THE VERTICAL The Artisan Labor Crisis of Ladakh 3 May 2024 Vol. 2 REPORTAGE AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR As Sino-Indian tensions rise in the new Indian Union territory of Ladakh at the Line of Actual Control, Ladakhi craftswomen like Sonam Dolma are returning to Kashmir to sell their authentic pashmina shawls. In the upscale neighborhood of Rajbagh in Srinagar, Sonam Dolma awaits a high-stakes meeting at an eatery amidst Kashmiri portraits and vintage décor. Her Ladakhi tribe’s prized Pashmina shawls made of fine Kashmiri cashmere are sought after by Kashmir’s elite who eschew mass-produced replicas for craftsmanship. In the quiet corner of the café, away from the bustling streets, Dolma prepares to showcase her wares to discerning clients—wives of bureaucrats and businessmen—who value quality and authenticity above all else. Just miles away from this serene scene lies a neighborhood scarred by floods, where Dolma’s tribe finds refuge after their daily trade expeditions. Despite this contrast, these Ladakhi women navigate Kashmir’s high society with grace, armed with exquisite products and a commitment to purity in a world of imitations. The group’s trade trips to Kashmir have become recurrent ever since Chinese troops showed up at their homeland’s hinterland in May 2020. Oblivious to the standoff at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) where Beijing has grown its military presence, the women are making their rounds of the posh localities of Srinagar with shawls in hand. This internal drive for living has come just five years after New Delhi stripped the semi-autonomous status of Jammu and Kashmir. ​​Their homeland is a new spark plug in South Asia; they live in a constant state of fear. In fact, the rise of the new front—LAC—has already proven deadly. In a military standoff, Sino-India troops have suffered casualties . But beyond these border games, Beijing has forced new orders and routines compelling the Ladakhi craftswomen to return to estranged Kashmir. These young women frequent the fraught region of the valley for sustenance. Prior to their recent visits as mobile merchants, they would mostly feel at home in Kashmir. But everything changed when New Delhi sliced Ladakh from Kashmir in a cartographic attempt to redefine the contested land in the summer of 2019. Carving a union territory out of the United Nations’ registered disputed region eventually proved costly for the government of India. It provoked China—now the ominous third party of what New Delhi calls a “bilateral issue” between India and Pakistan. However, beyond Beijing’s belligerence, the decision to make Ladakh a federal entity has far-reaching consequences for the cashmere brand and its craftspeople. With China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) occupying the winter mainstay of the Pashmina goats in Ladakh, cashmere is losing its source of thread. Ladakh’s Changthang area—the land of nomads located in the east of Leh on the Chinese border—has long been a breeding ground for the Pashmina goats. The severe temperature of the area, the experts say, makes the Pashmina thread of Changthang very thin, which in turn makes these goats the source of the finest cashmere in the world. The Chinese incursions have now made it a literal no-go zone for the nomads rearing these goats. Although China is showing no signs of retreat, the military occupation has created an existential crisis for the native animal and has raised serious concerns around the globe. The nomads are reporting increasing numbers of goat deaths. These deaths—due to the occupied winter habitat of Pashmina goats—have cast shadows on the global brand. In the main towns of Leh, the Pashmina dealers are linking the supply slump to the rise of China in Ladakh. Despite the dilemma, the cashmere craftspeople are banking on their old ties with the valley. In the larger din emanating from the LAC, their Kashmir move has become symbolic. While New Delhi has separated them from Kashmir in this territorial juggling, Beijing has reunited them . New anxieties are on the rise, however, as the processing of Pashmina may be shifted out of Kashmir to Uttar Pradesh by the Indian authorities, a move that may create an impact on the cashmere wool industry. Faced with diminishing income and mounting unpredictability, Dolma made the difficult decision to seek refuge in Kashmir. At noon when most of the citizenry works, she arrives to strike some profitable exchanges. Dolma on her way to a Srinagar neighbourhood where she sells her stuff to customers. Courtesy of Mir Seeneen. Dolma tells me how she was born into a family of weavers in a small village 260 miles from Ladakh’s capital, Leh. She learned the art of crafting Pashmina shawls from her grandmother, who in teaching her, passed down centuries-old techniques. Dolma reflects on the journey: “The foreign incursions into Ladakh forced me to confront the fragility of life, to adapt, and evolve.” But the looming specter and uncertainty brought by a massive troop build-up, cast a dark shadow over Dolma’s once-peaceful existence. “We spend months preparing the handicraft stuff before arriving in Srinagar for work," she says. For Dolma, these rendezvous in serene corners of the city held significance beyond mere transactions. She was not just selling shawls—she was preserving a legacy, a tradition that had been passed down through generations. In a market flooded with facsimiles, she was a purveyor of authenticity, valued for her discerning eye and commitment to quality. Away from Ladakh, Dolma considers Kashmir the second home for Ladakhi entrepreneurs like herself. This Himalayan region is their main economic link to the rest of the world, aside from being the preferable market for their indigenous products. During the post-Covid distressed times, they counted on Kashmir’s booming domestic tourism. “Kashmir has never disappointed us,” says Tenzin, another Pashmina seller from Ladakh. “But somewhere down the line, the region’s uncertainty reminds us of our home now. It was a peaceful land before they changed its status in the summer of 2019.” The demand for a separate entity—a union territory—was a longstanding political cry in Ladakh, mostly from the members of the ruling mainstream party. The campaign gained steam after the political party swept the regional polls. Experts feared that slicing Ladakh from Kashmir would alter the course of the disputed land. But in the run-up to August 2019, when campaigns against Article 370 became fierce, Ladakh witnessed a political wave culminating in its new territorial identity. Lately, the process in Kargil has intensified with shutdowns of demand for statehood ; even the famed climate activist Sonam Wangchuk went on a 21-day hunger strike . With the altered political reality, most of these women are now anxious about the war frenzy created by the armies in their homeland. They realize how the militarization was triggered by the summer shift—when New Delhi justified the abrogation of Article 370 as a move “to end discrimination” with Ladakh and its people. But the unilateral decision backfired when the Chinese army showed up at the LAC and clashed with Indian forces. Since then the skirmishes have stopped, but the boots remain on the ground . ​​While the border brouhaha has given Ladakh global coverage in recent times, these girls have become weary of the hyper-media attention. Like their Kashmiri counterparts, they don’t make peace with the pugnacious news debates focusing on their homeland. The mainland television media’s so-called war bulletins have only heightened tensions. What’s further creating a false sense of alarm is New Delhi’s dithering response to the LAC situation. The region has now become a new strategic zone forcing the right-wing government to build a fair-weather highway connecting Leh with Srinagar that opened this past winter. The snowbound thoroughfare used to be cut-off for six months. But now, the Indian government’s urge to keep an unflinching eye on the PLA has put men at work during extreme conditions, including the construction of a tunnel connecting Ladakh with Kashmir. Still, these young Ladakhi women see hope in Kashmir where their products are quite popular among the urban elites. However, if the status quo isn’t restored at the LAC anytime soon, these Pashmina girls of Ladakh fear losing cashmere to Chinese aggression. In the wake of this militarized uncertainty, some of the girls believe their visits to Kashmir, this estranged part of India, might alleviate their financial situation. “Life is tough back home,” continues Tenzin, while waiting for her client inside the cafeteria, and uncertainty has only escalated after the recent border tensions between India and China. Away from Ladakh, these girls share rent, rage, and respite in Srinagar before heading back home with seasonal earnings. “Most of us belong to poor families,” Tenzin continues with a thoughtful stance. “For us, our families come first. But it’s very hard to stay focused amid the changed reality now. Be it troop build-up or frontier tensions, the sense of normalcy has taken a big hit. Regardless of everything, Kashmir is the same to us as it used to be when the people of Ladakh were part of it,” she says. “Sadly, for some of us, a sense of estrangement has come to define this relationship now. And the change is there to see.” Padma Tsering, a quintessential Ladakhi woman in her early thirties from Nyoma, has been selling Pashmina in Kashmir for the past couple of years. “We’ve cultivated our customer base in Kashmir and rely on them for our livelihood,” she says. Despite their limited political awareness, Ladakhi girls like Tsering find hope in Kashmir. “There’s a sense of security Kashmir offers despite the surrounding tensions,” says Phuntsok Wangmo, another Pashmina seller from Ladakh. “It’s our preferred market with loyal customers, even during post-Covid times.” Dolma showcases her shawls in Srinagar during a business meeting with her client. Courtesy of Mir Seeneen. Meanwhile, Dolma’s wait ends as Sadaf Khan, a young Kashmiri woman, arrives at the café. Khan expresses interest in buying shawls from the weaver. “My cousin recommended Dolma to me and vouched for the quality of the shawls,” says Khan. The café comes alive with the buzz of business, some chatter, and laughter. After bidding farewell to her client, Dolma steps out into the busy thoroughfares of the city; walking home reflectively after another successful trade. ∎ SHARE Facebook Twitter LinkedIn ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Reportage Ladakh Srinagar Kashmir Sino-Indian Relations China India Geopolitics Indian Union Article 370 Line of Actual Control People’s Liberation Army Changthang Labor Craftsmanship Artisans Indigeneity Settler-Colonialism Displacement Statehood Military Operations Police Action Sonam Dolma Militarization Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. 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FICTION & POETRY Disappearing Act What if I told you I wanted to join PREPAK? Fight the occupation. Kill soldiers. Would you still love me? VOL. 1 2 Apr 2021 ONE-ACT PLAY AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Artwork contributed anonymously for SAAG. SHARE Facebook Twitter LinkedIn One-Act Play Manipur Indian Army Panggong Tree Effigy Queerness Love Story People's Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak PREPAK Painting Addiction Sex Playwriting Drama AFSPA Assam Rifles Northeast India Meitei Peoples Sanamahism UG Groups Insurgency Resistance Meira Paibi Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. DISPATCH One-Act Play Manipur Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Editor’s note: The author of this play as well as the accompanying artist elected to publish this work anonymously. In the words of the author: “It is a matter of great shame for a democracy that its writers have to submit their work anonymously.” This piece was workshopped and honed over a period of six months with SAAG editors Hananah Zaheer, Neilesh Bose, Nazish Chunara, Kamil Ahsan, Aditya Desai, along with the playwright, a dramaturge, and the artist. The world has folded. A tree in Manipur now hangs upside down above the bed in KUNJA’s room in a city in India. The tree is a Panggong Tree (Butea monosperma) used in Manipur to make effigies of the dead when the body is not found. A bed is the focus of the room. Scene 1 Projection on a wall: June 5th, 2015. Rebels ambush an army convoy in Manipur killing 20 soldiers in the deadliest attack on Indian army since the Kargil war. GAURAV is tackling KUNJA who is hysterical. GAURAV Kunja, there is no one. You are high. KUNJA Hide me! Hide. GAURAV We are not in Manipur. KUNJA They’ll catch every young person they can find. This was a big attack. They will spare no one. GAURAV It’s the drugs. KUNJA I was here with you right? You’ll tell them I was here with you. Don’t let me disappear. GAURAV manages to pin KUNJA to the ground. GAURAV You are safe. KUNJA They eat our flesh. GAURAV You’re hallucinating. KUNJA Why aren’t you doing anything? GAURAV Remember— Remember what we said? GAURAV hugs KUNJA tightly. GAURAV There is no one outside. We are here, you and I. Here, where we go out holding hands and no one harms us. KUNJA stops struggling. GAURAV In this big big city, no one can find us. No one breaks house doors down. Guns don’t exist. Bombs are fire crackers. This city is a rainbow. They speak together. KUNJA Manipur is far far away. 3190 kms. 5 hours by plane. 70 hours on a train. GAURAV Manipur is far far away. 3190 kms. 5 hours by plane. 70 hours on a train. GAURAV They can’t just come here, right? KUNJA No. GAURAV In this city, there is only police. GAURAV releases KUNJA. Both sit up. GAURAV Only police. KUNJA Only police. GAURAV Cold water bath. Glucon-D. Fries. It will pass. GAURAV gets up. KUNJA (dazed) Are you with them? . . . Scene 2 GAURAV is asleep. KUNJA is sitting next to him on the bed staring at the tree above. KUNJA One day you’ll wake up and find me gone. No body, no trace. Will you look for me, Gaurav? What do y’all do when you find out that someone has disappeared? We make an effigy of the person from the branches of the Panggong tree. Will you make an effigy of me? Keep it with you? On this bed? Beat. KUNJA This bed has been my country for a long time. GAURAV doesn’t wake up. . . . Scene 3 KUNJA is painting GAURAV ’s back. There are paint bottles strewn around. GAURAV twitches every time KUNJA touches the paintbrush to his back. GAURAV It feels icky. KUNJA You want me to paint or not? GAURAV On paper. GAURAV It helps you, right? KUNJA It helps you . You like watching me paint. Mountains. Flowers. Dicks. You think I am recovering if I’m drawing mountains. GAURAV You relapse whenever you start painting flowers. KUNJA I relapse when I think you’re going to join the army. GAURAV takes a rag and starts wiping his back. KUNJA What if they find out you’re gay? GAURAV Do I look gay? KUNJA Won’t you get expelled? GAURAV I’m only gay for you! KUNJA I had a friend Faariz in Manipur. He wanted to join PREPAK. It’s a UG. GAURAV (sighs) Another terrorist story— KUNJA We call them freedom fighters. GAURAV Wrong history books. We’re already free. KUNJA He was also involved in some tax collection things for them in college. Very motivated. Then he realised he was queer. With that he knew he could never join PREPAK or any other movement in Manipur. Forget the army, if PREPAK found out they would kill him first. I remember telling him that we don’t have to join any movements that don’t have a place for us. And I am saying that to you now. GAURAV I was born to be in the army. KUNJA You think the army has a place for you? What are you going to do when other officers bring their wives and girlfriends to army parties? Take me along? GAURAV holds KUNJA ’s face. GAURAV The results will be out in a week and I’m getting in. KUNJA Don’t join the army. The army is sick. GAURAV You are sick. KUNJA What if I told you I wanted to join PREPAK? Fight the occupation. Kill soldiers. Would you still love me? GAURAV looks away. KUNJA (shouting as if he’s sloganeering at a protest) Then how do I love you if you join the army? Army rapes us. Takes our flesh! Beat. GAURAV They’re people, you know? With wives, mothers, sons, sisters. Lovers. Like you are mine. I wanted to cry. I couldn’t. I spent the night holding you down waiting for you to come back to your senses, you fucking druggie. . . . Scene 4 FAARIZ is hanging from the Panggong tree. KUNJA is making his bed. KUNJA If love keeps people together then what does ideology do? FAARIZ Can you separate the two? KUNJA What if my freedom lies in the struggle between the two? In the middle. Gaurav struggles to keep loving me. FAARIZ Occupation takes work. KUNJA That’s not how it is between us. FAARIZ Can love erase identity? KUNJA Sometimes after an orgy, we all sit around and discuss how we started slamming. I want to tell them that I was tired of identity. The first time I slammed was the first time I had sex without identity. It was the best thing in the world. FAARIZ And then you became a slammer. KUNJA But it’s an identity without history. It’s light. Has no weight. No matter who you are, where you are from, once you get inside that’s it! FAARIZ Do you become Indian after slamming? KUNJA Yes. Till I’m high I remain Indian. FAARIZ Feels good? KUNJA Feels like community. When I first came here, a boy I met on Grindr took me for a party. I was blown away the second I entered. It felt like another nation, one where I fit in. And then I started meeting people and realised this community I so terribly want to be a part of, that I feel I’m part of, doesn’t know anything about me. Where I come from, what I have lived, what I want. And they don’t want to know either. FAARIZ Ay chinki! KUNJA It’s not just about words, it's about the gaze. You know when you first look at someone how you imagine their history? You see them at their home. You see them growing up. Celebrating a festival. Eating at a restaurant. You imagine them having sex, shaving, crying. The way people look at us here, their gaze is empty. They’re not able to imagine our histories. That’s why they act the way they act. I tried to make this country my friend. I told them about my past and showed them how I eat. But I just couldn’t fill their gaze. And then I slammed, and for the first time I didn’t look into their eyes. All I could see was dick and ass and balls. And I knew that’s all they saw. Our vision was united. Years of abandonment vanished the second I injected. I found community. Something I never had. KUNJA gets up on the bed. He looks at the audience and mimes taking a slam. His eyes start to glow. A visual is projected on the wall: A very close shot of a hairy asshole opening into a universe. FAARIZ The freedom struggle ends at a slam? KUNJA Slamming is the celebration of freedom. And it's so intense, this party, that we forget we’re not actually free. FAARIZ We also take drugs to forget about the occupation for a while. KUNJA No matter what you do, the occupation finds a way to occupy you. I’d forgotten about Manipur. My bed had become my country. And then I met Gaurav. He told me the first time we met that he wanted to join the army. Later that night when I was slammed, a soldier appeared outside the door. And then more