In 2005, I was shooting in Manipur, focusing on the unrest in the region, the impact of conflict on the lives of people, especially women, and the extraordinary protests by Manipuri women against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act 1958. This led to a documentary called “Tales from the Margins” and, from the same pool of footage, a brief piece on Irom Sharmila’s fast-to-death called “My Body My Weapon”, as also some material for telecast outside India.

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It was a surprisingly cool October evening in 2004. An open air screening was on at JNU in Delhi. Some student activists had put together short clips of recent disturbances in Manipur.

Trouble had broken out in Manipur in July 2004 with the custodial killing of a young woman named Thangjam Manorama. 12 women had stripped in public and protested outside the headquarters of the paramilitary in Imphal, daring the men in uniform to rape them. The “naked protest”, as it would come to be dubbed, had made sensational news and was promptly forgotten. It was October now, and Manipur lay beyond the radar of the average mainland Indian.

As the footage began to unfold on the makeshift screen, a silence gripped the grounds. Many thousands of people – men, women, children – marching through the streets of Imphal. Doctors, lawyers, students, children, all shouting in one voice – Go Back Indian Army… Repeal the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. And then, the stock response of the government to such protests. Protestors being tear-gassed, bundled into jeeps and dropped miles from anywhere. Students on “dharna” outside the governor’s residence, being brutally kicked, punched and caned by armed personnel, and then dragged away. Young men, rounded up for shooting catapults at the security forces, made to cane each other beyond endurance, and then roll on the road. Others forced face down, bullets fired into the ground near their heads. And yet, an unquenchable fury, an unstoppable outpouring of people on the streets of Imphal. Roadblocks, sit-ins, general strikes… Manipur seething… 5 boys barely out of their teens set themselves afire that July. Another young man burnt himself to death on 15th August that year.

I had travelled to Manipur more than once before this, for an earlier film. I had spent time there, had long conversations with many people. I knew of how violence erupted routinely, anywhere, unannounced. The tired headlines that daily spelt out yet another killing – by the armed forces or by insurgents. I had seen the towns shut down by dusk, as if under unimposed curfew; had sensed the weight of the fear that settled within people’s hearts. I also knew about the Armed Forces Special Powers Act of 1958 – a particularly undemocratic law that allows anyone in the security forces to shoot, arrest, even kill, on suspicion alone.

And yet, even I – who thought I knew a fair bit about Manipur – found the footage shocking. For people who live in less troubled parts of India, it is hard to imagine the extent of turbulence in Manipur – unless they witness it in images.

See footage of these protests:

[flashvideo filename=http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=eEMU91B1Ftg /]

So why wasn’t any of this on the national news? That was the first question people were asking that evening. The footage was there. We had just seen a 20 minute glimpse of it. More existed, the activists told me. (In fact, hours of such footage had been broadcast locally in Manipur.) Why were people across India not getting to see it on the news daily? Surely 3 months of continuous protests merited some air-time on our 24 X 7 networks, even if sandwiched between the birthdays of our film-stars and the latest murder? But there had been way too little about Manipur on television in the months gone by. So little that even calling it ‘tokenism’ would grant it respectability.

It was in these moments that “Tales from the Margins” began to take shape. For my own sake, I felt a very strong need to go to Manipur again, to speak to people there, to listen, to share some time together. And also maybe to shoot this, because I knew that there were others like me who might also want to see and hear what the Manipuri people had to say.

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As the idea of making the film grew, so did my doubts.

Having conversations with people is one thing, filming requires quite another set of impulses. Even at the best of times, I can be quite reticent about pointing a camera at someone and pressing the record button. Then how to shoot people who had experienced such tragedy and loss?

There was the family of Sanamacha, a student of 15, taken away in the dead of the night, mistaken for an insurgent of the same name. As it became clear that he would never return, grief destroyed his old parents. Thangjam Manorama was picked up another night on suspicion of being an insurgent; her bullet ridden body was found the next morning. Her mother could not even speak, so recent was her memory of loss. Here were families who had lived through enormous pain. Any attempt to speak of their suffering could run into the real danger of presenting them solely as “victims”…

The narrative of “victimhood” is a staple of Indian television, and I find it irksome at the best of times. In presenting people, especially women, in only one dimension – that of the “victim” – it ignores the complexities of their tragedy, loss and courage. It disregards their enormous resilience – invariably, these are people who pick up the pieces of their lives and carry on, look after their families, earn a living, fight for justice…

Besides, there were others in Manipur, those who took their pain and anger and forged out of it very powerful protests and resistances. The 12 Imas¹, women activists who – provoked by the repeated assaults on the women of Manipur – disrobed in public, so great was their rage and frustration. Irom Sharmila’s mother, Sakhi Devi, who had not spoken to, nor met her daughter for years, for fear that the mother’s tears might shake the daughter’s resolve. And foremost, Sharmila herself, a young woman on an epic fast, demanding that the AFSPA be removed. Since November 2000, she has neither eaten nor let a drop of water touch her lips. Unjustly imprisoned and forcibly nose-fed, isolated and secluded by the government, she refuses to give up, and is still in custody for this “crime”.

