Saikhom Mirabai Chanu brought silver for India from Tokyo. She instantly became a national pride, ‘Desh ki beti’ and the country awoke (metaphorically and literally) to its ghost – Manipur. But why was there so much celebration in the country for her silver?
Affirmation of Mirabai’s Meetei identity as a way of resistance is lost in the India chorus. The state, the twice-born Hindu’s appropriation of Mirabai as ‘beti of India’ and Hindus uproots Mirabai from her very roots as a Meetei.
India has been pining for Olympic medals, preferably gold, or for that matter any medal, for a long time. Neeraj Chopra’s gold in Javelin somehow quenched the thirst but not quite. The Olympics is a global event where India wants to prove its masculine worth even if the other genders win laurels. The number of Olympic medals is abysmal and fails miserably in representing an emerging superpower like India. Both do not sit together very well. The number of medals is also an insult to the size of the population of the country. There is a vast gap between how Indians want India to be perceived and how it performs in the global event of sports.
When Mirabai won the silver on the opening day of the Tokyo Olympics, she was a harbinger of hope and a good omen. The nation’s exultation was short-lived as Mirabai stood as a challenge to a national celebration. She became a question right at the moment of national excitement, a question that the country prefers to evade, dodge or simply suppress – who is Mirabai? What is she? For the greater Indians, Mirabai is somebody whom they wish was one of them but not quite. She is everything they are not. She is the ghost of every Manorama, counted and uncounted, which haunts the national imagination. She is not an erasure of collective memories of Manipur or northeast, but a reminder of a much greater consequence.
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Reconciliation of two minds, between rejection and acceptance, was a tough choice for the Indians. But, they will. They will claim even the ghosts as their own if it benefits them.
Appropriation of Mirabai as reconciliation
After her win, the appropriation of Mirabai happened in many ways. The first kind praises her as Indian while erasing her Meetei/Manipuri identity. Sometimes, a token mention of Manipur was added to achieve a hyperbolic national celebration and not a just affirmation of her Meetei identity. This is evidently nation-state centric and they have done it quite understandably so. Secondly, there is an overt attempt at Hinduism. Easy picking on her name Mirabai, and completely overlooking the first and the last, Saikhom and Chanu respectively, is a classic case of appropriation of a minority community. She was caricatured as Mirabai of the Hindu Bhakti tradition and instantly twisting the tale of resistance of Meetei against Hinduism into devotion. She was also called a devotee of Hanuman after her photo with Hanuman in the background was circulated on social media. It was a conspicuous attempt to make Mirabai Hindu paint not just India Hindu but Meetei/Manipur as well. The history of the Meetei resistance, both social and bloody political fights, got glossed over, although the face of resistance has changed over the century. It has also come to light that she was not named consciously after the poet Mirabai but as a mark of respect and remembrance of her sister’s friend from school. The presence of a ‘Hindu’ Mirabai in her name should be inferred as Ambedkar would like to call an ‘incomplete in conversion’. This incompleteness is a result of Meetei resistance is hard to miss. It is only for the convenience of the assimilator that they have to overlook the Meetei part in her name.
For the greater Indians, Mirabai is somebody whom they wish was one of them but not quite. She is everything they are not. She is the ghost of every Manorama, counted and uncounted, which haunts the national imagination. She is not an erasure of collective memories of Manipur or northeast, but a reminder of a much greater consequence.
Third of its kind is quite unfortunate. But, it was not unexpected. The Dalit-Bahujan movement in India, for many years, has been expanding its reach across the length and breadth of India for a just cause and to amend historical injustice. In this movement, there have been many instances to paint the Northeast with caste. Some are due to ignorance and some because they want to do it. We have seen an outright arrogance in their attempt to interpret NE along the caste line. Very often, a question that I get asked a lot is how caste functions in Manipur since Meeteis are predominantly Hindus. Many Meeteis buy or give into a caste narrative giving away even the very vocabulary of resistance or politics in general. Such questions and responses have generated a caste discourse out of a non-existent experience. Is caste the overarching determiner of Meetei social and political experience? When the Dalit-Bahujan claims Mirabai as Bahujan, they have once again re-ignited the debate of caste. One Bahujan activist asserts his claim of the Meetei community as Bahujan on the simple ground that most of the Meetei are categorised as OBC. Does he know, or is it unacknowledged, that Meetei’s OBC status is not based on caste but status of income of the family? Most Meeteis are OBCs and some are scheduled caste (SC) because they became part of India in 1949, which is easily ignored. Bahujan movement’s attempt to call Mirabai a Bahujan sets a dangerous precedent as they are on a spree to call all non– Brahmins, non-Savarnas, Bahujan. They seem to be claiming that every indigenous population/communities of India including the Northeast are Bahujan.
Easy picking on her name Mirabai, and completely overlooking the first and the last, Saikhom and Chanu respectively, is a classic case of appropriation of a minority community. She was caricatured as Mirabai of the Hindu Bhakti tradition and instantly twisting the tale of resistance of Meetei against Hinduism into devotion
Consequence and resistance
We know the consequences of the Brahmin rule. What is worrying is the manner of expansionism of the Bahujan movement. The first two appropriations are dominant narratives. The Bahujan appropriation, on the other hand, forecloses the very resistance vocabulary of another community. It shuts the exit door from the oppression of the twice-born Hindus. The region is now left to resist the Indian ideology doubly – the oppression of the twice-born, and, the Bahujan movement. The latter may claim Bahujan is an inclusive idea, strive to stitch together a majority; but, still, it is an idea of caste-India. A consequence of this idea of India is felt, experienced and lived by Bahujans. Why should they at the same time overlook history of other communities, of other regions? Does the answer lie in the very frame they work with – the idea of caste-India?
The resistance of many supporters from the NE is too small in fighting the armies of the idea. Affirmation of Mirabai’s Meetei identity as a way of resistance is lost in the India chorus. The state, the twice-born Hindu’s appropriation of Mirabai as ‘beti of India’ and Hindus uproots Mirabai from her very roots as a Meetei. She became ‘my beti’ and a familial relation, implying a patriarchal caste relation is strongly woven around her.
Can Mirabai be owned without her history, without the memory of her growing up? When she is owned by the greater Indians, can the many Manoramas be forgotten? Such a selective claim of ownership of minority bodies is a politics of every dominant community. It is not amnesia, it is their politics. The only reconciliation that they hope to achieve is by appropriating Mirabai and forgetting Manorama. But, the question that remains is –Can India really call Mirabai its daughter?
The author is based in Imphal and has a PhD in Comparative Literature from University of Hyderabad.
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