Opinion: Meiteis must speak up against the Manipur violence – as writer MK Binodini would have done

Manipur was a kingdom before it joined the Indian Union in 1949. The royal family had a long history, which I learnt of, and the culture of the Meiteis, from Maharaj Kumari Binodini.

It was Binodini, the daughter of the Manipur Kingdom’s king, Sir Maharaj Churachand Singh, who told me of the pre-Hindu Sanamahi religion and even took me to a famous Maibi, a woman priestess, to ask her how long my legal case would last. I had been fighting a case on behalf of Naga villagers who had suffered unspeakable crimes during a counter-insurgency operation in 1988.

I met Binodini at a meeting and when she heard of my surname she was surprised and asked me to visit her in her home.

She told me that a tall man called Haksar used to visit her husband. He was working in Churachandpur, among the Kukis and would come for medicines. I made enquiries about this mysterious ancestor of mine who had been in Manipur. All I discovered was that he had settled in the hills and never returned.

The last time I met Binodini she was in bed. She insisted I hear the story she wrote about this Haksar and she got her son to translate it...

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