Staff Reporter
DIMAPUR, JUNE 7
When human rights activist Dr Binayak Sen was arrested and charged with sedition by the Chattisgarh police in 2007, a group of students and rights activists had staged a rally to demand his release at the Swami Vivekananda Statue, Arts Faculty, Delhi University.
Among the many performers who sang protest songs at the rally was a young and “broke as usual” student from Imphal, Manipur. Akhu Chingangbam, at the invitation of his friend, performed three songs that day including Dylan’s evocative ‘I shall be released.’
And in his own words, “This was how I started to sing at protest events.” By then Akhu was writing his own songs – or poems, as he prefers to call them – laced with political undertones and biting satire. And in 2008, he formed the band Imphal Talkies which was named after a movie hall in his hometown.
In early 2011, at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, during another rally in support of Dr Binayak Sen, Akhu sang ‘India, I see blood in your hands’, which is perhaps the most political of all his songs. The opening line of the song goes: India, have you ever crawled down enough to smell the soil of Kashmir/India, have you ever heard of a lady called Sharmila.
He performed the same song three months later, at another protest rally in Delhi University, in front of a crowd which had in attendance the writer Arundhati Roy and Indian Ocean’s Rahul Ram, among others. At the end of his performance Rahul Ram sought out Akhu and they ended up recording ‘India, I see blood in your hands’ and ‘Eche (For Irom Sharmila)‘ two months later.
His reputation as a political singer expanded as Akhu performed in front of the Assam Bhavan at a rally to protest the killing of farmers/tribals by the Assam police in June 2011. That summer, a group of activists had organized an event in Delhi to show solidarity to Irom Sharmila’s struggle to remove AFSPA.
The participants were stopped by the Delhi police at the entrance of Rajghat, the memorial to Gandhi. Right then – without a microphone or any speakers – Akhu, with only his guitar, sang ‘India, I see blood in your hands’.
As much as the violence in his hometown, it is his experience while living away from home that has equally shaped his songwriting, according to Akhu. “It has made me very, very vocal. I am not saying that I am right but I have my opinion,” Akhu told Eastern Mirror.
By his own admission, Akhu’s songs/poems seek to represent the “talking Imphal.” This message is perhaps portrayed best in the song ‘Lullaby’ where he sings: Blood soaked streets/That’s my ground/That’s where I play around/Sound of gunshots/That’s my song…
According to Akhu, the “outcome of such chaos” could be found among the children in the streets or in children homes across Imphal. While working with the residents of a children home in Imphal, Akhu realized that orphans, children living with HIV and AIDS, drug abuse and insurgency-related violence in Imphal are all “intertwined.”
Thus in May this year, began his project – A Native Tongue called Peace – which aims to provide these children with therapy through music and origami. “The main focus is to heal the children and bring certain happiness to them by giving music lessons and teaching them origami,” Akhu said.
Most importantly, he said, the project would seek to spread the message of peace and harmony among Imphal’s diverse ethnic communities using the children as a source of inspiration. “You know, here the Nagas, the Meiteis and the Kukis don’t get along. But these children, from different backgrounds are living together.
“They are an inspiration to all of us and there is so much to learn from them,” Akhu shared. To transfer that message of unity further, Akhu said that he would be recording four songs with the children.
A Native Tongue called Peace is a fellowship project of the Foundation for Social Transformation and will run for six months. “I will definitely do more (such projects) if this one works out,” Akhu shared.