and more. Gaurav stuck with me through all of it. Can you imagine staying up night after night trying to convince someone there is no one outside the door? FAARIZ What are you going to do if he gets posted to Manipur? KUNJA I will go visit him. FAARIZ He tortures us? Or disappears someone? KUNJA (stoically) The Supreme Court has declared that the army will be held accountable. FAARIZ Maybe as collateral damage then. In an attack. What are you going to do when he comes home after that? Beat. KUNJA Cook him a meal! Pork and bamboo shoots. Smoked. Exactly like Imaa makes it. A spicy beef salad on the side. FAARIZ He doesn’t eat those things. KUNJA I’ll make him. KUNJA starts searching for something under his bed. He messes up the bed he just made. He opens drawers and tries to empty out pockets of his clothes and trashing the room. KUNJA Why are you still here? Go home to AFSPA! FAARIZ Won’t you visit? KUNJA I don’t give a damn about that shithole. I hope they disappear the entire place. FAARIZ So many effigies you’ll have to make. Do you still do it? Make effigies? Paint on them? Give them names? KUNJA I never made an effigy of you. FAARIZ When you do, paint me with the memory of a fierce battle. Where I kill 100 Indian soldiers. Beat. KUNJA Got stuff? Just one more time. Or my veins are going to burst. . . . Scene 5 Several anxious guys enter and stand around KUNJA who takes his clothes off slowly as he speaks. In the end, he gets naked and positions himself on the edge of the bed on all fours. The men take off their clothes and slam each other. KUNJA (manic) Welcome! Everyone is welcome. Fat skinny sissy sluts down market on the market fake commercial prostitute destitute dudes studs uncles aunties boys guys hunks punks from this place that place small place no place come find a space sane sorted insane distorted models politicians auto drivers butchers bankers accountants actors liars cheat saints masters slaves herpes gonorrhea hiv syphilis tops bottoms bottoms who top tops who bottom preferably top miserably bottom white black pink yellow brown blue high caste low caste no caste hindu muslim, sikhs christians tribes even the denotified atheists monks fanatics junks english speaking and those who stopped speaking altogether 8 inch 10 inch 3 inch tight loose open close. GAURAV enters without KUNJA noticing. KUNJA From here there everywhere everyone, everyone is welcome to the ocean. Come take a dip, it doesn’t matter if you can’t swim. Just get your own stuff and that will keep you afloat. Or find someone to pay for your ticket. Three thousand rupees to take so far you will forget where you are from. Bareback at your own risk. Break the needle after one use, sharing will give you things you don’t need. If you feel like you’re losing it just smoke some weed. That’s all. Now come on! The universe is begging to get fucked. KUNJA spots GAURAV. GAURAV walks to KUNJA and helps him stand on his feet. KUNJA You were supposed to be my de-addiction program. You give me time. But no energy. GAURAV picks up KUNJA ’s clothes. He makes KUNJA put them back on. GAURAV Let’s go home? Beat. KUNJA I like the sound of that. KUNJA and GAURAV walk away together. . . . Scene 6 Bottles of alcohol and half filled glasses on the floor. GAURAV and KUNJA are in bed. GAURAV is trying to penetrate KUNJA. He can’t get hard. KUNJA It’s not hard. GAURAV Blow me. KUNJA I did. GAURAV Do it again. KUNJA We don’t have to. GAURAV I need to. KUNJA Let me clean up. GAURAV Do you clean up in a slam orgy? KUNJA Can I top? GAURAV No. KUNJA You’re not getting hard. GAURAV Why can’t you blow me? KUNJA My back hurts. GAURAV My head hurts. I need to fuck. I’m begging you. KUNJA I’ll shower and I’ll make some food. We can eat. And then fuck. GAURAV You’re punishing me for getting in? KUNJA I have made peace with it. GAURAV I don’t care about your peace tonight. This is the greatest thing to happen to me and I’m not going to let you fuck this up. Even if you are unhappy, you will smile. Even if you feel like dying, you will act like you have never been more horny. You will give me the best orgasm of my life. KUNJA What should I do? GAURAV Tell me you’re afraid that I might fuck other boys in the academy. KUNJA It’s not porn. GAURAV A tall muscular guy blowing me in the night in the bathroom and drinking my cum. KUNJA I will be happy for you. GAURAV Will you also fuck while I am gone? KUNJA I don’t know. GAURAV How will I know? KUNJA What do you want me to do? GAURAV What if you fall in love with someone else? KUNJA tries to get up. GAURAV holds him down. GAURAV Will you cheat on me? KUNJA No! GAURAV What if you feel horny? KUNJA I will think about you. GAURAV What if I cheat on you? KUNJA Don’t tell me. GAURAV Don’t ask don’t tell. KUNJA Yes. GAURAV So is that your strategy? You won’t tell me? KUNJA (exhausted) Gaurav, I need to take a shit. GAURAV Shit here. Beat. KUNJA Fuck off. GAURAV I don’t care. GAURAV goes to finger KUNJA. KUNJA resists. GAURAV pulls his finger out. It has shit on it. He brings it close to KUNJA ’s face. GAURAV Smell it. KUNJA (voice cracks) I’ll hit you Gaurav. GAURAV I will make you eat your shit if you cheat on me. KUNJA I will cheat on you, you shithead. GAURAV I know. You can’t control it. It’s in your fucking DNA. Animals. . . . Scene 7 GAURAV is holding a big paintbrush in his hand. KUNJA is standing next to him. He is naked and has some paint on his arm. They are surrounded by tubs of paints. GAURAV I’m not a painter. KUNJA You are, my love. It’s amazing what you do when you paint. When my friend Faariz disappeared, I started making effigies of him with branches of the Panggong tree. I would paint those effigies in different colours imagining I was giving the effigy things to remember. Bring it to life. When other boys were playing sports outside, I would be in my room making effigies and painting. I painted a thousand effigies. I could only paint memories onto them, give them new thoughts but I was never able to take away their pain. When you paint, you erase. It’s a gift you have. And there is so much I need to forget. Paint. GAURAV paints a stroke on KUNJA ’s other hand. GAURAV I don’t want to do this. KUNJA I give the memory of the khwairamband bazaar, running through its lanes as a kid, cruising through its alleys as a teenager eying men. GAURAV Tell me about cruising in that bazaar? KUNJA I don’t remember. Shoulder. KUNJA I give the memory of our school trip to the Kangla fort, and the one of walking through its corridors hand in hand when no one is watching with a boy I first barebacked. Back. KUNJA I give the memory of the first time I heard someone say I love you, and the memory of wanting to say the words but not being able to. Ass. KUNJA I give the memory of being beaten up by an Assam Rifles officer for breaking curfew. I give the memory of being beaten up by an AR officer for being drunk. The memory of my uncle being slapped by an officer for answering back. I give. GAURAV backs off. GAURAV I can’t do this. KUNJA Please let me. Feet. KUNJA I give the smell of Morok Mepta. GAURAV You can remember that at least. KUNJA No. KUNJA I give the sound of the Pung. I give my body memory that remembers thang-ta moves. Ankles. KUNJA I give up all that I have seen to have a new vision. Chest. KUNJA I give the trees. I will not remember their names anymore. Stomach. KUNJA The folklores, poubi lai, saroi ngaroi, the songs, I forget the lyrics to the lai haraoba ishei. Can I keep the tune? KUNJA tenses up. Beat. GAURAV Just let it go. Crotch. KUNJA I give the names of the deities. The rituals of sanamahism. GAURAV We have plenty. I’ll teach you. Thighs. KUNJA I give my father’s dreams. My mother’s voice that calls me home. GAURAV Don’t do this for me. KUNJA I am doing this for myself. GAURAV starts to paint faster. KUNJA The games we play. I give the names we call the army. GAURAV That’s good. KUNJA I give the views of the valley. The taste of our water. GAURAV Your water? KUNJA I give up. Waist. KUNJA I give up memories of driving on the highway that is still under repair after 5 years. I give up motorbike rides with friends, lovers, friends who became lovers, lovers who never became friends. GAURAV Slut. KUNJA I give up words from our language. I give up the cuss words we call Indians. GAURAV pauses, then starts to paint KUNJA faster, violently. KUNJA The dreams of freedom. I give up. KUNJA Wait—But can I keep the memory of Irom’s fast? I was a kid when she started fasting. I grew up with the fast. GAURAV Let it go. GAURAV goes to paint KUNJA ’s neck but KUNJA dodges GAURAV. KUNJA (quietly, desperately) No, please. Just that. It was a movement I felt I was a part of. I helped paint the banner for meira paibi. I was the only boy who knew about the protest. They chose me. GAURAV You can’t. KUNJA Stop. GAURAV grabs KUNJA by the neck and he paints it. KUNJA struggles to set himself free. GAURAV You have to forget. KUNJA Wait... No. GAURAV paints over KUNJA ’s neck. GAURAV Do you remember now? KUNJA Remember? GAURAV starts painting all over KUNJA. GAURAV Now forget about everything you saw while growing up. KUNJA Please— GAURAV Forget the skies. KUNJA Why? GAURAV The relationships you have to give up. KUNJA No— GAURAV The smells. KUNJA Stop. Stop . GAURAV Your history. You can’t have a history. Give up the festivals. Forget about the movies you saw. The songs you danced to. KUNJA breaks down in tears. KUNJA Why are you doing this? GAURAV You were never there. Give up the sounds. The touch you cannot remember. That disgusting food you have to give up. KUNJA I can't. GAURAV You have to now! Do you remember the birds you see there? KUNJA Nongin. Thembi marikpi. Langmeidong. GAURAV You can’t. GAURAV paints on KUNJA ’s face. GAURAV Give up the language, give up the bodies, give up the dreams. I fucking need you to give up the dreams. You cannot dream like a Manipuri anymore. You will not dream. I am taking away those mornings. From now on you must only remember the nights from here. The seasons here. You will only remember this rain. GAURAV finishes painting all of KUNJA. GAURAV stands up and takes a few steps back admiring his creation. GAURAV You are one of us now. Beat. KUNJA stands up. He looks at his hands and body. He opens his right palm which was clenched in a fist. KUNJA Wait— You forgot— KUNJA This part. GAURAV picks up the paintbrush. He dips it in black paint. He gently paints a stroke onto KUNJA ’s palm. KUNJA Thank you. GAURAV steps away. Lights dim slowly on GAURAV. Slowly, he disappears. Lights dim slowly on the bed. KUNJA turns and looks around the room. His eyes fall on the paintbrush that is lying on the floor. He picks it up. He looks up at the Panggong tree. Beat. KUNJA leaves the room. Blackout. ∎ FICTION & POETRY Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5

FICTION & POETRY Disappearing Act 2 Apr 2021 Vol. 1 ONE-ACT PLAY AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR What if I told you I wanted to join PREPAK? Fight the occupation. Kill soldiers. Would you still love me? Editor’s note: The author of this play as well as the accompanying artist elected to publish this work anonymously. In the words of the author: “It is a matter of great shame for a democracy that its writers have to submit their work anonymously.” This piece was workshopped and honed over a period of six months with SAAG editors Hananah Zaheer, Neilesh Bose, Nazish Chunara, Kamil Ahsan, Aditya Desai, along with the playwright, a dramaturge, and the artist. The world has folded. A tree in Manipur now hangs upside down above the bed in KUNJA’s room in a city in India. The tree is a Panggong Tree (Butea monosperma) used in Manipur to make effigies of the dead when the body is not found. A bed is the focus of the room. Scene 1 Projection on a wall: June 5th, 2015. Rebels ambush an army convoy in Manipur killing 20 soldiers in the deadliest attack on Indian army since the Kargil war. GAURAV is tackling KUNJA who is hysterical. GAURAV Kunja, there is no one. You are high. KUNJA Hide me! Hide. GAURAV We are not in Manipur. KUNJA They’ll catch every young person they can find. This was a big attack. They will spare no one. GAURAV It’s the drugs. KUNJA I was here with you right? You’ll tell them I was here with you. Don’t let me disappear. GAURAV manages to pin KUNJA to the ground. GAURAV You are safe. KUNJA They eat our flesh. GAURAV You’re hallucinating. KUNJA Why aren’t you doing anything? GAURAV Remember— Remember what we said? GAURAV hugs KUNJA tightly. GAURAV There is no one outside. We are here, you and I. Here, where we go out holding hands and no one harms us. KUNJA stops struggling. GAURAV In this big big city, no one can find us. No one breaks house doors down. Guns don’t exist. Bombs are fire crackers. This city is a rainbow. They speak together. KUNJA Manipur is far far away. 3190 kms. 5 hours by plane. 70 hours on a train. GAURAV Manipur is far far away. 3190 kms. 5 hours by plane. 70 hours on a train. GAURAV They can’t just come here, right? KUNJA No. GAURAV In this city, there is only police. GAURAV releases KUNJA. Both sit up. GAURAV Only police. KUNJA Only police. GAURAV Cold water bath. Glucon-D. Fries. It will pass. GAURAV gets up. KUNJA (dazed) Are you with them? . . . Scene 2 GAURAV is asleep. KUNJA is sitting next to him on the bed staring at the tree above. KUNJA One day you’ll wake up and find me gone. No body, no trace. Will you look for me, Gaurav? What do y’all do when you find out that someone has disappeared? We make an effigy of the person from the branches of the Panggong tree. Will you make an effigy of me? Keep it with you? On this bed? Beat. KUNJA This bed has been my country for a long time. GAURAV doesn’t wake up. . . . Scene 3 KUNJA is painting GAURAV ’s back. There are paint bottles strewn around. GAURAV twitches every time KUNJA touches the paintbrush to his back. GAURAV It feels icky. KUNJA You want me to paint or not? GAURAV On paper. GAURAV It helps you, right? KUNJA It helps you . You like watching me paint. Mountains. Flowers. Dicks. You think I am recovering if I’m drawing mountains. GAURAV You relapse whenever you start painting flowers. KUNJA I relapse when I think you’re going to join the army. GAURAV takes a rag and starts wiping his back. KUNJA What if they find out you’re gay? GAURAV Do I look gay? KUNJA Won’t you get expelled? GAURAV I’m only gay for you! KUNJA I had a friend Faariz in Manipur. He wanted to join PREPAK. It’s a UG. GAURAV (sighs) Another terrorist story— KUNJA We call them freedom fighters. GAURAV Wrong history books. We’re already free. KUNJA He was also involved in some tax collection things for them in college. Very motivated. Then he realised he was queer. With that he knew he could never join PREPAK or any other movement in Manipur. Forget the army, if PREPAK found out they would kill him first. I remember telling him that we don’t have to join any movements that don’t have a place for us. And I am saying that to you now. GAURAV I was born to be in the army. KUNJA You think the army has a place for you? What are you going to do when other officers bring their wives and girlfriends to army parties? Take me along? GAURAV holds KUNJA ’s face. GAURAV The results will be out in a week and I’m getting in. KUNJA Don’t join the army. The army is sick. GAURAV You are sick. KUNJA What if I told you I wanted to join PREPAK? Fight the occupation. Kill soldiers. Would you still love me? GAURAV looks away. KUNJA (shouting as if he’s sloganeering at a protest) Then how do I love you if you join the army? Army rapes us. Takes our flesh! Beat. GAURAV They’re people, you know? With wives, mothers, sons, sisters. Lovers. Like you are mine. I wanted to cry. I couldn’t. I spent the night holding you down waiting for you to come back to your senses, you fucking druggie. . . . Scene 4 FAARIZ is hanging from the Panggong tree. KUNJA is making his bed. KUNJA If love keeps people together then what does ideology do? FAARIZ Can you separate the two? KUNJA What if my freedom lies in the struggle between the two? In the middle. Gaurav struggles to keep loving me. FAARIZ Occupation takes work. KUNJA That’s not how it is between us. FAARIZ Can love erase identity? KUNJA Sometimes after an orgy, we all sit around and discuss how we started slamming. I want to tell them that I was tired of identity. The first time I slammed was the first time I had sex without identity. It was the best thing in the world. FAARIZ And then you became a slammer. KUNJA But it’s an identity without history. It’s light. Has no weight. No matter who you are, where you are from, once you get inside that’s it! FAARIZ Do you become Indian after slamming? KUNJA Yes. Till I’m high I remain Indian. FAARIZ Feels good? KUNJA Feels like community. When I first came here, a boy I met on Grindr took me for a party. I was blown away the second I entered. It felt like another nation, one where I fit in. And then I started meeting people and realised this community I so terribly want to be a part of, that I feel I’m part of, doesn’t know anything about me. Where I come from, what I have lived, what I want. And they don’t want to know either. FAARIZ Ay chinki! KUNJA It’s not just about words, it's about the gaze. You know when you first look at someone how you imagine their history? You see them at their home. You see them growing up. Celebrating a festival. Eating at a restaurant. You imagine them having sex, shaving, crying. The way people look at us here, their gaze is empty. They’re not able to imagine our histories. That’s why they act the way they act. I tried to make this country my friend. I told them about my past and showed them how I eat. But I just couldn’t fill their gaze. And then I slammed, and for the first time I didn’t look into their eyes. All I could see was dick and ass and balls. And I knew that’s all they saw. Our vision was united. Years of abandonment vanished the second I injected. I found community. Something I never had. KUNJA gets up on the bed. He looks at the audience and mimes taking a slam. His eyes start to glow. A visual is projected on the wall: A very close shot of a hairy asshole opening into a universe. FAARIZ The freedom struggle ends at a slam? KUNJA Slamming is the celebration of freedom. And it's so intense, this party, that we forget we’re not actually free. FAARIZ We also take drugs to forget about the occupation for a while. KUNJA No matter what you do, the occupation finds a way to occupy you. I’d forgotten about Manipur. My bed had become my country. And then I met Gaurav. He told me the first time we met that he wanted to join the army. Later that night when I was slammed, a soldier appeared outside the door. And then more and more. Gaurav stuck with me through all of it. Can you imagine staying up night after night trying to convince someone there is no one outside the door? FAARIZ What are you going to do if he gets posted to Manipur? KUNJA I will go visit him. FAARIZ He tortures us? Or disappears someone? KUNJA (stoically) The Supreme Court has declared that the army will be held accountable. FAARIZ Maybe as collateral damage then. In an attack. What are you going to do when he comes home after that? Beat. KUNJA Cook him a meal! Pork and bamboo shoots. Smoked. Exactly like Imaa makes it. A spicy beef salad on the side. FAARIZ He doesn’t eat those things. KUNJA I’ll make him. KUNJA starts searching for something under