An Interview with Haobam Paban Kumar

In plain terms, AFSPA expands to Armed Forces Special Powers Act, an act of the Indian Parliament that grants special powers to the Indian army to maintain law and order in “disturbed areas”. But there is nothing plain about AFSPA;¹ the Indian army is alleged to have committed grave atrocities and human rights violations under its name. AFSPA is in force in parts of India where separatist movements and tension with the mainland have remained high. 

Haobam Paban Kumar began his journey in filmmaking as a documentarian with AFSPA 1958 (2006). The film documents the aftermath of one such atrocity – the rape, torture and murder of Thangjam Manorama,² a 32-year-old woman in the state of Manipur, India in 2004. Protests broke out throughout the state with a historic photograph turning into a symbol of the uprising – 30 middle aged women walked naked through Imphal, the state capital, to the Assam Rifles headquarters.³ 

AFSPA is applicable in several parts of India, most famously in Kashmir and less famously in parts of Northeast India that is hidden from mainstream news and culture. It is why Haobam and filmmakers from Northeast India are more important than ever. After several years of making documentaries, the Manipur filmmaker made his fictional feature debut with Loktak Lairembee (Lady of the Lake, 2016), a film reflecting gun culture in Manipur that travelled to Berlin and Busan, followed by Nine Hills One Valley (2021), the title a popular phrase representing the topography of Manipur. His latest film is Joseph’s Son (2023). The nature of recording and documenting prevails in his fiction features as well. People in his films fight their inner conflicts that stem from outer tensions. Joseph’s Son is about a father looking for his missing son; the police ask him to check a dead body matching his son’s features in Imphal. Haobam’s fictional features are an attempt at not only telling Manipur stories but also exercises in documenting the many facets of the state. In Nine Hills One Valley, a character refers to Manipur as mini-India. The state is after all a melting pot of ethnic groups, languages and inherent tensions, a region thrust into the mainland without its consent only to witness several uprisings and separatist movements over the decades – the Naga-Kuki war of the 1990s and more recently the violence that broke out between the Meiteis and the Kuki-Zo community in 2023.⁴ What started as clashes during peaceful protests of the order to recommend (to the Central government as part of an affirmative action initiative) Scheduled Tribe status for the valley-based Meitei community (the Kuki, Naga, Mizos populate the hills), erupted into full scale violence within a week. In Nine Hills One Valley, there is documentation of the 25th year rallies that remember the massacre⁵ of Kukis by militants allegedly belonging to National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak Muivah) in September 1993. The film is a road movie with the driver picking up hitchhikers belonging to different communities with different life experiences as they drive from the hills to the city encountering the protest crowds along the way. Evidently Haobam’s films have a mixture of languages – Manipuri, the Kuki languages, Tangkhul Naga and more.

Nine Hills One Valley

Cinema of Manipur is relatively young, just over 50 years old. Aribam Syam Sharma is the most popular name whose Ishanou (1990) was screened in Un Certain Regard at 1991 Cannes Film Festival. The film was restored by Film Heritage Foundation recently with a red-carpet premiere at 2023 Cannes Film Festival.⁶ The other popular name from Manipur is Ratan Thiyam, playwright and theatre director who was also the chairperson of National School of Drama. Recently Ratan quit⁷ the 51-member peace committee formed by the union government to address the recent ethnic violence in Manipur citing the inaction by the central government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the reasons. There has been strong criticism of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that also heads the Manipur government of using the violence for political gains. The party and the government deny these accusations but the lack of effort and reluctance to end the conflict is there to see. The Indian parliamentary elections, which were held a few months after this interview, saw the opposition Indian National Congress defeat the BJP in both the Manipur Lok Sabha seats with Narendra Modi returning to power at the centre for a record third term.⁸ The result hasn’t instilled much hope in the state as violence continues unabated even after defeating BJP.⁹

Haobam’s Joseph’s Son screened at the Indian Film Festival Bhubaneswar 2024, and he joined us for an interview.

Coming from Manipur, your artistic influences are Ratan Thiyam, Aribam Syam Sharma. Your work also has some of that sensibility of their theatre work and films. At least in the early years.

If I look back, dance was always there. Ratan Thiyam is my maternal uncle. My childhood was at my maternal family’s place. Even in my father’s place, one of the finest exponents, Guru Atomba Singh was closely associated. Ratan Thiyam used to practice theatre at home, there was no “company” or space for the troupe back then. We grew up watching rehearsals and dance is integral to Meitei Manipuris. Everybody is a participant. In school too, I was into dance and drama – from costume competitions to Shakespeare. None of this was planned. My parents were not conventionally successful in life as one would say. They put me in a school like Kendriya Vidyalaya to study Hindi and like a lot of other Manipuris, the intention was to go out. No one believed they had a future in the state, and we were all expected to get out one day and that meant learning Hindi. Due to their notion of their own success, I was pressured to study well and have a good career. But growing up in that environment of artists helped me develop skills without even realising. Ratan Thiyam’s father worked at the Bombay Talkies.¹⁰ Manipur was integral and accessible back then but post India’s independence, it became disconnected. When I tell young people to go to the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) Film Bazar, they say it is very far.¹¹ There might be influences but I try consciously not to make films the way Aribam or someone else did. I make films about what affects me personally and documentaries were a natural choice. Cinema is a means for me to understand Manipur better. It’s like a course correction for my own ignorance about the state growing up. 

