On the concept of Meitei patriotism : A perspective

Dr Mangsatabam Jitendra Singh
Contd from previous issue
From all these beliefs and from all these usages, it clearly follows that the religion of fire of the hearth and of ancestors taught the Meitei to appropriate the soil and assured them their right to the soil. The right of property having been established from the accomplishment of hereditary worship; it was not possible that this right should fail after the short life of an individual. The man dies, the worship remains; the fire must not be extinguished, nor the tomb abandoned. So long as the traditional religion continued, the right of property had to continue with it. This rule disappeared in the democratic age of the country.
The appropriation of land for public utility was uncommon among the Meiteis of the olden days. Confiscation was resorted to only in case of condemnation to exile – that is to say, when a man could no longer exercise any right over the soil. Nor was taking of property for debt known in the early history of Manipur. The body of the debtor may be held and his son/daughter may be sold for the debt, not his land, for the land is inseparable from the family. Then the debtor, having become almost a slave, still retains something for himself; his land is not taken from him.  
It is therefore a rule without exception that a property could be acquired without the family worship or the worship without the property.
This little motherland of the Meiteis was the family enclosures with its burial places and hearths. The word ‘motherland’, eemaleipak, was no abstraction as they are among the moderns; they really represented a group of divinities with daily worship and beliefs that had a powerful influence over the soul.
This explains the patriotism of the Meiteis – an energetic sentiment, which, for them, was the supreme virtue to which all other virtues tended. Whatever a Meitei held most dear was associated with the idea of the country, his motherland, where the dead ancestors were buried. In it he found his ancestors, his property, his faith, etc. Losing their land meant the Meitei lost everything.It is their country that preserves them. Everywhere else, except his country, the Meitei no longer found for himself either a religion or a social tie of any kind.
Everywhere else he was without God and shut out from all moral life. There, in his country, he enjoyed his dignity as a Meitei, as it is evident from the Meitei word loi-thaaba,meaning exile. In Kangleipak/Manipur, the land of the Meiteis, the ordinary punishment of crimes was exile.Exile was really the interdiction of worship. To exile a man was to cut him off from fire and ancestor worship.
We can easily understand that, for the Meiteis of the earlier epoch, gods or ancestors were not everywhere. The exile, on leaving his country or motherland behind him, also left his gods/ancestors. He no longer found a religion that could console and protect him. All that could satisfy the needs of his soul was far away. The exile, therefore, lost all these in losing his religion and country. Excluded from the worships of the country, he saw at the same time his hearth and fire worship taken from him, and was forced to extinguish his hearth-fire.
Having no longer a worship, he had no longer a family and property. He ceased to be a husband and a father. His sons were no longer in his power. His wife no longer his wife. When he dies, he has not the right to be buried in the tomb or burial place of his family, for he is an alien. Exile or loi-thaaba, in our opinion, did not seem to be a milder punishment than death.
Eemaleipak, therefore, held the Meiteis of the early ages to it by a sacred tie. They loved it as they loved their religion, obeyed it as they obeyed a god. They gave themself to it entirely. In short, they loved their country, whether it was glorious or obscure, prosperous or unfortunate. To love the country is to be willing to sacrifice one’s own good – including one’s life– for the protection of common liberty.
We know from the above description that the country Kangleipak or Manipur was founded upon an ancient religion and constituted like a temple. In a society established on such religious principles, individual liberty could not exist. Every Meitei was subordinate in everything and without any reserve to the country; he belonged to it body and soul. There was nothing independent in him; he was devoted to the defence of his country. The Meiteis like the Greeks, Romans and Spartans had a heritage of physical activities.
Their physical training was for military purposes. Before the time of professional troops, it was the duty of every male between the ages of 17 (seventeen) and 60 (sixty) to place his services at the disposal of the state or country for 10 (ten) days in every 40 (forty) as a man of war, lan-mi. At Rome military service was due till a man was 50 (fifty) years old, at Athens till he was 60 (sixty), at Sparta always. In Manipur, physical activity was considered essential in order to be in good physical shape and ready to serve the country at a moment’s notice.
An interesting fact in the physical culture of the Meiteis is the institutionalization of physical and military training of the Meitei youths as embodied in the political-cultural complex of lallup. Primarily, the lallup was a military organization. The Meiteis were historically a warrior nation. Fighting for honour and justice was in their blood. It reminds us of the quality of the Spartans.
There is, in the history of Sparta, one trait, which a Greek moralist and biographer (46A.D. – 120 A.D.) greatly admired. Sparta had just suffered a defeat at Leuctra, and many of its citizens had perished. On the receipt of this news, the relatives of the dead had to show themselves in public with gay countenances. The mother who learned that her son had escaped, and that she would see him again, appeared afflicted and wept. Another, who knew that she would never see her son, appeared joyous, and went round to the temple to thank the gods.
As an example, it may not be wrong to say that it was the military ideology derived from the enculturation of physical culture that acted as an active force gearing up the Meiteis to campaign successful wars against the then neighbouring nations, particularly the formidable Burmese.
It is said that old door of the eastern entrance to the Kaungmudaw pagoda, which had four doors, bore the marks made by Garib Niwaz (in the first half of the eighteenth century), with his sword, as a symbol of conquering Sagaing upto the time of World War II. As evident from the Meitei text Chainarol, fighting for honour and justice was in their (Meitei) blood.
In conclusion, although we are unable to say anything with concrete historical evidence, I would like to say one thing that the Meiteis were morally and physically courageous people in the face of danger of losing their country because of their hearths and burial places, the tomb.
Therefore, the piety of the Meiteis in the olden days was love of the land of their mothers. There is, in addition, a further point to make that patriotism and nationalism are often taken to be synonymous, yet the patriotism of the Meiteis had its origins, in our opinion, some 2000 years prior to the use of nationalism in the nineteenth century.

The writer is Retired Professor of History, Manipur University, Canchipur, Imphal