his bed. He messes up the bed he just made. He opens drawers and tries to empty out pockets of his clothes and trashing the room. KUNJA Why are you still here? Go home to AFSPA! FAARIZ Won’t you visit? KUNJA I don’t give a damn about that shithole. I hope they disappear the entire place. FAARIZ So many effigies you’ll have to make. Do you still do it? Make effigies? Paint on them? Give them names? KUNJA I never made an effigy of you. FAARIZ When you do, paint me with the memory of a fierce battle. Where I kill 100 Indian soldiers. Beat. KUNJA Got stuff? Just one more time. Or my veins are going to burst. . . . Scene 5 Several anxious guys enter and stand around KUNJA who takes his clothes off slowly as he speaks. In the end, he gets naked and positions himself on the edge of the bed on all fours. The men take off their clothes and slam each other. KUNJA (manic) Welcome! Everyone is welcome. Fat skinny sissy sluts down market on the market fake commercial prostitute destitute dudes studs uncles aunties boys guys hunks punks from this place that place small place no place come find a space sane sorted insane distorted models politicians auto drivers butchers bankers accountants actors liars cheat saints masters slaves herpes gonorrhea hiv syphilis tops bottoms bottoms who top tops who bottom preferably top miserably bottom white black pink yellow brown blue high caste low caste no caste hindu muslim, sikhs christians tribes even the denotified atheists monks fanatics junks english speaking and those who stopped speaking altogether 8 inch 10 inch 3 inch tight loose open close. GAURAV enters without KUNJA noticing. KUNJA From here there everywhere everyone, everyone is welcome to the ocean. Come take a dip, it doesn’t matter if you can’t swim. Just get your own stuff and that will keep you afloat. Or find someone to pay for your ticket. Three thousand rupees to take so far you will forget where you are from. Bareback at your own risk. Break the needle after one use, sharing will give you things you don’t need. If you feel like you’re losing it just smoke some weed. That’s all. Now come on! The universe is begging to get fucked. KUNJA spots GAURAV. GAURAV walks to KUNJA and helps him stand on his feet. KUNJA You were supposed to be my de-addiction program. You give me time. But no energy. GAURAV picks up KUNJA ’s clothes. He makes KUNJA put them back on. GAURAV Let’s go home? Beat. KUNJA I like the sound of that. KUNJA and GAURAV walk away together. . . . Scene 6 Bottles of alcohol and half filled glasses on the floor. GAURAV and KUNJA are in bed. GAURAV is trying to penetrate KUNJA. He can’t get hard. KUNJA It’s not hard. GAURAV Blow me. KUNJA I did. GAURAV Do it again. KUNJA We don’t have to. GAURAV I need to. KUNJA Let me clean up. GAURAV Do you clean up in a slam orgy? KUNJA Can I top? GAURAV No. KUNJA You’re not getting hard. GAURAV Why can’t you blow me? KUNJA My back hurts. GAURAV My head hurts. I need to fuck. I’m begging you. KUNJA I’ll shower and I’ll make some food. We can eat. And then fuck. GAURAV You’re punishing me for getting in? KUNJA I have made peace with it. GAURAV I don’t care about your peace tonight. This is the greatest thing to happen to me and I’m not going to let you fuck this up. Even if you are unhappy, you will smile. Even if you feel like dying, you will act like you have never been more horny. You will give me the best orgasm of my life. KUNJA What should I do? GAURAV Tell me you’re afraid that I might fuck other boys in the academy. KUNJA It’s not porn. GAURAV A tall muscular guy blowing me in the night in the bathroom and drinking my cum. KUNJA I will be happy for you. GAURAV Will you also fuck while I am gone? KUNJA I don’t know. GAURAV How will I know? KUNJA What do you want me to do? GAURAV What if you fall in love with someone else? KUNJA tries to get up. GAURAV holds him down. GAURAV Will you cheat on me? KUNJA No! GAURAV What if you feel horny? KUNJA I will think about you. GAURAV What if I cheat on you? KUNJA Don’t tell me. GAURAV Don’t ask don’t tell. KUNJA Yes. GAURAV So is that your strategy? You won’t tell me? KUNJA (exhausted) Gaurav, I need to take a shit. GAURAV Shit here. Beat. KUNJA Fuck off. GAURAV I don’t care. GAURAV goes to finger KUNJA. KUNJA resists. GAURAV pulls his finger out. It has shit on it. He brings it close to KUNJA ’s face. GAURAV Smell it. KUNJA (voice cracks) I’ll hit you Gaurav. GAURAV I will make you eat your shit if you cheat on me. KUNJA I will cheat on you, you shithead. GAURAV I know. You can’t control it. It’s in your fucking DNA. Animals. . . . Scene 7 GAURAV is holding a big paintbrush in his hand. KUNJA is standing next to him. He is naked and has some paint on his arm. They are surrounded by tubs of paints. GAURAV I’m not a painter. KUNJA You are, my love. It’s amazing what you do when you paint. When my friend Faariz disappeared, I started making effigies of him with branches of the Panggong tree. I would paint those effigies in different colours imagining I was giving the effigy things to remember. Bring it to life. When other boys were playing sports outside, I would be in my room making effigies and painting. I painted a thousand effigies. I could only paint memories onto them, give them new thoughts but I was never able to take away their pain. When you paint, you erase. It’s a gift you have. And there is so much I need to forget. Paint. GAURAV paints a stroke on KUNJA ’s other hand. GAURAV I don’t want to do this. KUNJA I give the memory of the khwairamband bazaar, running through its lanes as a kid, cruising through its alleys as a teenager eying men. GAURAV Tell me about cruising in that bazaar? KUNJA I don’t remember. Shoulder. KUNJA I give the memory of our school trip to the Kangla fort, and the one of walking through its corridors hand in hand when no one is watching with a boy I first barebacked. Back. KUNJA I give the memory of the first time I heard someone say I love you, and the memory of wanting to say the words but not being able to. Ass. KUNJA I give the memory of being beaten up by an Assam Rifles officer for breaking curfew. I give the memory of being beaten up by an AR officer for being drunk. The memory of my uncle being slapped by an officer for answering back. I give. GAURAV backs off. GAURAV I can’t do this. KUNJA Please let me. Feet. KUNJA I give the smell of Morok Mepta. GAURAV You can remember that at least. KUNJA No. KUNJA I give the sound of the Pung. I give my body memory that remembers thang-ta moves. Ankles. KUNJA I give up all that I have seen to have a new vision. Chest. KUNJA I give the trees. I will not remember their names anymore. Stomach. KUNJA The folklores, poubi lai, saroi ngaroi, the songs, I forget the lyrics to the lai haraoba ishei. Can I keep the tune? KUNJA tenses up. Beat. GAURAV Just let it go. Crotch. KUNJA I give the names of the deities. The rituals of sanamahism. GAURAV We have plenty. I’ll teach you. Thighs. KUNJA I give my father’s dreams. My mother’s voice that calls me home. GAURAV Don’t do this for me. KUNJA I am doing this for myself. GAURAV starts to paint faster. KUNJA The games we play. I give the names we call the army. GAURAV That’s good. KUNJA I give the views of the valley. The taste of our water. GAURAV Your water? KUNJA I give up. Waist. KUNJA I give up memories of driving on the highway that is still under repair after 5 years. I give up motorbike rides with friends, lovers, friends who became lovers, lovers who never became friends. GAURAV Slut. KUNJA I give up words from our language. I give up the cuss words we call Indians. GAURAV pauses, then starts to paint KUNJA faster, violently. KUNJA The dreams of freedom. I give up. KUNJA Wait—But can I keep the memory of Irom’s fast? I was a kid when she started fasting. I grew up with the fast. GAURAV Let it go. GAURAV goes to paint KUNJA ’s neck but KUNJA dodges GAURAV. KUNJA (quietly, desperately) No, please. Just that. It was a movement I felt I was a part of. I helped paint the banner for meira paibi. I was the only boy who knew about the protest. They chose me. GAURAV You can’t. KUNJA Stop. GAURAV grabs KUNJA by the neck and he paints it. KUNJA struggles to set himself free. GAURAV You have to forget. KUNJA Wait... No. GAURAV paints over KUNJA ’s neck. GAURAV Do you remember now? KUNJA Remember? GAURAV starts painting all over KUNJA. GAURAV Now forget about everything you saw while growing up. KUNJA Please— GAURAV Forget the skies. KUNJA Why? GAURAV The relationships you have to give up. KUNJA No— GAURAV The smells. KUNJA Stop. Stop . GAURAV Your history. You can’t have a history. Give up the festivals. Forget about the movies you saw. The songs you danced to. KUNJA breaks down in tears. KUNJA Why are you doing this? GAURAV You were never there. Give up the sounds. The touch you cannot remember. That disgusting food you have to give up. KUNJA I can't. GAURAV You have to now! Do you remember the birds you see there? KUNJA Nongin. Thembi marikpi. Langmeidong. GAURAV You can’t. GAURAV paints on KUNJA ’s face. GAURAV Give up the language, give up the bodies, give up the dreams. I fucking need you to give up the dreams. You cannot dream like a Manipuri anymore. You will not dream. I am taking away those mornings. From now on you must only remember the nights from here. The seasons here. You will only remember this rain. GAURAV finishes painting all of KUNJA. GAURAV stands up and takes a few steps back admiring his creation. GAURAV You are one of us now. Beat. KUNJA stands up. He looks at his hands and body. He opens his right palm which was clenched in a fist. KUNJA Wait— You forgot— KUNJA This part. GAURAV picks up the paintbrush. He dips it in black paint. He gently paints a stroke onto KUNJA ’s palm. KUNJA Thank you. GAURAV steps away. Lights dim slowly on GAURAV. Slowly, he disappears. Lights dim slowly on the bed. KUNJA turns and looks around the room. His eyes fall on the paintbrush that is lying on the floor. He picks it up. He looks up at the Panggong tree. Beat. KUNJA leaves the room. Blackout. ∎ SHARE Facebook Twitter LinkedIn ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 One-Act Play Manipur Indian Army Panggong Tree Effigy Queerness Love Story People's Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak PREPAK Painting Addiction Sex Playwriting Drama AFSPA Assam Rifles Northeast India Meitei Peoples Sanamahism UG Groups Insurgency Resistance Meira Paibi Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 MORE LIKE THIS

FICTION & POETRY Disappearing Act Editor’s note: The author of this play as well as the accompanying artist elected to publish this work anonymously. In the words of the author: “It is a matter of great shame for a democracy that its writers have to submit their work anonymously.” This piece was workshopped and honed over a period of six months with SAAG editors Hananah Zaheer, Neilesh Bose, Nazish Chunara, Kamil Ahsan, Aditya Desai, along with the playwright, a dramaturge, and the artist. The world has folded. A tree in Manipur now hangs upside down above the bed in KUNJA’s room in a city in India. The tree is a Panggong Tree (Butea monosperma) used in Manipur to make effigies of the dead when the body is not found. A bed is the focus of the room. Scene 1 Projection on a wall: June 5th, 2015. Rebels ambush an army convoy in Manipur killing 20 soldiers in the deadliest attack on Indian army since the Kargil war. GAURAV is tackling KUNJA who is hysterical. GAURAV Kunja, there is no one. You are high. KUNJA Hide me! Hide. GAURAV We are not in Manipur. KUNJA They’ll catch every young person they can find. This was a big attack. They will spare no one. GAURAV It’s the drugs. KUNJA I was here with you right? You’ll tell them I was here with you. Don’t let me disappear. GAURAV manages to pin KUNJA to the ground. GAURAV You are safe. KUNJA They eat our flesh. GAURAV You’re hallucinating. KUNJA Why aren’t you doing anything? GAURAV Remember— Remember what we said? GAURAV hugs KUNJA tightly. GAURAV There is no one outside. We are here, you and I. Here, where we go out holding hands and no one harms us. KUNJA stops struggling. GAURAV In this big big city, no one can find us. No one breaks house doors down. Guns don’t exist. Bombs are fire crackers. This city is a rainbow. They speak together. KUNJA Manipur is far far away. 3190 kms. 5 hours by plane. 70 hours on a train. GAURAV Manipur is far far away. 3190 kms. 5 hours by plane. 70 hours on a train. GAURAV They can’t just come here, right? KUNJA No. GAURAV In this city, there is only police. GAURAV releases KUNJA. Both sit up. GAURAV Only police. KUNJA Only police. GAURAV Cold water bath. Glucon-D. Fries. It will pass. GAURAV gets up. KUNJA (dazed) Are you with them? . . . Scene 2 GAURAV is asleep. KUNJA is sitting next to him on the bed staring at the tree above. KUNJA One day you’ll wake up and find me gone. No body, no trace. Will you look for me, Gaurav? What do y’all do when you find out that someone has disappeared? We make an effigy of the person from the branches of the Panggong tree. Will you make an effigy of me? Keep it with you? On this bed? Beat. KUNJA This bed has been my country for a long time. GAURAV doesn’t wake up. . . . Scene 3 KUNJA is painting GAURAV ’s back. There are paint bottles strewn around. GAURAV twitches every time KUNJA touches the paintbrush to his back. GAURAV It feels icky. KUNJA You want me to paint or not? GAURAV On paper. GAURAV It helps you, right? KUNJA It helps you . You like watching me paint. Mountains. Flowers. Dicks. You think I am recovering if I’m drawing mountains. GAURAV You relapse whenever you start painting flowers. KUNJA I relapse when I think you’re going to join the army. GAURAV takes a rag and starts wiping his back. KUNJA What if they find out you’re gay? GAURAV Do I look gay? KUNJA Won’t you get expelled? GAURAV I’m only gay for you! KUNJA I had a friend Faariz in Manipur. He wanted to join PREPAK. It’s a UG. GAURAV (sighs) Another terrorist story— KUNJA We call them freedom fighters. GAURAV Wrong history books. We’re already free. KUNJA He was also involved in some tax collection things for them in college. Very motivated. Then he realised he was queer. With that he knew he could never join PREPAK or any other movement in Manipur. Forget the army, if PREPAK found out they would kill him first. I remember telling him that we don’t have to join any movements that don’t have a place for us. And I am saying that to you now. GAURAV I was born to be in the army. KUNJA You think the army has a place for you? What are you going to do when other officers bring their wives and girlfriends to army parties? Take me along? GAURAV holds KUNJA ’s face. GAURAV The results will be out in a week and I’m getting in. KUNJA Don’t join the army. The army is sick. GAURAV You are sick. KUNJA What if I told you I wanted to join PREPAK? Fight the occupation. Kill soldiers. Would you still love me? GAURAV looks away. KUNJA (shouting as if he’s sloganeering at a protest) Then how do I love you if you join the army? Army rapes us. Takes our flesh! Beat. GAURAV They’re people, you know? With wives, mothers, sons, sisters. Lovers. Like you are mine. I wanted to cry. I couldn’t. I spent the night holding you down waiting for you to come back to your senses, you fucking druggie. . . . Scene 4 FAARIZ is hanging from the Panggong tree. KUNJA is making his bed. KUNJA If love keeps people together then what does ideology do? FAARIZ Can you separate the two? KUNJA What if my freedom lies in the struggle between the two? In the middle. Gaurav struggles to keep loving me. FAARIZ Occupation takes work. KUNJA That’s not how it is between us. FAARIZ Can love erase identity? KUNJA Sometimes after an orgy, we all sit around and discuss how we started slamming. I want to tell them that I was tired of identity. The first time I slammed was the first time I had sex without identity. It was the best thing in the world. FAARIZ And then you became a slammer. KUNJA But it’s an identity without history. It’s light. Has no weight. No matter who you are, where you are from, once you get inside that’s it! FAARIZ Do you become Indian after slamming? KUNJA Yes. Till I’m high I remain Indian. FAARIZ Feels good? KUNJA Feels like community. When I first came here, a boy I met on Grindr took me for a party. I was blown away the second I entered. It felt like another nation, one where I fit in. And then I started meeting people and realised this community I so terribly want to be a part of, that I feel I’m part of, doesn’t know anything about me. Where I come from, what I have lived, what I want. And they don’t want to know either. FAARIZ Ay chinki! KUNJA It’s not just about words, it's about the gaze. You know when you first look at someone how you imagine their history? You see them at their home. You see them growing up. Celebrating a festival. Eating at a restaurant. You imagine them having sex, shaving, crying. The way people look at us here, their gaze is empty. They’re not able to imagine our histories. That’s why they act the way they act. I tried to make this country my friend. I told them about my past and showed them how I eat. But I just couldn’t fill their gaze. And then I slammed, and for the first time I didn’t look into their eyes. All I could see was dick and ass and balls. And I knew that’s all they saw. Our vision was united. Years of abandonment vanished the second I injected. I found community. Something I never had. KUNJA gets up on the bed. He looks at the audience and mimes taking a slam. His eyes start to glow. A visual is projected on the wall: A very close shot of a hairy asshole opening into a universe. FAARIZ The freedom struggle ends at a slam? KUNJA Slamming is the celebration of freedom. And it's so intense, this party, that we forget we’re not actually free. FAARIZ We also take drugs to forget about the occupation for a while. KUNJA No matter what you do, the occupation finds a way to occupy you. I’d forgotten about Manipur. My bed had become my country. And then I met Gaurav. He told me the first time we met that he wanted to join the army. Later that night when I was slammed, a soldier appeared outside the door. And then more and more. Gaurav stuck with me through all of it. Can you imagine staying up night after night trying to convince someone there is no one outside the door? FAARIZ What are you going to do if he gets posted to Manipur? KUNJA I will go visit him. FAARIZ He tortures us? Or disappears someone? KUNJA (stoically) The Supreme Court has declared that the army will be held accountable. FAARIZ Maybe as collateral damage then. In an attack. What are you going to do when he comes home after that? Beat. KUNJA Cook him a meal! Pork and bamboo shoots. Smoked. Exactly like Imaa makes it. A spicy beef salad on the side. FAARIZ He doesn’t eat those things. KUNJA I’ll make him. KUNJA starts searching for something under his bed. He messes up the bed he just made. He opens drawers and tries to empty out pockets of his clothes and trashing the room. KUNJA Why are you still here? Go home to AFSPA! FAARIZ Won’t you visit? KUNJA I don’t give a damn about that shithole. I hope they disappear the entire place. FAARIZ So many effigies you’ll have to make. Do you still do it? Make effigies? Paint on them? Give them names? KUNJA I never made an effigy of you. FAARIZ When you do, paint me with the memory of a fierce battle. Where I kill 100 Indian