Thanks a million, to Sohini Prasad Sen Trust for inviting Samik Bandopadhyay as a presenter of a brief survey of Manipuri theatre. The entire lecture will be published as a festschrift for Manipuri dramatists by the trust and hence it is polite not to steal the thunder from Samikbabu. Hence, we will discuss the many interpretations that one could gather from his presentation.

Manipuri seems to be a high culture of sounds. Contrary to the Sino Buddhist cultural sounds which are dense, low key and hollow, the Manipuri sounds are fluid, elegant, effortless and even high pitched where notes flow into one another in sinewy grace. The reason for mentioning the Sino Buddhist culture is because Manipuri language belongs to this family, namely the Tibeto Burman. Geographically, Manipur also belongs to the Northeast, a continuation from the global Sino-Tibetan culture, and yet presents a sharp contrast to its surrounding territory. Manipur is Vaishnav while the rest of the zone is Buddhist.

One song can be sung in many ways, each tune rendering a different meaning to the lyrics, which shows the power of the Manipuri folk language. Most of the drama is created through sounds, contrasts and complements are used to produce peaks and troughs in the narratives. It is evident that the power of Manipuri drama lies in its power the bond between language and music, where both intermingle indiscernibly. Language carries music and music carries language. Manipur has produced Bollywood’s essential composers, namely Sachin and Rahul Dev Burman, and before them Raichand Boral. They were not mere musicians but were instrumental in shaping the form of the popular cinema where the song has been central to the drama and narrative, not merely as an accessory but as the core of the story because of the interchangeability of language and music which makes the song transcend language. This is the Manipuri lyrics and music.

Manipur converted to Vaishnavism in 1470 through the efforts of the Vaishnav saints from Sylhet. The Meitis, the dominant tribe, subjugated all other tribes in the land and Vaishanavism and its culture constituted its new culture of reinforcing the political domination. As long as the Meiti domination lasted, Manipur’s cultural lustre shone brightly.

The centrality of its belief is the Ras Leela, the song and dance of Radha and Krishna’s lovemaking. This must be one of the earliest inventions of Radha since her appearance as Krishna’s lover in Chandidas’s SriKrishnaKirtan almost a century ago. Somehow, Manipuri culture had the power to render into performative visuals the innate spirit of Vaishavism, as envisaged in an emergent Bengal. This is why, Manipur is the home of classical Bengali culture, the source of inspiration behind Tagore’s dance drama. Indeed, most of Bengali aesthetics draws from the Manipuri culture rather than the other way round. Manipuri language gravitated towards the Bengali script, a further Bengalization or Vaishnavisation of its culture. Manipur used the Bengali culture, not as subjugation because politically or socially there does not seem to be domination of Manipur by Bengal; Manipur used the dynamism of the new found Vaishnavism, adopted Bengali to access the many texts of the cult and then lionized Bengal’s product by its own culture to emerge as a source of Bengali culture subsequently. This is an ideal case for cultural adoption, where you embrace without domination and return with greater generosity of your own genius.

However, Manipur was subjugated too under the British, though it retained its status as a princely state. Interestingly, it could not rise like Tripura or Travancore, or Baroda and Mysore into a full-fledged flowering of its culture cross pollinated by western Renascent universalism. It tried to enlist the Greek tragedy in its drama and tried to defy the Rome like British empire. Manipur started to get isolated. Post Independence, this isolation did not carry it too far and especially the racial discrimination against the Northeast by North Indians humiliated the Manipuri artists. The cultural leaders of the state who incidentally were also the Meiti tribe were perceived as hangovers of the colonial past. The contending clans led by the Kukis attacked the Meiti, who now lost much of their hegemony under the Indian nation state run on a democracy based on universal adult franchise. The Meities were rendered further powerless by the rejection of their culture by New Delhi where racial discrimination against and humiliation of northeastern and of other tribal cultures is beyond doubt.

In the rule of democracies, especially in post-colonial polities, the entrenched elites are fought off by contenders of power in the name of resistance against hegemony. The heartrending violence of Manipur is a series of manifestations of contestations against the Meiti domination and hence against the Vaishnav culture, the replacement of the Bengali script with the Manipuri script and a distinct change in language and music are part of the political process of which the Hindutva right wing, lower caste assertions, OBC politics are similar manifestations.