History Binds Us, Can Break Us Too: Contention over Manipur’s Chivu Stone Inscription

ABSTRACT

Monuments with inscriptions have always been an important source of history and are helpful for reconstructing the past. They recreate collective memories, as they were erected to commemorate significant events from the past. The historical process of state formation, especially among the former colonies, has bound different ethnic communities, which obliges them to initiate state nation-building processes. So, memories which are recreated, remembered, and forgotten have played a crucial role in shaping ethnic relations as well as relations between the state and various ethnic communities in a multi-ethnic state. This paper analyses the allegation about the Manipur’s Chibu stone inscription as a fabricated historical event, and the complaint asking that its status as a protected archaeological site be denied. It argues that in the name of the state nation-building project, the state has resorted to recreating collective memories with little consideration to the sentiment of ethnic minorities in a state.

KEYWORDS:

• Monument
• collective memories
• state nation-building
• multi-ethnic state

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my gratitude to the anonymous reviewers for their many insightful comments and suggestions and also the editorial team for all the helps.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Naulak, ‘Why the Manipur Govt Should Rethink … ’

2. Mizo History Association’s Memorandum [No. MHA 2020/2] to the Archaeological Survey of India, 4 June 2020.

3. Zomi Chief Association’s ‘Press Statement’ on 26 April 2020.

4. ‘Nuthall’s Letter,’ 9.

5. Ngaihte wrote a piece titled ‘Power and Politics in Imphal’ in The Indian Express, 29 May 2020.

6. Kymlicka, ‘Politics in the Vernacular,’ 10.

7. Hasan and Roy, 2005.

8. Renan, ‘What is a Nation?’ 3.

9. Ibid., 10.

10. Zerbavel, Time Maps, 3.

11. Gellner, Nations and Nationalism.

12. Guite, ‘Monuments, Memory and Forgetting in Postcolonial Northeast India,’ 56.

13. Ibid., 57.

14. See note 8 above.

15. Hobsbawm and Ranger, Invention of Tradition.

16. Kammen, Mystic Chords of Memory, 3.

17. Anderson, Imagined Communities, 172.

18. Ibid.

19. Lentz, “Ghanaian ‘Monument Wars,’ 553.

20. Waller, Evil: Engaging Our Responsibility to Prevent Genocide, 322.

21. Khai, The Zo People and Their Culture, 143.

22. Joshi, Indian Archaeology, 120.

23. Woodthorpe, The Lushai Expedition, 36.

24. Nuthall’s Letter, 1.

25. Ibid.

26. Mackenzie, The North East Frontier of India, 164.

27. Ibid.

28. Singh, The Lost Kingdom, 188.

29. Ibid.

30. ‘Nuthall’s Letter,’ 4.

31. Ibid., 5.

32. See note 28 above.

33. Ibid., 189.

34. Pemberton, The Eastern Frontier of India, 21.

35. Mackenzie, The North East Frontier of India, 172.

36. Ibid., 171–172.

37. Carey and Tuck, 18–19.

38. Pemberton, The Chin Hills, 21.

39. Mackenzie, The North East Frontier of India, 184–185.

40. ‘Nuthall’s Letter,’ 2.

41. Bourchier’s Letter, 1 March 1872, quoted in ‘Nuthall’s Letter,’ 9.

42. See note 4 above..

43. Ibid.,10.

44. Nuthall’s Letter, 10; Mackenzie, The North East Frontier of India, 166.

45. Mackenzie, The North East Frontier of India, 154.

46. Kymlicka, ‘Politics in the Vernacular,’ 2.

47. See note 1 above.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

L. Lam Khan Piang

L. Piang is a Professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Hyderabad, Telangana, India. He was formerly with the Centre for the Study of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru, New Delhi, India.