Joseph’s Son

It’s interesting you mention how leaving the state is considered as the only option. In your film Nine Hills One Valley, the idea of New Delhi as an alien place is repeated by several characters. How the city is not hospitable to migrants from Northeast India.

When we were kids, everybody wanted to go to the capital. We always try to reach the mainland for a better life. When we came out of Manipur, especially in North India and Delhi, they used to treat us differently. Back then, in the ‘90s and early ‘00s, it was almost like a culture shock for us. There was this feeling of alienation though things have changed nowadays. I think that was one reason I came into films. I wanted to tell stories about Manipur not to the world but to India first. In Nine Hills One Valley especially, I also wanted to show a certain contrast and irony by bringing in New Delhi. How we face discrimination and racism in a place like New Delhi due to the race and ethnic differences but within the state we have these constant conflicts internally.

You have mentioned that some festivals mistook the film to be a documentary and not a fiction feature. The style does betray our notions of genre a little bit because the film is shot in a verité fashion with minimal cuts, real protests and marches.

My approach to filmmaking is realist. Even that march you mention, I intentionally didn’t cut anywhere. I pan it from the side of the road to the van and we did it in real time. I could have cut it, but I wanted it to be like that. It’s an approach that comes naturally to me and I feel people relate more. I wondered why some festivals considered it as a documentary. But you know, nowadays there is a very thin line distinguishing documentary and fiction. Documentaries look like a fictional feature sometimes, the way they are shot. They can be stylised too. So now I feel that we shouldn’t say anything about what we are making. We are just making a film and after we show it, people can decide for themselves. 

Nine Hills One Valley

Nine Hills One Valley and Joseph’s Son both document journeys that elaborate on current day hardships due to past ethnic violence and clashes.

If you look at the ending, I am also in the film playing myself. Initially, that was not the idea. While editing I realised that people may not get the point of the film so when I am talking in the van, it culminates there. I was disturbed by the conflict between the communities and the ethnic divide. That was my fear as well back then that this could all explode into a bigger conflict anytime, and it happened in May 2023 and is still going on. Why I took the victims of Kuki-Naga conflict of the ‘90s was because everyone except the driver in the film were real victims. My idea was to bring all these stories on screen so we can learn from this crisis and let it act as a warning to never repeat the mistakes again. It’s also why I put the camera at the back of the car almost the whole time. I wanted to keep the landscape of Manipur front and centre as the journey progresses. It was also an exploration for me. In cinema we believe faces are very important. I wanted to experiment and see if it will really work at an emotional level without faces on screen. 

Talking of landscape, a character’s journey is integral to Nine Hills One Valley as well as Joseph’s Son. The road movie is also a neat idea to tell the story of a state like Manipur. Is that something that fascinates you?

These two films were supposed to be one film. The pandemic put an end to that plan. I wanted to tell a story about the landscape of Manipur and the topography, that’s why the title. I also wanted to get real victims to talk about their experiences. As both these films are about trying to understand Manipur as a place and its people, not for the audience but myself too, this is a style that blends with both what I am trying to do as well as my documentary form.

Joseph’s Son

You mentioned earlier that after the outbreak of violence last year, people are seeking out your earlier films.

Nine Hills is not popular in Manipur, I wasn’t there when it was first shown in the state. I envisioned and made the film for the local audience, but it wasn’t well received. Many festivals assumed and saw it as a documentary as you recalled. A lot of my friends and senior critics think it is my best work. Suddenly it became very popular after the recent violence through federation of film societies and small organisations that are showing the film in the state since the conflict. Some of my close friends too have mentioned that they understand the volatility of the place better after watching the film.

The valley is dominated by Meiteis; the administration and political class mostly comprise of Meiteis. The hill tribes are Kukis, Nagas and Mizos, they have their own history. These films attempt to bridge this gap.

Most of us (Meiteis) are from the city, Imphal and the valley area. We have also historically tried to make careers outside Manipur. The political consciousness has gone away from the Meiteis. At least that’s what I believe. 

What do you think is the way forward, an attempt at a solution for a crisis like the current one. As an artist, what are your thoughts?

Manipur is diverse, and we cannot divide land on community basis, we must learn to co-exist. I think as a filmmaker we need to bring in more positive stories, not just through cinema, in all kinds of art. This has escalated now but we had a long, quiet period before this, and the state was doing well. I think political will is needed to resolve this and that is sorely missing, which is why this has been going on for a long time.

Nine Hills One Valley

Endnotes