How would we (the team and I) record the images that were in some way close to the lives of the people, especially women?

Watch the short film on Irom Sharmila:

[flashvideo filename=http://www.whydemocracy.net/video/my_body_my_weapon_200.flv /]

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For the decision to focus mainly on women’s protests was made sooner than other decisions.

Manipur is one of these few places in the country where women flock to marches, rallies and sit-ins in huge numbers. While both men and women share a role in such protests, it is women who were at the vanguard of much of what happened in 2004. It was a woman’s killing that provoked 12 elderly women to a historic demonstration. It is a woman who has been fasting for 8 years now against the AFSPA.

At another level – conflict does hit women the hardest, and the film seeks to acknowledge that.

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“Tales from the Margins” took shape as a short documentary (23 minutes) that centres on a handful of incidents – the custodial disappearance of Sanamacha, the hunger fast by Sharmila, her mother’s iron resolve, the custodial killing of Manorama, and the enraged protests by the twelve Meira Paibis² who disrobed.

At the same time, it seeks to convey the understanding that these incidents are representative of many that have come before or after.

1987, Oinam: an Assam Rifles armoury was looted and 9 personnel were killed by insurgents. In the infamous rampage that followed, 30 villages were cordoned off for 3 whole months by Assam Rifles, with villagers made to line up day after day outside their homes; and 14 civilians were shot dead.

1995, Imphal: CRPF personnel were attacked by insurgents at a public toilet located in the Regional Medical College. The CRPF retaliated by killing 9 civilian bystanders, including a bona fide medical student – after the insurgents had fled.

2000, Malom: an Assam Rifles convoy that was bombed by insurgents, killed 10 civilians waiting at a bus stop nearby, including a 65 year old woman and a teenager who had won the President’s bravery award. A brutal combing operation followed in the area.

It is an endless list of incidents that numbs the senses. For under the shelter of the AFSPA, men and women have been beaten and brutalised, women have been sexually assaulted, homes have been destroyed, men have disappeared in custody, and people old and young have been killed in what are often acts of retaliatory violence targeting civilians. The state government’s own enquiry committee reports bear these allegations out in most cases – at least when the reports are allowed to be made public.

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When we went for the shooting in 2005, many months had passed since the protests, which had died down as people slowly lost hope of justice. There was a simmering rage, and a furious sense of frustration. Coupled with this was the issue of trust. When a people have lived with conflict for so many years, being suspicious often becomes a part of their survival mechanism; and understandably so.

In this situation, the attitude with which we approached the shooting became critical. I had a personal need to share, converse, engage – above and beyond the immediate needs of the shooting. With time and sustained effort, people slowly opened up to us. We were rewarded with a greater intimacy that reflects in our footage, and with relationships that we have sustained to date.

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In the screenings that have followed, one set of questions crop up repeatedly. Does this really happen in India, ask those who have been cocooned into believing in the myth of the benign welfare state. Others ask – how were we allowed to shoot this? After all, the film has substantial footage of the security forces and an interview with Irom Sharmila while she was in custody.

Ironically, it is the politics of marginalisation that makes this possible.

I was once told by a filmmaker working in Kashmir that the armed forces there don’t let you film them all that easily. In Manipur, it was a different story altogether – we never had much trouble filming the security forces. Nor (by and large) did the various Manipuri camerapersons shooting the protests of 2004. Footage of the youth of a village being beaten, made to cane each other, forced to roll on the road – and of many similar incidents – was not only shot for, but also broadcast on Manipuri cable networks. Clearly, no one in the security forces was worried about being held to account for their actions. Where does this feeling of impunity come from, if not from the Armed Forces Special Powers Act? But at the same time, does it also not stem from the marginalisation of Manipur in the mainstream national consciousness and in the media?

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Since its making, “Tales from the Margins” has travelled across India and outside the country, with scores of screenings. Numerous DVDs of it are also in circulation. “My Body My Weapon” which is available online, has had over 5000 views in the last 8 months alone. And yet (as is often the case with Indian documentaries) I know that these films have reached only a handful of their potential viewers.

Even as documentary filmmakers, including myself, insist that screenings are not a question of “grabbing eyeballs” or a numbers game, but rather a process of engagement with audiences, I sometimes wonder if this is entirely the case… Would not a larger culture of documentary viewing, better distribution, and more avenues to access the films go a long way towards building a critical mass of opinion on the situation in Manipur? Were the mainstream media to take interest and follow the situation relentlessly, will it not help bring the change? For when such issues no longer remain confined to the attention of concerned citizens, and instead come to occupy the spaces where popular opinions are made, only then are governments forced out of their apathy and indifference.

Glossary:

To read an interview of Irom Sharmila, download a PDF research kit on the AFSPA and Irom Sharmila’s fast-to-death, read the bare act of the Armed Forces Special Powers 1958 and watch videos on Manipur, go to http://kavitajoshi.blogspot.com