soldiers. Beat. KUNJA Got stuff? Just one more time. Or my veins are going to burst. . . . Scene 5 Several anxious guys enter and stand around KUNJA who takes his clothes off slowly as he speaks. In the end, he gets naked and positions himself on the edge of the bed on all fours. The men take off their clothes and slam each other. KUNJA (manic) Welcome! Everyone is welcome. Fat skinny sissy sluts down market on the market fake commercial prostitute destitute dudes studs uncles aunties boys guys hunks punks from this place that place small place no place come find a space sane sorted insane distorted models politicians auto drivers butchers bankers accountants actors liars cheat saints masters slaves herpes gonorrhea hiv syphilis tops bottoms bottoms who top tops who bottom preferably top miserably bottom white black pink yellow brown blue high caste low caste no caste hindu muslim, sikhs christians tribes even the denotified atheists monks fanatics junks english speaking and those who stopped speaking altogether 8 inch 10 inch 3 inch tight loose open close. GAURAV enters without KUNJA noticing. KUNJA From here there everywhere everyone, everyone is welcome to the ocean. Come take a dip, it doesn’t matter if you can’t swim. Just get your own stuff and that will keep you afloat. Or find someone to pay for your ticket. Three thousand rupees to take so far you will forget where you are from. Bareback at your own risk. Break the needle after one use, sharing will give you things you don’t need. If you feel like you’re losing it just smoke some weed. That’s all. Now come on! The universe is begging to get fucked. KUNJA spots GAURAV. GAURAV walks to KUNJA and helps him stand on his feet. KUNJA You were supposed to be my de-addiction program. You give me time. But no energy. GAURAV picks up KUNJA ’s clothes. He makes KUNJA put them back on. GAURAV Let’s go home? Beat. KUNJA I like the sound of that. KUNJA and GAURAV walk away together. . . . Scene 6 Bottles of alcohol and half filled glasses on the floor. GAURAV and KUNJA are in bed. GAURAV is trying to penetrate KUNJA. He can’t get hard. KUNJA It’s not hard. GAURAV Blow me. KUNJA I did. GAURAV Do it again. KUNJA We don’t have to. GAURAV I need to. KUNJA Let me clean up. GAURAV Do you clean up in a slam orgy? KUNJA Can I top? GAURAV No. KUNJA You’re not getting hard. GAURAV Why can’t you blow me? KUNJA My back hurts. GAURAV My head hurts. I need to fuck. I’m begging you. KUNJA I’ll shower and I’ll make some food. We can eat. And then fuck. GAURAV You’re punishing me for getting in? KUNJA I have made peace with it. GAURAV I don’t care about your peace tonight. This is the greatest thing to happen to me and I’m not going to let you fuck this up. Even if you are unhappy, you will smile. Even if you feel like dying, you will act like you have never been more horny. You will give me the best orgasm of my life. KUNJA What should I do? GAURAV Tell me you’re afraid that I might fuck other boys in the academy. KUNJA It’s not porn. GAURAV A tall muscular guy blowing me in the night in the bathroom and drinking my cum. KUNJA I will be happy for you. GAURAV Will you also fuck while I am gone? KUNJA I don’t know. GAURAV How will I know? KUNJA What do you want me to do? GAURAV What if you fall in love with someone else? KUNJA tries to get up. GAURAV holds him down. GAURAV Will you cheat on me? KUNJA No! GAURAV What if you feel horny? KUNJA I will think about you. GAURAV What if I cheat on you? KUNJA Don’t tell me. GAURAV Don’t ask don’t tell. KUNJA Yes. GAURAV So is that your strategy? You won’t tell me? KUNJA (exhausted) Gaurav, I need to take a shit. GAURAV Shit here. Beat. KUNJA Fuck off. GAURAV I don’t care. GAURAV goes to finger KUNJA. KUNJA resists. GAURAV pulls his finger out. It has shit on it. He brings it close to KUNJA ’s face. GAURAV Smell it. KUNJA (voice cracks) I’ll hit you Gaurav. GAURAV I will make you eat your shit if you cheat on me. KUNJA I will cheat on you, you shithead. GAURAV I know. You can’t control it. It’s in your fucking DNA. Animals. . . . Scene 7 GAURAV is holding a big paintbrush in his hand. KUNJA is standing next to him. He is naked and has some paint on his arm. They are surrounded by tubs of paints. GAURAV I’m not a painter. KUNJA You are, my love. It’s amazing what you do when you paint. When my friend Faariz disappeared, I started making effigies of him with branches of the Panggong tree. I would paint those effigies in different colours imagining I was giving the effigy things to remember. Bring it to life. When other boys were playing sports outside, I would be in my room making effigies and painting. I painted a thousand effigies. I could only paint memories onto them, give them new thoughts but I was never able to take away their pain. When you paint, you erase. It’s a gift you have. And there is so much I need to forget. Paint. GAURAV paints a stroke on KUNJA ’s other hand. GAURAV I don’t want to do this. KUNJA I give the memory of the khwairamband bazaar, running through its lanes as a kid, cruising through its alleys as a teenager eying men. GAURAV Tell me about cruising in that bazaar? KUNJA I don’t remember. Shoulder. KUNJA I give the memory of our school trip to the Kangla fort, and the one of walking through its corridors hand in hand when no one is watching with a boy I first barebacked. Back. KUNJA I give the memory of the first time I heard someone say I love you, and the memory of wanting to say the words but not being able to. Ass. KUNJA I give the memory of being beaten up by an Assam Rifles officer for breaking curfew. I give the memory of being beaten up by an AR officer for being drunk. The memory of my uncle being slapped by an officer for answering back. I give. GAURAV backs off. GAURAV I can’t do this. KUNJA Please let me. Feet. KUNJA I give the smell of Morok Mepta. GAURAV You can remember that at least. KUNJA No. KUNJA I give the sound of the Pung. I give my body memory that remembers thang-ta moves. Ankles. KUNJA I give up all that I have seen to have a new vision. Chest. KUNJA I give the trees. I will not remember their names anymore. Stomach. KUNJA The folklores, poubi lai, saroi ngaroi, the songs, I forget the lyrics to the lai haraoba ishei. Can I keep the tune? KUNJA tenses up. Beat. GAURAV Just let it go. Crotch. KUNJA I give the names of the deities. The rituals of sanamahism. GAURAV We have plenty. I’ll teach you. Thighs. KUNJA I give my father’s dreams. My mother’s voice that calls me home. GAURAV Don’t do this for me. KUNJA I am doing this for myself. GAURAV starts to paint faster. KUNJA The games we play. I give the names we call the army. GAURAV That’s good. KUNJA I give the views of the valley. The taste of our water. GAURAV Your water? KUNJA I give up. Waist. KUNJA I give up memories of driving on the highway that is still under repair after 5 years. I give up motorbike rides with friends, lovers, friends who became lovers, lovers who never became friends. GAURAV Slut. KUNJA I give up words from our language. I give up the cuss words we call Indians. GAURAV pauses, then starts to paint KUNJA faster, violently. KUNJA The dreams of freedom. I give up. KUNJA Wait—But can I keep the memory of Irom’s fast? I was a kid when she started fasting. I grew up with the fast. GAURAV Let it go. GAURAV goes to paint KUNJA ’s neck but KUNJA dodges GAURAV. KUNJA (quietly, desperately) No, please. Just that. It was a movement I felt I was a part of. I helped paint the banner for meira paibi. I was the only boy who knew about the protest. They chose me. GAURAV You can’t. KUNJA Stop. GAURAV grabs KUNJA by the neck and he paints it. KUNJA struggles to set himself free. GAURAV You have to forget. KUNJA Wait... No. GAURAV paints over KUNJA ’s neck. GAURAV Do you remember now? KUNJA Remember? GAURAV starts painting all over KUNJA. GAURAV Now forget about everything you saw while growing up. KUNJA Please— GAURAV Forget the skies. KUNJA Why? GAURAV The relationships you have to give up. KUNJA No— GAURAV The smells. KUNJA Stop. Stop . GAURAV Your history. You can’t have a history. Give up the festivals. Forget about the movies you saw. The songs you danced to. KUNJA breaks down in tears. KUNJA Why are you doing this? GAURAV You were never there. Give up the sounds. The touch you cannot remember. That disgusting food you have to give up. KUNJA I can't. GAURAV You have to now! Do you remember the birds you see there? KUNJA Nongin. Thembi marikpi. Langmeidong. GAURAV You can’t. GAURAV paints on KUNJA ’s face. GAURAV Give up the language, give up the bodies, give up the dreams. I fucking need you to give up the dreams. You cannot dream like a Manipuri anymore. You will not dream. I am taking away those mornings. From now on you must only remember the nights from here. The seasons here. You will only remember this rain. GAURAV finishes painting all of KUNJA. GAURAV stands up and takes a few steps back admiring his creation. GAURAV You are one of us now. Beat. KUNJA stands up. He looks at his hands and body. He opens his right palm which was clenched in a fist. KUNJA Wait— You forgot— KUNJA This part. GAURAV picks up the paintbrush. He dips it in black paint. He gently paints a stroke onto KUNJA ’s palm. KUNJA Thank you. GAURAV steps away. Lights dim slowly on GAURAV. Slowly, he disappears. Lights dim slowly on the bed. KUNJA turns and looks around the room. His eyes fall on the paintbrush that is lying on the floor. He picks it up. He looks up at the Panggong tree. Beat. KUNJA leaves the room. Blackout. ∎ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Artwork contributed anonymously for SAAG. SHARE Facebook Twitter LinkedIn One-Act Play Manipur Indian Army Panggong Tree Effigy Queerness Love Story People's Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak PREPAK Painting Addiction Sex Playwriting Drama AFSPA Assam Rifles Northeast India Meitei Peoples Sanamahism UG Groups Insurgency Resistance Meira Paibi The creator(s) of this piece chose to publish their work anonymously. One-Act Play Manipur ANONYMOUS What if I told you I wanted to join PREPAK? Fight the occupation. Kill soldiers. Would you still love me? VOL. 1 2 Apr 2021 Skulls Apr 4, 2023 K ZA WIN Alien of Extraordinary Ability Oct 13, 2020 TARFIA FAIZULLAH Six Poems Oct 31, 2020 RAJIV MOHABIR Four Lives Nov 25, 2020 AAMER HUSSEIN A Premonition; Recollected Oct 18, 2020 JAMIL JAN KOCHAI MORE LIKE THIS

FICTION & POETRY Disappearing Act What if I told you I wanted to join PREPAK? Fight the occupation. Kill soldiers. Would you still love me? VOL. 1 2 Apr 2021 ANONYMOUS Editor’s note: The author of this play as well as the accompanying artist elected to publish this work anonymously. In the words of the author: “It is a matter of great shame for a democracy that its writers have to submit their work anonymously.” This piece was workshopped and honed over a period of six months with SAAG editors Hananah Zaheer, Neilesh Bose, Nazish Chunara, Kamil Ahsan, Aditya Desai, along with the playwright, a dramaturge, and the artist. The world has folded. A tree in Manipur now hangs upside down above the bed in KUNJA’s room in a city in India. The tree is a Panggong Tree (Butea monosperma) used in Manipur to make effigies of the dead when the body is not found. A bed is the focus of the room. Scene 1 Projection on a wall: June 5th, 2015. Rebels ambush an army convoy in Manipur killing 20 soldiers in the deadliest attack on Indian army since the Kargil war. GAURAV is tackling KUNJA who is hysterical. GAURAV Kunja, there is no one. You are high. KUNJA Hide me! Hide. GAURAV We are not in Manipur. KUNJA They’ll catch every young person they can find. This was a big attack. They will spare no one. GAURAV It’s the drugs. KUNJA I was here with you right? You’ll tell them I was here with you. Don’t let me disappear. GAURAV manages to pin KUNJA to the ground. GAURAV You are safe. KUNJA They eat our flesh. GAURAV You’re hallucinating. KUNJA Why aren’t you doing anything? GAURAV Remember— Remember what we said? GAURAV hugs KUNJA tightly. GAURAV There is no one outside. We are here, you and I. Here, where we go out holding hands and no one harms us. KUNJA stops struggling. GAURAV In this big big city, no one can find us. No one breaks house doors down. Guns don’t exist. Bombs are fire crackers. This city is a rainbow. They speak together. KUNJA Manipur is far far away. 3190 kms. 5 hours by plane. 70 hours on a train. GAURAV Manipur is far far away. 3190 kms. 5 hours by plane. 70 hours on a train. GAURAV They can’t just come here, right? KUNJA No. GAURAV In this city, there is only police. GAURAV releases KUNJA. Both sit up. GAURAV Only police. KUNJA Only police. GAURAV Cold water bath. Glucon-D. Fries. It will pass. GAURAV gets up. KUNJA (dazed) Are you with them? . . . Scene 2 GAURAV is asleep. KUNJA is sitting next to him on the bed staring at the tree above. KUNJA One day you’ll wake up and find me gone. No body, no trace. Will you look for me, Gaurav? What do y’all do when you find out that someone has disappeared? We make an effigy of the person from the branches of the Panggong tree. Will you make an effigy of me? Keep it with you? On this bed? Beat. KUNJA This bed has been my country for a long time. GAURAV doesn’t wake up. . . . Scene 3 KUNJA is painting GAURAV ’s back. There are paint bottles strewn around. GAURAV twitches every time KUNJA touches the paintbrush to his back. GAURAV It feels icky. KUNJA You want me to paint or not? GAURAV On paper. GAURAV It helps you, right? KUNJA It helps you . You like watching me paint. Mountains. Flowers. Dicks. You think I am recovering if I’m drawing mountains. GAURAV You relapse whenever you start painting flowers. KUNJA I relapse when I think you’re going to join the army. GAURAV takes a rag and starts wiping his back. KUNJA What if they find out you’re gay? GAURAV Do I look gay? KUNJA Won’t you get expelled? GAURAV I’m only gay for you! KUNJA I had a friend Faariz in Manipur. He wanted to join PREPAK. It’s a UG. GAURAV (sighs) Another terrorist story— KUNJA We call them freedom fighters. GAURAV Wrong history books. We’re already free. KUNJA He was also involved in some tax collection things for them in college. Very motivated. Then he realised he was queer. With that he knew he could never join PREPAK or any other movement in Manipur. Forget the army, if PREPAK found out they would kill him first. I remember telling him that we don’t have to join any movements that don’t have a place for us. And I am saying that to you now. GAURAV I was born to be in the army. KUNJA You think the army has a place for you? What are you going to do when other officers bring their wives and girlfriends to army parties? Take me along? GAURAV holds KUNJA ’s face. GAURAV The results will be out in a week and I’m getting in. KUNJA Don’t join the army. The army is sick. GAURAV You are sick. KUNJA What if I told you I wanted to join PREPAK? Fight the occupation. Kill soldiers. Would you still love me? GAURAV looks away. KUNJA (shouting as if he’s sloganeering at a protest) Then how do I love you if you join the army? Army rapes us. Takes our flesh! Beat. GAURAV They’re people, you know? With wives, mothers, sons, sisters. Lovers. Like you are mine. I wanted to cry. I couldn’t. I spent the night holding you down waiting for you to come back to your senses, you fucking druggie. . . . Scene 4 FAARIZ is hanging from the Panggong tree. KUNJA is making his bed. KUNJA If love keeps people together then what does ideology do? FAARIZ Can you separate the two? KUNJA What if my freedom lies in the struggle between the two? In the middle. Gaurav struggles to keep loving me. FAARIZ Occupation takes work. KUNJA That’s not how it is between us. FAARIZ Can love erase identity? KUNJA Sometimes after an orgy, we all sit around and discuss how we started slamming. I want to tell them that I was tired of identity. The first time I slammed was the first time I had sex without identity. It was the best thing in the world. FAARIZ And then you became a slammer. KUNJA But it’s an identity without history. It’s light. Has no weight. No matter who you are, where you are from, once you get inside that’s it! FAARIZ Do you become Indian after slamming? KUNJA Yes. Till I’m high I remain Indian. FAARIZ Feels good? KUNJA Feels like community. When I first came here, a boy I met on Grindr took me for a party. I was blown away the second I entered. It felt like another nation, one where I fit in. And then I started meeting people and realised this community I so terribly want to be a part of, that I feel I’m part of, doesn’t know anything about me. Where I come from, what I have lived, what I want. And they don’t want to know either. FAARIZ Ay chinki! KUNJA It’s not just about words, it's about the gaze. You know when you first look at someone how you imagine their history? You see them at their home. You see them growing up. Celebrating a festival. Eating at a restaurant. You imagine them having sex, shaving, crying. The way people look at us here, their gaze is empty. They’re not able to imagine our histories. That’s why they act the way they act. I tried to make this country my friend. I told them about my past and showed them how I eat. But I just couldn’t fill their gaze. And then I slammed, and for the first time I didn’t look into their eyes. All I could see was dick and ass and balls. And I knew that’s all they saw. Our vision was united. Years of abandonment vanished the second I injected. I found community. Something I never had. KUNJA gets up on the bed. He looks at the audience and mimes taking a slam. His eyes start to glow. A visual is projected on the wall: A very close shot of a hairy asshole opening into a universe. FAARIZ The freedom struggle ends at a slam? KUNJA Slamming is the celebration of freedom. And it's so intense, this party, that we forget we’re not actually free. FAARIZ We also take drugs to forget about the occupation for a while. KUNJA No matter what you do, the occupation finds a way to occupy you. I’d forgotten about Manipur. My bed had become my country. And then I met Gaurav. He told me the first time we met that he wanted to join the army. Later that night when I was slammed, a soldier appeared outside the door. And then more and more. Gaurav stuck with me through all of it. Can you imagine staying up night after night trying to convince someone there is no one outside the door? FAARIZ What are you going to do if he gets posted to Manipur? KUNJA I will go visit him. FAARIZ He tortures us? Or disappears someone? KUNJA (stoically) The Supreme Court has declared that the army will be held accountable. FAARIZ Maybe as collateral damage then. In an attack. What are you going to do when he comes home after that? Beat. KUNJA Cook him a meal! Pork and bamboo shoots. Smoked. Exactly like Imaa makes it. A spicy beef salad on the side. FAARIZ He doesn’t eat those things. KUNJA I’ll make him. KUNJA starts searching for something under his bed. He messes up the bed he just made. He opens drawers and tries to empty out pockets of his clothes and trashing the room. KUNJA Why are you still here? Go home to AFSPA! FAARIZ Won’t you visit? KUNJA I don’t give a damn about that shithole. I hope they disappear the entire place. FAARIZ So many effigies you’ll have to make. Do you still do it? Make effigies? Paint on them? Give them names? KUNJA I never made an effigy of you. FAARIZ When you do, paint me with the memory of a