A word before I go on further: Other than the movie culture, I will be even more delighted if I succeed in giving you new insights into the society, culture, politics and economy of Manipur. This is hoped to be achieved by juxtaposing the Manipuri cinema against the larger mainstream media. The mainstream media are either ignorant of the North-East of India or they choose to ignore/ downplay news and views emanating from it for reasons best known to themselves.

As much as most will consider this a clichéd refrain of the Manipuris and for that matter people of the North-East in general, the harsh truth is: the impression in the North-East is that a pothole in a Delhi road merits much more extensive coverage by the Delhi-centric media than the parliamentary elections in the regions do.

Media bias

At rare times when the region grabs the attention of the news editors, it is inevitably the news of bomb blasts, ethnic clashes and counter-insurgency operations that get disproportionately played up. There is an unspoken rule- of- thumb that gatekeepers of the Indian media follow when selecting news from the NE.

The first one is, if the news is not about violence, then throw it to the dustbin. The second rule is, if the copy is not laced with bloodshed, it should tell exotic facts (mostly narratives remotely related to reality) about the bewildered region and its people.

It's not uncommon to find features on the North-East in the Indian media that reek of condescension and stupidity (most of the times) on the part of the writer. Features with headlines like "Nagas eat dogs", "Is casual sex a way of life in Mizoram?" and myriad such tasteless fictions of mind of lazy reporters find their way in print.

What's worse, editors seem to prefer these drivels over the more pressing issues of the region like insurgency, underdevelopment, corruption, education and many others. And this in turn creates a further incentive for the dumbos to write more of the same, because they sell.

Media like any industry is a commercial entity that is hypersensitive to the market. Feel pity for those people who still believe that journalism has a mission and responsibility towards society.

Then imagine the frustration that people of Manipur might face when they seek to let out their genuine concerns and voices in the media. Sharmila Irom had to be on fast for six years to demand the scrapping of the draconian Armed Forces Special Powers Act before the media felt its conscience pricked.

Her supporters say, and with much truth, that Medha Patkar or a Arundhati Roy or for that matter Mamata Bannerjee or Narendra Modi would have taken just two hours at the Jantar Mantar to create a media storm more effective than six years of Irom's agony for justice could ever achieve.

And you thought Indian media was skin blind. People of the North-East are not black, but they are Blacks of India. So don't be surprised when some brave Manipuri women had to take the desperate step of baring themselves in full glare of the cameras to attract the mercy of the Indian media. They knew that the only means of getting coverage is by playing to the gallery of stereotypes held by the Indian media.

The utter lack of knowledge about the region might also have fuelled the secessionist movement in the region and feelings of alienation. There is also some truth in the criticism that Indian education selectively promotes the ideologies, history and moorings of the dominant groups while failing to educate the masses about its other citizens living in the moffusil areas.

So what do you do?

Here comes cinema

Cinema is a powerful tool that marginalized people can employ to counter the mainstream historical narrative and reorient the incumbent political, socio-economic and cultural order and discourse.

Ubiquitous cinema poster in Imphal city