Screening of Bollywood movies marked a return to strife-torn Manipur on Tuesday, around 23 years after militant organisations enforced a ban on them.

The Kuki-Zo tribal students’ organization Hmar Students’ Association (HSA) hosted a Bollywood film screening of “Uri: The Surgical Strike” at Rengkai in the Churachandpur hill district in honor of the country’s 77th Independence Day celebrations.

A projector was set up to show the movie to a small group of people starting at 7:30 pm. More than 100 individuals showed up to the screening to witness the historic occasion. The 1990s movie “Kuch Kuch Hota Hai” was also scheduled.
In fact, “Kuch Kuch Hota Hai” was the Hindi film that was last shown in a theater in Manipur in the late 1990s.

The HSA screened Bollywood movies to exhibit its defiance against the ban imposed on Hindi films. “As Indians, we must have access to arts and movies produced from all parts of India in public theatres,” Lalremsang, an executive member of HSA, said.

Lalremsang explained that the main reason cited the militants for the banning of Hindi films was that they considered Hindi films as foreign films which influenced Meitei/Manipuri culture in a bad way. “The state government till today backs this ban but we do not subscribe to it,” he added.
Churachandpur had a couple of theatres but they were later shut down after the ban on the screening of Hindi films was imposed. Several others in the Meitei-majority Imphal valley were shut down as well, it was informed.

Back in 2000, the insurgent group Revolutionary Peoples Front issued a diktat, banning Hindi or more specifically Bollywood movies, for allegedly destroying Manipuri culture, language and the local film industry. The outfit was of the belief that Bollywood went against Manipuri values.

In due course of time, the militants resorted to confiscation of thousands of video cassettes of Hindi films and music, burning them as a mark of protest against the “Indianisation” of Manipur. The ban killed off the movie theatre business in the state.

The biopic on Manipur’s champion boxer MC Mary Kom was also prevented from being screened in her home state as a result of this restriction. The lead was played by Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra, who also played the boxer in the film.

Since unrest broke out on May 3, thousands of people have been displaced and there have been several ethnic conflicts between the dominant Meitei and tribal Kuki populations in Manipur. Over 160 people have already died in these skirmishes.

(With Input Source)