fierce battle. Where I kill 100 Indian soldiers. Beat. KUNJA Got stuff? Just one more time. Or my veins are going to burst. . . . Scene 5 Several anxious guys enter and stand around KUNJA who takes his clothes off slowly as he speaks. In the end, he gets naked and positions himself on the edge of the bed on all fours. The men take off their clothes and slam each other. KUNJA (manic) Welcome! Everyone is welcome. Fat skinny sissy sluts down market on the market fake commercial prostitute destitute dudes studs uncles aunties boys guys hunks punks from this place that place small place no place come find a space sane sorted insane distorted models politicians auto drivers butchers bankers accountants actors liars cheat saints masters slaves herpes gonorrhea hiv syphilis tops bottoms bottoms who top tops who bottom preferably top miserably bottom white black pink yellow brown blue high caste low caste no caste hindu muslim, sikhs christians tribes even the denotified atheists monks fanatics junks english speaking and those who stopped speaking altogether 8 inch 10 inch 3 inch tight loose open close. GAURAV enters without KUNJA noticing. KUNJA From here there everywhere everyone, everyone is welcome to the ocean. Come take a dip, it doesn’t matter if you can’t swim. Just get your own stuff and that will keep you afloat. Or find someone to pay for your ticket. Three thousand rupees to take so far you will forget where you are from. Bareback at your own risk. Break the needle after one use, sharing will give you things you don’t need. If you feel like you’re losing it just smoke some weed. That’s all. Now come on! The universe is begging to get fucked. KUNJA spots GAURAV. GAURAV walks to KUNJA and helps him stand on his feet. KUNJA You were supposed to be my de-addiction program. You give me time. But no energy. GAURAV picks up KUNJA ’s clothes. He makes KUNJA put them back on. GAURAV Let’s go home? Beat. KUNJA I like the sound of that. KUNJA and GAURAV walk away together. . . . Scene 6 Bottles of alcohol and half filled glasses on the floor. GAURAV and KUNJA are in bed. GAURAV is trying to penetrate KUNJA. He can’t get hard. KUNJA It’s not hard. GAURAV Blow me. KUNJA I did. GAURAV Do it again. KUNJA We don’t have to. GAURAV I need to. KUNJA Let me clean up. GAURAV Do you clean up in a slam orgy? KUNJA Can I top? GAURAV No. KUNJA You’re not getting hard. GAURAV Why can’t you blow me? KUNJA My back hurts. GAURAV My head hurts. I need to fuck. I’m begging you. KUNJA I’ll shower and I’ll make some food. We can eat. And then fuck. GAURAV You’re punishing me for getting in? KUNJA I have made peace with it. GAURAV I don’t care about your peace tonight. This is the greatest thing to happen to me and I’m not going to let you fuck this up. Even if you are unhappy, you will smile. Even if you feel like dying, you will act like you have never been more horny. You will give me the best orgasm of my life. KUNJA What should I do? GAURAV Tell me you’re afraid that I might fuck other boys in the academy. KUNJA It’s not porn. GAURAV A tall muscular guy blowing me in the night in the bathroom and drinking my cum. KUNJA I will be happy for you. GAURAV Will you also fuck while I am gone? KUNJA I don’t know. GAURAV How will I know? KUNJA What do you want me to do? GAURAV What if you fall in love with someone else? KUNJA tries to get up. GAURAV holds him down. GAURAV Will you cheat on me? KUNJA No! GAURAV What if you feel horny? KUNJA I will think about you. GAURAV What if I cheat on you? KUNJA Don’t tell me. GAURAV Don’t ask don’t tell. KUNJA Yes. GAURAV So is that your strategy? You won’t tell me? KUNJA (exhausted) Gaurav, I need to take a shit. GAURAV Shit here. Beat. KUNJA Fuck off. GAURAV I don’t care. GAURAV goes to finger KUNJA. KUNJA resists. GAURAV pulls his finger out. It has shit on it. He brings it close to KUNJA ’s face. GAURAV Smell it. KUNJA (voice cracks) I’ll hit you Gaurav. GAURAV I will make you eat your shit if you cheat on me. KUNJA I will cheat on you, you shithead. GAURAV I know. You can’t control it. It’s in your fucking DNA. Animals. . . . Scene 7 GAURAV is holding a big paintbrush in his hand. KUNJA is standing next to him. He is naked and has some paint on his arm. They are surrounded by tubs of paints. GAURAV I’m not a painter. KUNJA You are, my love. It’s amazing what you do when you paint. When my friend Faariz disappeared, I started making effigies of him with branches of the Panggong tree. I would paint those effigies in different colours imagining I was giving the effigy things to remember. Bring it to life. When other boys were playing sports outside, I would be in my room making effigies and painting. I painted a thousand effigies. I could only paint memories onto them, give them new thoughts but I was never able to take away their pain. When you paint, you erase. It’s a gift you have. And there is so much I need to forget. Paint. GAURAV paints a stroke on KUNJA ’s other hand. GAURAV I don’t want to do this. KUNJA I give the memory of the khwairamband bazaar, running through its lanes as a kid, cruising through its alleys as a teenager eying men. GAURAV Tell me about cruising in that bazaar? KUNJA I don’t remember. Shoulder. KUNJA I give the memory of our school trip to the Kangla fort, and the one of walking through its corridors hand in hand when no one is watching with a boy I first barebacked. Back. KUNJA I give the memory of the first time I heard someone say I love you, and the memory of wanting to say the words but not being able to. Ass. KUNJA I give the memory of being beaten up by an Assam Rifles officer for breaking curfew. I give the memory of being beaten up by an AR officer for being drunk. The memory of my uncle being slapped by an officer for answering back. I give. GAURAV backs off. GAURAV I can’t do this. KUNJA Please let me. Feet. KUNJA I give the smell of Morok Mepta. GAURAV You can remember that at least. KUNJA No. KUNJA I give the sound of the Pung. I give my body memory that remembers thang-ta moves. Ankles. KUNJA I give up all that I have seen to have a new vision. Chest. KUNJA I give the trees. I will not remember their names anymore. Stomach. KUNJA The folklores, poubi lai, saroi ngaroi, the songs, I forget the lyrics to the lai haraoba ishei. Can I keep the tune? KUNJA tenses up. Beat. GAURAV Just let it go. Crotch. KUNJA I give the names of the deities. The rituals of sanamahism. GAURAV We have plenty. I’ll teach you. Thighs. KUNJA I give my father’s dreams. My mother’s voice that calls me home. GAURAV Don’t do this for me. KUNJA I am doing this for myself. GAURAV starts to paint faster. KUNJA The games we play. I give the names we call the army. GAURAV That’s good. KUNJA I give the views of the valley. The taste of our water. GAURAV Your water? KUNJA I give up. Waist. KUNJA I give up memories of driving on the highway that is still under repair after 5 years. I give up motorbike rides with friends, lovers, friends who became lovers, lovers who never became friends. GAURAV Slut. KUNJA I give up words from our language. I give up the cuss words we call Indians. GAURAV pauses, then starts to paint KUNJA faster, violently. KUNJA The dreams of freedom. I give up. KUNJA Wait—But can I keep the memory of Irom’s fast? I was a kid when she started fasting. I grew up with the fast. GAURAV Let it go. GAURAV goes to paint KUNJA ’s neck but KUNJA dodges GAURAV. KUNJA (quietly, desperately) No, please. Just that. It was a movement I felt I was a part of. I helped paint the banner for meira paibi. I was the only boy who knew about the protest. They chose me. GAURAV You can’t. KUNJA Stop. GAURAV grabs KUNJA by the neck and he paints it. KUNJA struggles to set himself free. GAURAV You have to forget. KUNJA Wait... No. GAURAV paints over KUNJA ’s neck. GAURAV Do you remember now? KUNJA Remember? GAURAV starts painting all over KUNJA. GAURAV Now forget about everything you saw while growing up. KUNJA Please— GAURAV Forget the skies. KUNJA Why? GAURAV The relationships you have to give up. KUNJA No— GAURAV The smells. KUNJA Stop. Stop . GAURAV Your history. You can’t have a history. Give up the festivals. Forget about the movies you saw. The songs you danced to. KUNJA breaks down in tears. KUNJA Why are you doing this? GAURAV You were never there. Give up the sounds. The touch you cannot remember. That disgusting food you have to give up. KUNJA I can't. GAURAV You have to now! Do you remember the birds you see there? KUNJA Nongin. Thembi marikpi. Langmeidong. GAURAV You can’t. GAURAV paints on KUNJA ’s face. GAURAV Give up the language, give up the bodies, give up the dreams. I fucking need you to give up the dreams. You cannot dream like a Manipuri anymore. You will not dream. I am taking away those mornings. From now on you must only remember the nights from here. The seasons here. You will only remember this rain. GAURAV finishes painting all of KUNJA. GAURAV stands up and takes a few steps back admiring his creation. GAURAV You are one of us now. Beat. KUNJA stands up. He looks at his hands and body. He opens his right palm which was clenched in a fist. KUNJA Wait— You forgot— KUNJA This part. GAURAV picks up the paintbrush. He dips it in black paint. He gently paints a stroke onto KUNJA ’s palm. KUNJA Thank you. GAURAV steps away. Lights dim slowly on GAURAV. Slowly, he disappears. Lights dim slowly on the bed. KUNJA turns and looks around the room. His eyes fall on the paintbrush that is lying on the floor. He picks it up. He looks up at the Panggong tree. Beat. KUNJA leaves the room. Blackout. ∎ SUB-HEAD ​ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: SHEBANI RAO A Freelancer's Guide to Decision-Making JAMIL JAN KOCHAI A Premonition; Recollected Artwork contributed anonymously for SAAG. SHARE Facebook Twitter LinkedIn One-Act Play Manipur Indian Army Panggong Tree Effigy Queerness Love Story People's Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak PREPAK Painting Addiction Sex Playwriting Drama AFSPA Assam Rifles Northeast India Meitei Peoples Sanamahism UG Groups Insurgency Resistance Meira Paibi The creator(s) of this piece chose to publish their work anonymously. 2 Apr 2021 One-Act Play Manipur Skulls Apr 4, 2023 K ZA WIN Alien of Extraordinary Ability Oct 13, 2020 TARFIA FAIZULLAH Six Poems Oct 31, 2020 RAJIV MOHABIR Four Lives Nov 25, 2020 AAMER HUSSEIN A Premonition; Recollected Oct 18, 2020 JAMIL JAN KOCHAI MORE LIKE THIS

FEATURES Battles and Banishments: Women's Encounters with Heroin Addiction in Maldives Behind the façade of idyllic island paradise, Maldivians navigate a drug epidemic of huge proportions. VOL. 2 ISSUE 1 28 Feb 2023 REPORTAGE AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Artwork "Where do we go from here?" by Firushana Naseem for SAAG. Mixed media on canvas. SHARE Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Reportage Maldives Malé Addiction Drug Epidemic Rehabilitation Drug Trade Tourism Maafushi Prison Gender Violence Trauma Intimate Partner Violence Poverty Longform Change NDA People’s Majlis Hands Together Maldivian State Repression Hanimaadhoo Detoxification Center Malé’s drug cafés Dhivehi Brown Sugar Heroin Substance Abuse Relapse 2011 Drugs Act 2004 Tsunami Himmafushi Rehabilitation Center NGOs Prison Structural Frameworks Detention Drug-Related Arrests Zuvaanun National Drug Agency National Dangerous Drugs Control Board Sri Lanka Banishment Police Action Internationalism Class Public Space Low-Income Workers Urban/Rural Humanitarian Crisis Local Politics Health Workers Gender Investigative Journalism Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. DISPATCH Reportage Maldives Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. MALDIVES HAS a long history of substance abuse. Its 1,192 coral islands lie at the intersection of major historical global sea routes in the Indian Ocean. Historically, traders from all over the world brought all kinds of illicit substances to its shores. Yet the archipelago has never been a producer or manufacturing point for illicit drugs. According to state official reports, it wasn’t until the early 1970s that Maldives opened for tourism, and a steady market for drugs began to develop in the Maldives. As the tourism industry began to boom in Malé, and people traveled from all over the world to enjoy its breathtakingly beautiful beaches, the demand for illicit drugs soared. Malé’s geographic location made it the ideal drop-off point for all kinds of drugs—among them cheap, low-grade heroin called “brown sugar.” Walking down the street, it is common to come across at least one woman high on brown sugar. What gives her away are her vacant expression and comatose demeanor. Even as nearly a third of the country’s population or at least one member in a family struggles with substance abuse, women tend to face greater ostracization and social exclusion. This is not to say that women in the Maldives do not struggle with drug abuse. During a crackdown on Malé’s (in)famous drug cafés last year, police arrested 65 women and 14 children. In fact, many Maldivians would have, at some point, viewed a moralistic YouTube video of such a woman on social media. The women in these videos are meant to serve as a cautionary tale against the wayward social behaviors and tendencies that lead to a life of substance abuse, destitution, and misery. If the social stigma around seeking harm reduction for substance use wasn’t enough, such representations of women addicts end up stigmatizing them even more. The stories of women who end up abusing heroin—or brown sugar, as it is more commonly called—are diverse, yet they share a common thread of desperation, growing addiction, and a feeling of helplessness. One such story is Zulaikha’s (names have been changed to protect anonymity). A 38-year-old Maldivian woman who, in another life, successfully pursued a career in modeling. She now lives on a scantily-populated island of a Northern atoll, but back in the day, she was known for her exceptional beauty and talents in the creative arts. A few months ago, she knew she had hit rock bottom when she walked up to someone on the street and said (in Dhivehi): “Excuse me, can I please have a tenner for food?” The person she had asked for money turned to look at her and they both recognized each other. Zulaikha had gone to high school with them. As her old classmate’s eyes followed a line of cigarette burn marks on her arms, Zulaikha’s face turned ashen. The stories of women who end up abusing heroin—or brown sugar, as it is more commonly called—are diverse, yet they share a common thread of desperation, growing addiction, and a feeling of helplessness. Back in high school, Zulaikha was someone younger students could count on to stand up to their bullies. Her classmates fondly recall her compassionate and empathetic conduct with those younger than her. She stood up for justice and the values that mattered to her the most, and was widely admired for it. But Zulaikha’s adolescent years were marked with notoriety after she began using heroin at such a young age. Soon after high school ended, she gave birth to a child and then checked into rehab. She relapsed several times, after which she moved away from her family’s house and began living with her partner on a Northern island. The man she lived with was physically and mentally abusive. At one point, in a fit of rage, he beat her senseless with a hammer. Despite the constant threat of physical violence, Zulaikha refused to leave her partner, who is also a heroin abuser. Deprived of the care she needed from her family, she insists that she preferred living with the person she also terms her abuser. Zulaikha’s story is like that of several women who, after becoming heavily dependent on substances, are abandoned by their families. People in the Maldives frequently associate women’s addiction with sex work. It is after the drug dependency kicks in that the actual cycle of abuse begins. After women addicts are abandoned by their families, many end up moving in with partners who also abuse drugs and them too. The plentiful supply of drugs in the region, combined with limited support to recover, means that the chances of an ex-user relapsing are high. Stories of women who managed to end their dependency on heroin and rebuild their lives are, in fact, painfully rare. They end up falling deeper and deeper into addiction, while their circumstances inhibit them from breaking patterns of drug abuse. In situations like these, family support is pivotal in enabling women to get back on their feet. Cycles of Addiction As a young undergraduate student in Malé in the early 2000s, Maryam had jumped at the chance to study abroad. The twenty-something was academically gifted and creative, and she believed the experience would open up several opportunities for her. It was during her time abroad with a cohort of heroin users from back home that she began using. She recalls that her time abroad was an incredibly vulnerable period for her. Away from her family and the security of home, she began using drugs experimentally, but soon became addicted to heroin. After returning to Malé, she remained hopelessly addicted. Her dreams and ambitions were no longer possibilities for her, and she became estranged from family and friends. A few months after she was turned away from home, Maryam was using heroin at a café frequented by criminal gangs involved with the drug trade, when the police raided the place and arrested her. Before the enactment of the 2011 Drugs Act, people arrested for drug use were often sentenced to spend as many as 25 years in prison, regardless of the quantity or potency of drugs in possession. It would not be a stretch to estimate that over 90 percent of all criminal cases in the Maldives are drug-related. Shortly after Maryam started serving her sentence in Maafushi prison in 2004, the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami hit. The recently constructed women’s wing where Maryam was being kept suffered severe damage. She incurred several injuries while trying to flee from the tidal swell and was subsequently sent home. After recovering from her injuries, she started using heroin again, but this time around, she was able to rely on her family. Her mother, Maryam recalls, was relentless in her efforts to get her off drugs. Maryam began to alternate between periods of staying clean and abusing heroin. Despite her protestations, her family sent her to the Himmafushi Rehabilitation Center several times to recover. During one of her drug abuse stints, she was arrested for drug possession, but managed to avoid a prison sentence because of her confession. Before the enactment of the 2011 Drugs Act, people arrested for drug use were often sentenced to spend as many as 25 years in prison, regardless of the quantity or potency of drugs in possession. It would not be a stretch to estimate that over 90 percent of all criminal cases in the Maldives are drug-related. Maryam’s recovery at the Himmafushi Rehabilitation Center was slow and interrupted by relapses, but the place was somewhere she could return to safely. This feeling of security and care began to help her thrive at the center. Maryam recalls her spells there as restful. Eventually, she developed a passion for helping other drug addicts overcome their patterns of abuse. She thrived in the company of other women who were also recovering addicts, and collaborated