One Event, Two States

Abstract

This article examines the way in which an event is remembered by two opposing states. It concerns, partly, with the way in which ‘official’ monuments came up in public space, and partly, with the process of transformation of social memory with the change in political regime. It takes the case of an 1891 event in Manipur (the Anglo-Manipur War). It will be seen that the erection of a ‘national monument’ under the colonial regime involved a tedious process of selection, representation, censoring, disagreement, consensus and delay in the interest of Empire. While the Empire was valourised and justified for its intervention, the defeated ‘natives’ were condemned and silenced as ‘rebels’ and ‘murderers’. The ‘natives’ remain sick, servile and nostalgic for their memory until independence. With regime change, silence become open and soon dominated the air. The post-colonial Manipur state was in full mode of detoxifying the colonial discourse by condemning the interference and in declaring the ‘natives’ as ‘patriots’ and ‘freedom fighters’. Memorials and monuments were erected, state-wide commemorations were organised and people socialised around such shared memory of ‘resistance’ for the purpose of reconstructing a new society.