra Dastidar.

The film is a visual letter, documenting the resilience of the Manipuri people against the horrors of Army occupation through the AFSPA. It is made as an observation by an outsider to Manipuri society, witnessing and trying to make sense of the sequence of events following Manorama’s killing that had provoked the unsettling protest of the disrobed mothers in July 2004.  Included in the film, are bone-chilling footages of daily torture faced by ordinary people and their inspiring determination for democracy. The film manages to take people through the Manipuri society, its brief history, the famous all women’s market, the central role that women play in the society. It also has crucial evidences of violation by the Army and the resisting mass protest (which is being dismissed of as terrorist). Key statements by witnesses counter the lies that the Army has been trying to spread in the Manorama case and in the self-immolation of the student activist Chittranjan.

The film is thus a brief account of events to those living outside the Army shadow and to those, who have been fed only on mainstream State-sanitised stories of ‘fantasy’ and ‘nightmare’, about the struggle for dignity and democracy of the Manipuri people in the face of state violence. It is a film that manages to break the silence associated with state terror and calls for a response in solidarity to the people’s call for a complete lifting of the AFSPA.