with them on several projects. When she returned to the rehab center for a third time, she decided to put her plans into motion. In collaboration with an NGO for vulnerable women and drug addicts, Maryam worked on building a safe space for vulnerable social groups within the rehab center. She also ran several vocational programs and capacity-building workshops. Things had begun to look up for Maryam. She was doing something that she believed in and regained her youthful confidence. After settling down and getting married in 2010, Maryam gave birth to a daughter. Her life seemed perfect—till it wasn’t. Three years after her daughter’s birth, Maryam’s marriage soured. Depressed and despondent, she returned to using heroin. It wasn’t long till she was arrested during a drug bust for a third time. This time, she was sentenced to imprisonment. “My relationship with my child suffered because of this,” she said sorrowfully. “It’s like I’m a stranger to my own child and there’s no way to gain back the time I’ve lost.” After three years of serving time in prison, she was released on parole. This time around, Maryam’s family decided to send her to India for treatment. She got better there and returned to her family a healthier and happier person. Since her return from treatment, she admits that she still struggles to stay sober and hold on to relationships. Her time in prison had greatly impacted her mental health and made her reticent and reluctant to talk to strangers or new acquaintances. As Maryam continues to attempt to get to know and care for her daughter, she treads a delicate balance of resentment and relapse. Facing a wicked system Zulaikha remembers her stay at Himmafushi Rehabilitation Center differently. A regular returnee at the center, she did not have the network of family and financial support that Maryam relied on, and faced several obstacles along the way. In fact, Zulaikha insists that she did not benefit from rehab in the slightest. She would prefer to stay with a partner she admits is abusive towards her. The reason for that, she elaborates, is that there are no alternatives for women who lack an emotional and material support base in the form of family or wealth. There are no state-run or community-run shelters for vulnerable women looking for a safe space, and neither are there any detoxification or rehabilitation facilities available to them. Most women jailed for drug-related offenses often end up there for refusing to complete their treatment at the rehabilitation facility. Zulaikha remembers the facility itself as lacking the necessary infrastructure and support for recovering addicts. The Himmafushi Rehab Center houses recovering men and women who are supposed to always be segregated. Women are told to stay within the confines of a small compound within the larger Himmafushi Rehab Center and are not allowed any outdoors time. Over at the men’s enclosure, the rehab center organizes outdoor activities and classes, but women are barred from participating in them. Zulaikha’s misgivings about the rehab center have been repeated by several other recovering addicts as well, which suggests that the rehab center is severely lacking in essential facilities for the recovering addicts. Even though the Drugs Act of 2011 mandates separate recovery centers for men, women, and juveniles, so far there has been no work on building separate centers. Hence, everyone gets sent to the Himmafushi Rehab Center. The clinicians and staff at the center follow a Therapeutic Community Program which aims to focus on recovery through lifestyle changes, and not simply abstinence from drugs. Yet the center’s facilities are stretched painfully thin. Prisons too are choked with people arrested for drug possession—almost 99 per cent of all criminal cases are drug-related, after all—and these are the conditions which have forced lawmakers to reform laws pertaining to drug abuse. Yet reform work is painfully slow, hence the problems accompanying drug abuse fester and worsen over time. One of the most frequently cited problems is one of alienation—from care and support networks, as well as fellow recovering addicts. In the 1990s, there were no custodial buildings for women arrested on drug-related charges. So, when Fatima was arrested in Malé and sent to jail, she was put in a small isolation cell with another woman who became the first Maldivian woman sentenced to imprisonment for drug possession. Both women were suffering from withdrawals and ill health, but since Fatima was the younger one, the prison authorities tasked her with caring for her fellow inmate. Fatima’s own condition deteriorated while she tried her best to help the woman in jail with her. The woman was undergoing severe withdrawals and needed medical attention, but none was available. Instead, she died an agonizing death within 48 hours of her sentencing, while a dehydrated and listless Fatima watched her suffer helplessly. The sight is etched in her memory forever, she says. The prison authorities hushed up the matter, while Fatima says she was left alone in the cell to tend to her psychological and physical scars. When Fatima was arrested in Malé and sent to jail, she was put in a small isolation cell with another woman who became the first Maldivian woman sentenced to imprisonment for drug possession. Both women were suffering from withdrawals and ill health, but since Fatima was the younger one, the prison authorities tasked her with caring for her fellow inmate. Life hadn’t always been unkind to Fatima. Her family was wealthy, and she had led a comfortable life. It was the early 1990s and she was barely out of her teens, gullible and eager to explore the world. She jumped at the chance to try heroin with her older friends, thoroughly convinced that she would never get addicted. By the time she became aware of her drug dependency, it was too late. When her family found out about her condition, they arranged to send her abroad for two years to recover. They also made her sever ties with the friends she used heroin with. In 1994, Fatima returned to Malé and, within no time, began using heroin again. That's when everything went downhill, she recalls. Shooting heroin was the only priority in life, she says. Her memories of youth all involve using heroin with friends at restaurants and other places. This was a time when heroin was not that common—this was not brown sugar—and most people were unaware of its effects on people. This is how they got away with using the drug in public and remained socially functional. But it wasn’t long before she was picked up by the police in a drug bust and sent to jail. That is where she met the inmate who passed away from withdrawals. In the aftermath of the whole episode, Fatima was “banished” to an island instead of a prison. Historically, the term “banishment” has referred to the commonly prescribed punishment of internal exile to one of the many Maldives islands. Banishment as punishment was finally repealed in 2015 after the enactment of a new Penal Code. However, for Fatima, the punishment of banishment entailed being sent to live among a close-knit community of locals on an island in the south of the Maldives. There, she suffered from loneliness and isolation. The local people shunned anyone sent there in exile, especially if it was for drug-related offenses. Fatima was neither welcomed nor acknowledged in the community and she lived as an outcast in the eyes of the island residents. “I was scorned and ridiculed,” she recalls. “Women struggling with addiction are not acceptable in this society.” “Back in the 1990s,” she says, “the inhabited islands were destitute places.” The islanders had limited access to drinking water and electricity, and had to struggle to make ends meet. This felt like a rude jolt to Fatima, who had been accustomed to a life of luxury and gratification her entire life. She recalls those days as a never-ending spiral into tedium, with no one to keep her company, save for occasional telephone calls from her family, which she received at the singular telephone booth on the island. Thoroughly bored and miserable, she attempted to find ways to numb her pain, but could not, and that made her desire drugs even more. After her sentence ended, she returned to her family in Malé. There, her mental health deteriorated significantly and she started using heroin again. She began feeling resentful towards her family, friends, and even her daughter. Anger and rage festered beneath her attempts to regain control of her life, and she found herself unable to share her feelings with anyone, even those closest to her. Refusing to give up or give in, Fatima reached out to rehab centers locally and abroad for help in recovering. The experience of treatment abroad was markedly different from back home. She terms the Maldivian rehabilitation program “the Garfield program, since their clients are programmed to eat, sleep and repeat.” At the rehab centers in the Maldives, she adds, recovering addicts are called to a meeting every morning, but the goals or takeaways from that meeting aren’t clear to anyone. While the men were allowed to engage in (albeit a limited number of) activities, the women addicts were left alone in their quarters. The counselors were not properly trained or certified, and most of their clients chose not to open up and be honest about their drug use with them. The way Fatima describes her experience makes it appear as if rehab is a place where one goes to escape a jail conviction, get away from annoying family members, or is just somewhere you can mentally check out and go through the motions day after day. Either way, there is no measurable positive outcome. Her time in rehab centers abroad was quite different. The day was filled with a long list of activities and tasks to complete. The recovering addicts would work hard at these tasks from sunrise to late evening, which included yoga and cooking classes. Fatima says her self-esteem improved greatly during her time there. The clients at rehab (abroad) were encouraged to journal their feelings and experiences daily, she says, and this would help them arrive at new insights into the nexus between their mental health and addiction. Fatima says these activities helped her recognize the obsessive-compulsive tendencies that she has had since her childhood (even though she had never been formally diagnosed). The Scale of the Drug Epidemic There are several detox and rehabilitation centers operated by the government across the Maldivian archipelago, but only two of them are currently being used to help drug addicts recover. Close to half of the country‘s population is below 25 years of age, and at least half of that population is addicted to brown sugar. Such is the notoriety of the Maldivian youth, that the term for youth, which is “ zuvaanun,” has a negative connotation. It is commonly deployed to accuse someone of miscreancy or addiction. Suppose you hear of a road accident caused by a speeding motorbike, or see someone getting mugged on a street: as the average Maldivian, chances are that you will shake your head and cuss at those rapscallion zuvaanun. Throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, society in Malé was undergoing a radical shift. The islands were opening up to the outside world and people were bringing in all kinds of new (mostly western) ideas and ways of life to the country. The population of the capital city boomed as residents of other islands flocked to Malé in search of higher education and basic services that were boosted by the then-burgeoning tourism industry. They dreamed of a life where they would get greater access to amenities and opportunities to better their lives. Despite the influx of so many people, or perhaps because of it, some communities and generations clung to their traditions and roots. Their children were expected to diligently study, find stable jobs, marry, and spend their lives working and raising a family. Yet the generations growing up in the 1980s and 1990s faced a more tumultuous time. Some call them a generation that was lost in between an unprecedented cultural shift. Combined with the skyrocketing demand and supply of drugs on the tiny islands, it was easy to fall prey to drug addiction. Given the massive scale of the drug problem, it is shocking that there are so few resources to help tackle it. In the centers that are operational, recovering addicts share that medical treatment is lacking, counseling is substandard and ineffective, and that the whole program is woefully incompetent. In February 2021, a client seeking treatment at the Hanimaadhoo Detoxification Center passed away from severe withdrawals after not receiving medical attention. The center was subsequently shut down. Recently, on 14 November 2021, local media reported that a client who had just returned to Malé from a detoxification center was found dead in an abandoned home after succumbing to a drug overdose. The government body tasked with the management of detoxification and drug treatment centers is the National Drug Agency (NDA) of the Maldives. Among journalists and related staff, there is much talk of inaction, incompetence, and even accusations of corruption plaguing this institution. The Sri Lankan counterpart to the Maldivian NDA, the National Dangerous Drugs Control Board, runs programs for addicts in 11 prisons, while managing four treatment centers in heavily populated areas. The Sri Lankan drug control body also engages with thirteen private treatment and rehabilitation centers where clients can seek services for payment. Some Maldivian addicts who can afford treatment abroad frequently enroll in treatment centers in Sri Lanka, India, and Malaysia. But most drug addicts are poor and cannot afford to go abroad for treatment. In February 2021, a client seeking treatment at the Hanimaadhoo Detoxification Center passed away from severe withdrawals after not receiving medical attention. The center was subsequently shut down. Recently, the health minister of the Maldives was called to the parliament regarding an enquiry on the obstacles faced in finding solutions to the Maldives’ drug problem. The health minister stated that there was no quick solution to the large issue, and that the relevant authorities do not know the way forward. He mentioned the lack of research on drug abuse as one of the problems. However, he acknowledged that drugs and drug addiction are the most severe twin crises the country is facing today. Change NDA and Hands Together are two movements launched by recovering addicts and members of their families and communities. Both movements have been calling for reforms in the NDA. Though the movements lack numbers in their demonstrations and protests, their members are vocal and persistent. Last year, they submitted a “Change NDA 2020” petition to the People’s Majlis with over 1,000 signatures, prompting a mass inspection of all rehabilitation and detoxification centers being run by the NDA. This petition also resulted in heavy scrutiny of the organization, and the operations of the NDA were shifted from the Gender Ministry to the Health Ministry, with a new chairman appointed. Citizen engagement efforts and advocacy initiatives, along with transnational solidarity campaigns among recovering drug addicts, can help provide the impetus necessary to push the government towards action. It is not enough to rely on the goodwill of authorities who themselves admit to state collusion with drug cartels operating in the region. At present, most detoxification centers in the country are closed and there is no headway in improving the rehab infrastructure and facilities for recovering addicts. While there is talk of the government bringing on board a foreign private company to design a new, more effective rehabilitation and detoxification program, people on the ground know not to put too much faith in these talks of plans. At the end of the day, those who suffer through drug abuse and its related problems rely on the solidarity of family members, friends, and organizations to help them navigate an otherwise incredibly dehumanizing system. ∎ FICTION & POETRY Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5

COMMUNITY Dalit Legacies in Mythology, Sci-Fi & Fantasy Mimi Mondal in conversation with Associate Editor Nur Nasreen Ibrahim. VOL. 1 1 Oct 2020 INTERVIEW AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV. SHARE Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Interview Speculative Fiction Dalit Histories Mythology Genre Tropes Octavia Butler Samit Basu Hugo Award Nebula Award Satyajit Ray Rabindranath Tagore Jazz in India English Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. DISPATCH Interview Speculative Fiction Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. How are some gods' stories mythology and some folklore? It depends on how much political power they hold. RECOMMENDED: His Footsteps, Through Darkness and Light , a Nebula Award-shortlisted novelette by Mimi Mondal. FICTION & POETRY Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5

COMMUNITY Syncretism & the Contemporary Ghazal Musician Ali Sethi in conversation with Associate Editor Kamil Ahsan VOL. 1 14 Oct 2020 INTERVIEW AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV. SHARE Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Interview Music Ghazal Art History Historicity Syncretism Pakistani State Repression Faiz Ahmed Faiz Khabar-e-Tahayyar-e-Ishq Siraj Aurangabadi Mah Laqa Bai Sensuality Metaphor Cultural Repression Art Practice Sound Poetic Form Performance Art Grief Raaga Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. DISPATCH Interview Music Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. The Ghazal originated in Arabia in the 8th century. That's the funny stuff right? That in order to retrieve legitimate cosmopolitanism, we have to go back to a medieval multicultural moment. FICTION & POETRY Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5

COMMUNITY Returning to the Sundarbans Amitav Ghosh speaks to Kartika Budhwar about the Sundarbans & climate change and its relationship with literature. VOL. 1 28 Oct 2020 INTERVIEW AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV. SHARE Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Interview Climate Change Bay of Bengal Sundarbans Commonwealth Literature Climate Change and Literature Cyclone Amphan Evictions Migrant Workers Energy Crisis Geography Mythology Working-Class Stories Humanitarian Crisis Language Epistemology Gopinath Mohanty Failure of the Avant-Garde Debjani Bhattacharyya Modernism Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. DISPATCH Interview Climate Change Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. During COVID lockdowns, nobody seems to have considered the fate of migrant workers who were stranded in cities. Many were so desperate they started walking home. And right then, Cyclone Amphan started in the Bay of Bengal. All these catastrophes intersect disastrously. RECOMMENDED: The Nutmeg's Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis (Penguin Allen Lane, 2021) by Amitav Ghosh. FICTION & POETRY Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5

