Luingamla Muinao (1968-86)
The three faced memorial column of Miss Luingamla stands very close to her house at the Ngainga village in Ukhrul District. She was killed on January 24, 1986 inside her home by the Indian paramilitary personnel who carrying out routine combing operation on the eve of the Indian Republic Day. It is being said that she was killed because she raised alarm while there was an attempt to rape her. People resented the killing and boycotted the Republic Day. From that year onwards, the date of the annual foundation day of the Ngainga Shanao Long was rescheduled on 26 January.
Therefore, the Indian Republic Day in Ngainga Village since 1987 had been marked by the observance of the raising day of the women organisation, thereby, embodying some form of remembrance of pain and protest and commemoration of the death of Luingamla. But it was only after twenty five years that the memorial column was erected and unveiled on 23 October 2011 (Figure 8). The epitaph on the front face of the column reads: Sacred Memorial: Weep no more mummy let the world know I have sacrificed my life in preserving a woman’s chastity and dignity blessed by God the Creator. Lt. Miss Luingamla Muinao (Maza).
The other two on the remaining two faces read:
On 24th Jan, 1986, late Miss Luingamla was weaving all alone. Capt. Mandhir Singh, the then Phungyar Commander of Ngainga, accompanied by lieut Sanjiv Dubey, Mahar Regt. Post commander of Ngainga, attempted to molest and rape her maiden chastity. As she resisted with all her might and valour capt. Mandhir Singh pulled out his pistol and shot her dead in cold blood.’
Our beloved Miss Luingamla Muinao (Maza) we are really proud of your intrepid chastity, your indelible morality, your bold sacrifice be cherished in the Generation to come. Donated by: Ngainga Shanou Long.
In response to the widespread agitation against the killing, an army court martial was conducted in 1988. Captain Mandhir Singh was given life imprisonment and Lt. Sanjiv Dubey was convicted. In the course of time, one Zamthingla Ruivah a woman neighbour of Luingamla, in memory of Luingamla designed a woollen cloth for women known as Luingamla Kashan. (Figure 9) It is being said that the Kashan has been worn by the Tangkhul women to remember Luingamla and as a symbol of resistance on some important occasions. It is being interpreted that Luingamla Kashan was an ‘elegy for a friend in the form of a luminous red shawl. The patterns were conceived and re-worked over four years to tell of an event of brutality, the joyful spirit of the young girl, and the path to justice. The shawl’s designs appear geometric. Yet, it has a narrative of heroic proportions as in a classical History Painting, as well as a modernist condensation of the grand narrative into insect metaphors. What is justice when it is represented by a butterfly’s wings? The shawl enters living culture, and its story is passed down through community memory and song. Zamthingla’s work offers a pathway to something new: whether in the future of abstraction, semiotics, overturning and reinventing the implications of collaboration, or the possibilities of political art.’ The painful memory continues to survive in Ngainga.
Source: fb
