The North East usually comes on our radar, as a place of insurgency and internal wars, or as more recently our passage to the “east”, a conduit for the Look East Policy. But another unique and significant feature of the North east is that women hold up more than half the sky, to recall Mao Tse Dung. They are the principal wholesale and retail traders. They are also the informal banks.

In these days of debate on the entry of large players into retail trade, a player who is unique and yet shows the value of petty vending for not only income but self esteem and women's power, is the women’s market in Imphal.
Economist Bina Aggarwal has written about a field of her own, and what assets mean to women’s self esteem and well being. Virginia Woolf has spoken of a place of one's own, the space where a woman can be herself, and R K Narayan in the Dark Room captured the same desire of women.

Voices of women from the women’s market in Imphal, a market that goes back to 1860, resonates this spirit.

Sixty- year-old Hom Khomdon, who has five sons and two daughters, and did not go to school at any time, and whose husband is a carpenter, and has been working as a vendor of cloth for more than 10 years, says “I am bored at home, and also it gives me self esteem.” And so does 75-year-old Rashamani Ahanthem, whose husband is a farmer and who has been in this trade for 30 years.

In these days of debate on the entry of large players into retail trade, the women's market shows that the need and search for livelihood, is not only for the income, but the socialisation and self esteem. Thus when the debate is only on  the fact that large retailers can employ those that they dislocate, this factor is not remembered, in a field of one’s own.

The market is a veritable “Fresh Reliance” of another ethic, with narrow lanes and vendors on both sides, displaying goods extremely neatly. It looks surrealistic, like a painting. As the women vendors mostly Meitei , are beautiful with the white lines of a tilak on their forehead, shiny hair in buns, there is a sense of power,  flowing from their persona from that of women's solidarity.

No noise here, no shouting, calling of shoppers, or the bustle of bargaining. There is a dignity, an aura radiated by strong, self assured women.

The history of women’s power in Manipur goes back to many centuries. There is a story of the Nupi Lan(women’s war) when the women protested against the import of rice from Myanmar – across the border, and when they were not heard they set fire to the British Resident’s house, with the Resident inside.

Later, on another issue, namely the excessive alcoholism of their men, women marched from various corners of the state of Manipur, like the Roman Army, to Imphal and held the Chief Minister at bay till he promulgated prohibition in Manipur.  Even today nashabandi, continues in Manipur and the women’s front -- the Meira Paibi, is a force to contend with.

However all is not well. Some years ago the government wanted to pull down the old market and build a multi-storeyed building which would house a larger and more variegated set of shops. The women not only protested but for three years they held the municipality at bay, by actually sleeping at the spots from which they sold, with mosquito nets, as Imphal is really infested with mosquito's. This was a genuine modern day satyagraha.

Finally the government negotiated with the group, saying they would have them come back to the new market and give them all space in the way they wanted, if they would shift for a year since the place really was extremely unsanitary and needed re-building. Another three years have passed and the new market has not been built.

In the mean time, they are sitting in another part of Imphal. As 45-year-old M Tampaklivma, who sells Silk Phaneks – a lungi type garment, says “the  old one is much better. This place is very congested, and gives us less profit. In the old market we had 4 sq feet per person, in the new area we are given only three.

The Government has committed to complete it by March 2008.” Her husband is in business and she has two sons
When we tried to interview 60-year-old Ibempishak, spokesperson of the market women, the leader of the Women Organisation, Samgat Sagatpa Lup, was angry, and did not want to be interviewed: “people keep coming to interview us but we have not had any support from women’s organisations from any part of India to press the government to live up to its promise made years ago. It is only through joining with other vendors and the Meira Paibi, that we get any help.”

This is one of the challenges that women generally face on how to convert their economic values and contribution to social and political power. In the North East this can be said even more strongly, as these women who hold up half the sky are nowhere in the governance of the region.