THE VERTICAL Everyone Failed Us Solidarity failed when it came to a dire Afghan refugee crisis, decades in the making. VOL. 2 ISSUE 1 24 Feb 2023 OP-ED AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Photograph courtesy of Arash Azizzada (November 2019). SHARE Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Op-Ed Afghanistan Refugee Crisis US Imperialism The Failure of the Diaspora Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. DISPATCH Op-Ed Afghanistan Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. “A group of women leaders are badly in danger and one of them is my mom. I really searching for a person who can help us. They attack our home at first…. I hope you can help us. Every one of us really get depressed, please help us to get out of here.” THE BARRAGE of messages I receive, like the one above from western Afghanistan on almost a daily basis has not stopped, even a year later. Desperate daily emails from Afghans seeking refuge and safety flood our inboxes. Some are social activists, human rights defenders, former interpreters, and women leaders at risk of retribution from the Taliban. Other marginalized groups such as Hazaras and Shias have already been victims of ethnic cleansing by the Taliban and remain targets of ISIS attacks. Women activists have been disappeared by the Taliban authorities. Afghans seeking evacuation hold onto hope in what seems to be a hopeless situation. No longer expecting the international community to come to their rescue, for governments and institutions to do what they’re supposed to do, they rely on community organizers like myself and others. For two decades, America bragged about what it was building in Afghanistan. Last summer, the “Afghanistan project” was exposed for the facade that it was: a hollow rentier-state that only held ever legitimacy with Western donors and not with the Afghan people. Despite obvious bubbles of progress where hope flourished amidst the violence, the impending threat of a drone strike or Taliban suicide blast was always around the corner. Some rural areas were battered and mired in misery due to violence and poverty; others flourished, led by Afghan women and marginalized communities. The only constant was never-ending conflict. It seems as if the U.S. built a house of cards in Afghanistan, created in its own image, a house that started falling when the chains of dependency were challenged. The alliance with human rights abusers, the elevation of notorious pedophiles, and funding of endemic corruption brought back to power an oppressive, authoritarian regime that is erasing women, marginalized ethnic groups, and the disabled from public and daily life. The U.S. ran prisons where innocent Afghans were tortured. Entire villages were wiped off the map, and this was excused away as collateral damage. The U.S. spent years telling Afghans to pursue their dreams, break barriers, and challenge cultural norms. Then, it turned its back on them and betrayed them. Perhaps those of us who dreamt of a better Afghanistan were at fault for having expectations of a country whose very existence was kickstarted by genocide, a country where American presidents attempt brazen coups and its own citizens storm its political headquarters. The grim reality that we bore witness to these past few months is one that anyone who has paid attention to Afghanistan could have seen coming. There is even a U.S. agency–the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR)--which is dedicated to overseeing how reconstruction money was used in Afghanistan. In report after report, year after year, quarter after quarter, SIGAR wrote about the ghosts that the U.S. created–schools and hospitals that didn’t exist and a 300,000-man army that only functioned on paper. The Washington Post even devoted a series titled “The Afghanistan Papers, ” to showcase how policymakers and Pentagon officials had lied and deceived the American people about its success and accomplishments for 20 successive years. Nobody cared. The failure to value Afghan lives, however, lies not just with policymakers and elected officials. Certainly, the list of those responsible for the current situation in Afghanistan is long, ranging from Afghan elites to American elected officials from both parties going back four decades. Administration after administration has deprioritized Afghan lives and centered the needs of American hegemony. Congress held hearings on Afghanistan and yet rarely featured any Afghans. Policy discussions on Afghanistan in Washington D.C. at influential think tanks left out Afghans entirely. Afghans were left invisible in an occupation that lasted so long that it became not the “forever war” but rather the “forgotten war.” Afghanistan had disappeared from the psyche of the American people. Even when SIGAR released a report on rampant corruption that was wasting billions or when the Washington Post talked about lie after lie coming from the Pentagon, America just didn’t seem to care. The right-wing was too busy destroying democracy, the Democratic party was too busy fundraising from defense contractors, and the anti-war Left was too white to put Afghans and other impacted communities at the forefront. In our own Afghan American community, too many in our diaspora were profiting off the occupation. Their kids will go to prestigious American colleges, while Afghan girls will not be able to go to school at all and are robbed of a future. An international audience did finally pay attention to us last summer. American media, though, centered on the feelings of almost a million veterans who served in Afghanistan rather than asking Afghans how a withdrawal would impact them. The images of Afghans clinging onto the bottom of a military cargo plane had the world hooked. What does it say about our humanity that it took those tragic images for everyone to ask what we can do to help? For just a few days, people across the globe valued Afghan life. But moments like that are fleeting–Afghan history is littered with broken promises. Some of us have read enough history to know that the international community will not learn the lessons of its failure in Afghanistan and begin centering on the needs of the Afghan people. The Taliban spends every day perfecting its repression while the world has moved on, despite empty tweets and statements of solidarity. Today, as a year has passed since the chaotic withdrawal, wide-ranging sanctions on Afghanistan and theft of Afghan assets by the U.S. continue to inflict immense pain on innocent Afghan people, causing a humanitarian crisis that will likely lead to mass-scale death through malnutrition and starvation, a policy that disproportionately impacts Afghan girls and women. The United States’ attitude remains the same: focusing only on self-interest, even if it harms Afghans, except now it is done through economic warfare rather than through bombs built by defense contractor companies like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. Afghans deserve justice and reparations for the harm America has caused in my home country. Despite that vision for the future, what America leaves behind are closed immigration pathways and a desire to pretend Afghans don’t exist in the first place. Perhaps if a few more Afghans clung onto a plane leaving the Kabul airport, someone would care. ∎ FICTION & POETRY Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5

COMMUNITY Vol. 2 Launch Event: "Apertures" Album Release with the Vagabonds Trio A live performance & launch event for Volume 2 of SAAG. VOL. 2 ISSUE 1 19 May 2023 LIVE PERFORMANCE AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 A live performance by experimental Rajna Swaminathan, Ganavya & Utsav Lal. SHARE Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Live Performance Brooklyn Experimental Music Jazz mrudangam Rajna Swaminathan Apertures Ganavya Utsav Lal Launch Event Contemporary Music Ropeadope Miles Okazaki Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. DISPATCH Live Performance Brooklyn Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. On May 12th, 2023, SAAG hosted a launch event for Vol. 2 at the Soapbox Gallery in Brooklyn, for which we were delighted to present the experimental and deeply moving musical compositions of the Vagabonds Trio: Rajna Swaminathan (mrudangam/voice), Ganavya (voice), and Utsav Lal (piano) who we had the pleasure of collaborating with a second time after his opening performance for In Grief, In Solidarity . They were joined partway by Miles Okazaki (guitar). To showcase musicians with such incredible musical range, a commitment to radicalism and social justice as expressed in the lyricism and melodies, and a deep rigor and discipline with their craft, was a true honor. We hope you enjoy the recording of the live event and the improvisational way it shifted from the respective discographies of each member of the trio, shifting seamlessly from several languages, including Tamil, English, Urdu, and more. Most of all, the performance celebrates the release of Rajna Swaminathan's new album Apertures (Ropeadope, Apr 28th), available to buy or stream now . FICTION & POETRY Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5

THE VERTICAL Chokepoint Manipur The many costs of internet shutdowns amid violence in India’s northeastern state. VOL. 2 ISSUE 1 3 Oct 2023 REPORTAGE AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Courtesy of Sadiq Naqvi, from Kangpokpi, Manipur. SHARE Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Reportage Manipur State & Media Technology & Majoritarianism Tribal Conflict Kuki-Zo Meitei Indigeneity Scheduled Tribes Politics of Ethnic Identity Constitutional Recognition Social Media Disinformation Internet Crackdowns Media Landscape Internet Blackouts Kangpokpi Unverified Information Gender Violence Newsclick The Print Imphal The Guardian Deccan Herald India Today Nikkei Asia Meitei Leepun Churachandpur RSS Viral Clips Twitter Narratives State Government Narrative Majoritarianism Indigeneous Spaces Politics of Indigeneity Ethnically Divided Politics AFSPA Sister States Modi Meitei Peoples Local vs. National Politics Caste Tribes Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. DISPATCH Reportage Manipur Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. On the morning of July 19, 2023, my phone kept alerting me to WhatsApp messages, as it had done during the previous three months following the eruption of violence along ethnic lines in India’s northeastern state of Manipur. This time was different. It was a video accompanied by the following message: “If your blood doesn’t boil seeing this barbaric and inhuman treatment of fellow human being by Meitei goons, your conscious [sic] is equally morally dead. Period.” Before I could open it, other messages started pouring in, asking if I had watched the video. Others warned against circulating it over social media and messaging apps. Meanwhile, the 26-second clip of two women being paraded naked on the streets by a mob of men—groping and molesting the two while walking through paddy fields—had already gone viral. The incident recorded in the clip, however, was over two months old. On May 3, after the state’s highest court recommended that Manipur’s dominant Meitei community be included among the country’s Scheduled Tribe—a constitutional list that guarantees affirmative action for those included—the state’s hill tribe groups carried out mass rallies in protest. The same day, an attempted arson of a Kuki war memorial and the fire set on Meitei villages by unidentified individuals led to state-wide clashes between the Meiteis and the Kuki-Zo tribes. The two women, belonging to the Vaiphei community that is part of the larger umbrella of Kuki-Zo tribes of the Northeast, were assaulted by the street mob a day later. In some ways, these conflicts in Manipur demonstrate the Indian republic’s complicated politics of ethnic identity and claims for constitutional protection. Demands for affirmative action by regionally dominant groups is not unusual in India, as seen with the Pateldars in Gujarat, Marathas in Maharashtra, and, more recently, the Pahadis in Jammu and Kashmir. With regards to the Meiteis, who converted to Hinduism in the 18th century, its socially weaker sections already had access to the constitutionally defined Scheduled Castes, Other Backward Classes, and Economically Weaker Sections. These categories enable access to affirmative action as well as select government grants and scholarships. The demand to also be included among the Scheduled Tribes was initially a fringe cause within the Meiteis, with the Hindu Brahmins (the priestly caste at the top of the Hindu caste pyramid) of that community least open to the idea of being degraded to the status of a ‘Hao’ (tribal people). However, the project gained steam with the revival of the indigenous Meitei faith Sanamahism in the last few decades. The return to their indigenous roots has emboldened their belief that they were short-changed by the government, which didn’t recognize them as a ‘tribe' after Manipur was annexed by the Indian Union in 1949. The crisis has been further compounded by internet restrictions in place since May 4. Far from the state government’s stated intention to control “the spread of disinformation and false rumours through various social media platforms,” lack of access to the internet has resulted in a flood of fake news and rampant disinformation, where genuine footage documenting violence has often been depicted as ‘fake’, and where unverified rumors have been deployed to instigate sexual violence. In a civil conflict where the state government has unabashedly shown its loyalty to the majority ethnic community and the federal government has maintained the status quo, both physical carnage and the information wars are far from even-keeled. In this, Manipur has proved to be another troubling illustration of the Indian authorities’ habit of curbing internet access in regions seeing widespread conflict, where a choked information ecosystem has helped the powerful and hurt the politically weaker sections facing majoritarian violence. Background of the May violence In the months leading up to the May violence, a concerted campaign was already being led by Manipur’s Chief Minister Biren Singh, who hails from the ruling Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), against the minority Kuki-Zo tribes, who were peddled as the key culprits of the underground drug industry and portrayed as ‘illegal immigrants’ from neighboring Myanmar. Although the Kuki-Zo tribes make up only 16 percent of the population, Singh had been stoking majoritarian Meitei sentiments of the tribes’ “sudden” decadal growth, particularly in the wake of the refugee crisis from coup-hit Myanmar, with no recent census data to back it up. This is despite the neighboring state of Mizoram, where the dominant population has stronger ethnic ties to the Chin refugees, bearing a much greater brunt of the refugee population. In light of the Meitei’s dominant demographics (they are over 50 percent of Manipur’s population) compared to their relatively smaller territorial spread (they occupy roughly 10 percent of the state that is in the valley), the chief minister preyed on the community’s insecurity over limited resources and supremacist notions of cultural superiority. By all accounts, viral, unverified social media messages and rumors of Meiteis being beaten, killed and raped in the Churachandpur hill district in part triggered the attacks in the valley. Subsequently, civilians, senior government officials, politicians, and judges belonging to the Kuki-Zo tribes from the valley were targeted. This led to retaliatory attacks on the Meiteis in the hill districts, although in much smaller numbers compared to officials and families from the tribes in the valley. Internet connections across the state of Manipur were switched off a day after violence broke out, which has killed more than 180 people thus far—with casualties growing by the weeks—and displaced more than 70,000 from their homes and localities, reducing them to ghost towns. A police complaint filed on May 18 in response to the public assault against the two women furnishes some details about the incident. An armed mob of up to a thousand persons belonging to Meitei youth organizations entered the B.Phainom village in the hill tribal district of Kangpokpi, where they vandalized and looted personal property. Seeking to escape the violence of the mob, five residents of the village, including the two women, fled to the forests; they were later rescued by the state police, only to be apprehended by the same mob that snatched them from police custody. “All the three women were physically forced to remove their clothes and were stripped naked in front of the mob,” the complaint noted, adding that “the younger brother who tried to defend his sister’s modesty and life was murdered by members of the mob on the spot.” Even before the video of the attack on the two women in Kangpokpi appeared on social media, the incident had been reported by two online news portals—on June 1 by, Newsclick , and on July 12 by The Print —as part of the coverage of the sexual assaults during the Manipur violence. However, it was finally the graphic video that brought national attention to the state like it hadn’t in the last three months. Kaybie Chongloi, a Kuki journalist based in Kangpokpi District where the incident took place, told me that no one knew of the existence of the video until the previous day when a driver noticed Meitei men watching it on their phones. “He had asked them to share the video via Bluetooth, and that’s how we got to see it for the first time,” said Chongloi. By the next morning, he added, the video had been widely shared across WhatsApp and social media platforms. It also compelled Prime Minister Narendra Modi to finally break his silence on Manipur, almost three months after the v iolence, calling the crime “ an insult to the entire country. ” Skewed media landscape Since the outbreak of violence in early May, a steady stream of photo and video footage has appeared on social media, showing private residences and villages being burned down, even capturing the collusion of state police in these incidents. Meanwhile, pieces of disinformation have been shared by verified Twitter handles of socially influential figures with global platforms. This includes, for example, Licipriya Kangujam, a young climate influencer managed by her alleged ‘con man’ father , and Binalakshmi Nepram, a women’s rights activist and recent scholar-at-residence at Harvard University. On May 4, soon after the violence started, Kangujam shared the video of a burning residence saying “illegal immigrants are burning the houses of our Meitei indigenous community in Manipur”. Hours earlier, however, Tonsing S, a Kuki-Zo scholar at Michigan University, had already shared the same video, showing a Kuki-Zo residential locality in the state capital of Imphal, from where his family had recently been displaced. Kangujam has also shared videos showing disruption and mayhem, which she squarely blamed on ‘illegal immigrant’ and ‘poppy cultivating’ Kukis. Meanwhile, although seen advocating for peace on national television, Nepram has also been culpable in spreading misinformation, with a clear prejudice against the Kuki-Zo tribal groups. This includes sharing fake news on landmines allegedly placed by an armed group in a Manipur village, despite the information being debunked as false (reverse-image lookup found that the photos used in the story were from Jammu and Kashmir). She has not yet removed the tweet. More generally, Meitei-owned outlets and journalists from the community, who dominate the media landscape in the state, have been accused of being compromised , heavily toeing the state line, which is against the Kuki-Zo tribes. Apart from the accounts of these well-known personalities, several blue check-marked accounts have surfaced on Twitter since May, thanks to Elon Musk’s new policy on paid accounts which abandons its previous verification process, which have furthered disinformation campaigns. Take, for instance, a right-leaning website with the twitter handle @dintentdata that shot to limelight during the Manipur violence ostensibly as a “fact checker”. Its origins and ownership are unknown but the account has toed the Manipur state government’s narrative, as illustrated in a thread that called Kukis “illegals” migrating from Myanmar who had weaponized themselves to target the Meitei community. In the initial weeks, the running narrative on illegal immigrants and the Myanmar crisis dominated the coverage of the violence in mainstream Indian media outlets like Deccan Herald and India Today as well as in international publications like The Diplomat and the Washington Post . Unequal internet ban As I reported for Nikkei Asia in July, vast amounts of disinformation have emerged from the Manipur crisis not only because of an internet ban but due to its uneven nature: it has offered privileged access to businesses and media close to power, mostly in the valley. Dedicated internet services remained selectively available to particular businesses in the valley and government offices, with the approval of the home department. Notably, in the midst of an internet ban, members of Manipur-based right-wing Meitei groups, such as Meitei Leepun and an armed militia, Arambai Tenggol, have been posting inflammatory hate speech on their social media accounts. “Refrain from creating chaos at Imphal, we can no longer attack them here,” announced Korounganba Khuman, the militant leader of Arambai Tenggol, on his Facebook account. Written in Meitei Lon, he added, “We have a plan, which you'll hear about in two days’ time. Let's work together on this. Let us fight with all our might for our land and identity.” No action from the state government has been initiated on such open invocations of violence against the Kuki-Zo communities. Meanwhile, Meitei Leepun’s founding leader Pramot Singh went on national television (in an interview with veteran journalist Karan Thapar in The Wire ), threatening to “blow away” the tribals from the hills. In the past, Singh has been associated with Akhil Bhartiya Vishwa Parishad, the student wing of the Hindu nationalist militant outfit Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Both groups—Arambai Tenggol and Meitei Leepun—have been openly endorsed by Chief Minister Singh and Leishemba Sanajaoba, the titular king of Manipur and a member of the upper house of the parliament. On July 25, Manipur state authorities lifted the ban on broadband services while retaining several severe restrictions. This included blocking social media websites, virtual private network (VPN) services and WiFi hotspots, while allowing for the physical monitoring of subscribers by concerned officials. Those seeking to access the internet under these conditions were required to sign an undertaking agreeing to the enforced monitoring by officials. After nearly five months of ban, mobile internet access was resumed by the state government on September 23, only to be soon suspended for the next five days amid protests after photographs showing the allegedly deceased bodies of two missing Meitei students surfaced online. The state government confirmed their death in a statement, but their bodies remain missing at the time of the publication of this story . A marketing professional from Imphal Valley, who asked not to be identified, said that in the early days of the internet ban, people were resorting to all sorts of loopholes: machine SIM cards used for digital payment (apps like Paytm and Google Pay), Vodafone VPN ports, and international E-SIMs like Airalo . “People would use SIM cards bought from other states, since Vodafone sim cards sold out in Manipur very fast at a going rate of INR 2000,” he said, speaking from an undisclosed location in the Northeast that he and his family have moved to temporarily. The IT company where his wife works had put her on leave during the shutdown weeks and was threatening layoffs to employees who wouldn’t come online. Sources from the area told me that local broadband providers in both the hills and the valley did not comply with the government order to switch off internet services. SAAG has accessed a copy of a state-government order that notes the “misuse of additional connection on whitelisted/reactivated” internet lines and reports of “accessibility of internet facility” in the Kuki-majority Churachandpur area. No such order was issued against any centers in the valley, even though the government eventually put a curb on all these loopholes. For five years, India has been leading the global record for the highest number of Internet shutdowns in the world with at least 84 cases recorded in 2022 , far higher than the war-hit Ukraine, which saw 22 shutdowns imposed by the Russian military after their invasion of the country. According to Software Freedom Law Centre ’s internet shutdown tracker , India has seen a total of 759 shutdowns since 2012, with Jammu and Kashmir experiencing the majority of the bans, and Manipur featuring fourth on the list. In June, a joint report on internet shutdowns in India, released by Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Internet Freedom Foundation , a digital rights advocacy group in India, found that the Indian authorities’ decisions to disrupt internet access were “often erratic and unlawful”. The report cited a Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology report that concluded, “So far, there is no proof to indicate that internet shutdown [sic] has been effective in addressing public emergency and ensuring public safety.” Meenakshi Ganguly, the HRW South Asia director, told me that while authorities have the responsibility to contain the spread of incitement to hate or violence, and to combat disinformation, simply denying internet access can end up further stoking fear and divisiveness. “Without access to credible information, internet shutdowns risk the spread of rumor-based retaliatory attacks, perpetuating the cycle of violence,” she said. Missing outrage The role of fake news and disinformation in instigating violence, including sexual assaults, against tribal women in Manipur has been well-documented . However, despite videos of these incidents floating online after the breakout of the violence, neither local nor national media reported on it or verified and pursued these leads. Several weeks before the infamous Kangpokpi video of the two women being paraded naked was out, another clip of a Kuki-Zo woman begging Meitei women to let go of her was doing the rounds. Speaking in Meitei Lon, the Meitei women are seen instigating men to rape 29-year-old Nancy Chingthianniang, who was later interviewed by the UK-based Guardian , a few weeks before her video went viral again. She lost her husband and mother-in-law to the mob. Chingthianniang herself was beaten black and blue until she passed out. Seeing the video of herself instantly triggered her. “I felt scared like I was back in that moment even though I was not raped,” she told me over the phone. When asked how she felt about these videos of herself and the women paraded being circulated online, Chingthianniang said it was for the better. “Hoi ka sa, eh; I'm glad that it’s out,” she said. “Now people know what these Meira Paibis (Meitei civic activists known as ‘women torchbearers’) really did to us.” While the public responses to the viral Kangpokpi video was welcomed by the Kuki-Zo community, especially as it led to the swift arrest of at least seven of the accused, the heinous crimes against the community have not seen similar reactions. On July 2, two weeks before the Kangpokpi video was released, photos and footage of a severed head perched on a fence went viral on WhatsApp groups, shocking members of the Kuki-Zo community. The head belonged to David Thiek, a resident of Langza village in the foothills of the Churachandpur tribal hill district. He had been defending his village on the day when an armed militia from the valley attacked it. Thiek’s head was severed off and his body burned down to ashes, the remains of which were draped in the traditional shawl of the Hmar tribe that he belonged to. A few days later, Sang Tonsing, a 24-year-old social worker from the Kuki-Zo community living outside Manipur, saw the screenshot of a photo posted by a Twitter account titled ‘Nongthombam Rohen Meetei’ (now deleted) with the caption, “Killing of meetei by kuki militants [sic]”. The photo showed a man, his face digitally obscured by red brush strokes, holding a machete in one hand and a severed head in another. A copy of the photo downloaded from Twitter shows a time stamp of 5.45 p.m. on July 2, 2023. Suspecting the severed head to belong to Thiek, Tonsing and a group of other social-media savvy friends attempted to verify the photo, beginning with reverse image verification on Google and TinEye. The photo appeared original. Tonsing then began scanning the local Meitei news channels, particularly Mami and Elite TV, since these channels had extensively covered the chief minister visiting the Meitei-dominated Bishnupur district in the valley, bordering the Kuki Zo villages that were attacked. That is when he noticed the same outfit as was worn by the man in the photo: a dark-teal-colored full-sleeved t-shirt paired with brown track pants and a camouflage tactical vest. “There was no way that another person could be wearing the same exact outfit,” he said. But that wasn’t their only lead. The person seen on the news clip, whose outfit matched with that of the assailant in the photograph, was eventually tracked on Facebook. He was identified as Mairembam Romesh Mangang, the public relations officer or the security detail of S Premchandra Singh, a Bharatiya Janata Party member of Manipur’s legislative assembly who represented the Kumbi constituency. Tonsing said that they instinctively thought to check the accounts of those associated with the MLA of Kumbi, since it was close to Langza village, where David was killed. “Secondly,” he added, “Kumbi is known to be a hotspot of Meitei insurgent groups where politicians conduct their financial dealings with underground groups.” The screenshot is now part of an investigation into the incident where members of the Arambai Tenggol and Meitei Leepun are among the accused. SAAG reached out to Premchandra Singh, the MLA of Kumbi, who did not respond to the request for comment. (This piece will be updated as and when he responds.) While Tonsing and his friends may have made a plausible case of identification, what remains unexplained is why that photo was leaked online. His guess is one of three scenarios: one, someone from one of the Meitei-run WhatsApp groups carelessly uploaded it; two, there may still be whistleblowers among the Meitei groups who want the truth out; and three, which he thinks most likely, is that this was an attempt to manipulate the narrative in their favor as victims rather than perpetrators of the crime. Either way, he’s certain that more videos would surface once the internet ban is fully lifted. “Nowadays everyone’s got a smartphone and they are filming videos when they go to burn villages. Since these are mobs of 5000-odd people, they can’t control what people are shooting”, said Tonsing. Meanwhile in the valley, there have been news reports, albeit unverified, of missing Meitei individuals being tortured and killed in viral clips. In early July, hours after two cousins—27-year-old Irengbam Chinkheinganba and 31-year-old Sagolshem Ngaleiba Meitei from Kakching District—had gone missing, a video began circulating which showed two men being slapped and kicked, before being shot from behind. A BBC report noted that another video showing the shooting of a man surfaced two months later. While neither of the videos has been independently verified, the families of the missing two have identified the two men in the videos as Chinkheinganba and Ngaleibav. Similarly, the parents of a young teenager , who went missing along with her friend near the hill district, have identified their daughter in a clip that showed a girl being beheaded, allegedly by Kuki assailants. However, when SAAG checked the video, the perpetrators were speaking in the Burmese tongue, and not any of the languages or dialects native to Manipur. Videos connected to both of these disappearances surfaced only after the clip of the naked Vaipehi women made headlines. In our post-truth era, the conflict is not limited to violence in the buffer zones, but is also a war of perceptions on social media where fake news, morphed footage, and decontextualized information often seek to compound the confusion. Majoritarian manipulation Manipur is a state now divided like never before. Ethnic fault lines have always run deep, sometimes deeper and thicker than bloodlines despite enough instances of intermarriage between communities. The murder of a 7-year-old Kuki boy in early June, alongside his mother and his maternal aunt, en route to a hospital through the valley is emblematic of this. Even though the boy’s mother and maternal aunt belonged to the Meitei community, the mob made up of Meira Paibis and other Meiteis did not spare them and set the ambulance on fire after the murders. Local media operating out of Imphal and dominated by journalists from the Meitei community —or owned by politicians of the same community—did not report this incident, just as they ignored several other stories like the seven rape cases registered to date . Forget the tyranny of distance between New Delhi-based national media and Manipur, newsrooms based in the valley often don’t go and cover neighboring hill districts. In the present crisis, where Manipur’s Chief Minister Singh stands accused of orchestrating the violence against the Kuki-Zo community, with the majority-controlled media not covering the hills, and given only a partial lift on the internet blackout, the scales are tipped heavily against the minority tribes. In early September, in a report on the media coverage of the violence, the Editors’ Guild of India lamented how the Manipur media had turned into “Meitei media” and held the internet ban responsible for the media being overly reliant on the state’s narrative. Shortly after, two police complaints under sections of defamation, promoting enmity, and criminal conspiracy were filed against members of the Guild’s fact-finding committee. Meanwhile, rather than working to gain the confidence of the Kuki-Zo communities as their political representative, we instead find the chief minister getting into a late-night spat on Twitter, asking a Kuki-identifying user if they are from Manipur or Myanmar. As violence continues unabated in the “ buffer zones ” between the hills and the valley, where both communities live in relative proximity, rumors and disinformation remain rampant on both sides. In the din of contrasting narratives laying the blame exclusively on the other side, Spearcorps , an official Indian Army account on Twitter, has emerged as a neutral line for updates on the clashes. After days of speculation over the women-led civil-society group Meira Paibis aiding armed rioters to attack tribal villages by creating road blockades, the Spearcorps posted a tweet noting that “Women activists in #Manipur are deliberately blocking routes and interfering in Operations of Security Forces.” The post went on to appeal to “all sections of population to support our endeavours in restoring peace.” This new normal is especially significant in a state that has a long history of confrontation with the Indian Army, which stands accused of many human-rights excesses through the application of a special martial law, the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. Naturally, the dominant Meitei community, its representative media and the state government see the army as biased in favor of the tribal groups, and accuse the armed forces of assisting Kuki "militants" . When I spoke to a source in the army who has been monitoring the security situation in Manipur, he argued that the neutrality of central security forces was evident in their assistance in the speedy evacuation of Meiteis from the hill districts. The only time that the local media had ever portrayed them in a positive light, he said, was when they reported the “rescue” of five Meitei civilians from Kuki “militants” (notably, Meitei attackers are often called ‘miscreants’ in these reports). “Except that it was the Kukis who had handed over the Meitei civilians to us in good faith,” he told me. But that detail never made it in any of the Meitei-run press. With such opportunities for solidarity that could have led to a ceasefire on violence and retaliatory attacks now looking increasingly remote, we find the strengthening of the Kuki-Zo tribes’ resolve to settle for separate administration away from the Manipur government. To be sure, the disturbing video of the Vaiphei women may have led to police action after weeks of inaction, and it has alerted the country and the world to the scale of violence. But on the home front, the civil war is nowhere near an end. In turn, it only fueled the war over narratives, where Manipuri social media was suddenly filled with posts asking Meitei women to come out with stories of their defilement. On August 9, the first police complaint of a Meitei woman alleging sexual assault was filed in the valley, in which the complainant said she was assaulted by “Kuki miscreants” on May 3, when Meitei houses in Churachandpur were being burned down. “The delay in filing this complaint is due to social stigma,” the complaint said. In the midst of all the suffering and counter narratives, Prime Minister Modi only took cognizance of the video, which he called “an insult to society,” while undermining the scale and context of the conflict in Manipur by equating it to violence in states like Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. Despite the terrible cost that the two tribal women had to pay with their dignity for Modi—and the rest of India—to finally take notice and speak up, he maintained his position as a BJP star campaigner rather than the leader of a democracy. Apar Gupta, an advocate who founded Internet Freedom Foundation, was apologetic in his tone as many have been while talking to me about Manipur, which happens to be my home state. Beyond the scale of violence that the viral video alone has revealed and the sore lack of access to relief and medical aid for the internally displaced, he sharply questioned whose interest the internet ban had served. “I believe beyond this individual specific instance, the internet shutdown has served the function of contouring our media national narrative,” said Gupta. “Manipur is burning, but we don't care.” ∎ FICTION & POETRY Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5