Volcano, You cannot Erupt: A New Historicist Perspective

Volcano Eruption

Thangjam Ibopishak Singh is one among the leading and most popular poets of the Northeast of India. Based on Imphal, he writes in Manipuri language, which is the language of the indigenous Meitei community. He has published six volumes of poetry, three of which have earned him some of the most prestigious awards in the state. Ibopishak also has won the Sahitya Akademi Award for poetry in 1997.

The poem “Volcano, You Cannot Erupt” has been translated into English by the noted poet, Robin Ngangom. Ibopishak is known for his Swiftian Satire and Ironical poems such as “I would like to be killed with an Indian Bullet” and “Bird of Peace”. The vision is obviously dark throughout the poems; Ibopishak predominantly writes about the complications of the region, which is obsessed by insurgency, terrorism, ethnic conflict and state brutality. There is nature and death certainly, but over and above all, there is Manipur, with the violence, fear, moral desiccation and political turmoil that besiege the state.

Ibopishak’s poetry gives us a multidimensional image of his society and its tribulation. Interconnected images are used, by the poet, to provide a mysterious gloomy portrait of real life incidents happening in Manipuri. The images yield new resonances at each successive readings. To understand the poetry of Ibopishak, one must have a profound understanding of the history and the circumstance of Manipur and the crisis happening over there.

According to Stuart Hall, a renowned critic of cultural studies, every poetry/text has an encoded/encrypted message in it, which awaits the decoding/decrypting process. Here in this poem, one can obviously see a different meaning when the text is given a close reading. Thus, contextualising the poetry provides a thick descriptive understanding of the text. Therefore, the poetry is supposed to be given a parallel reading with the history of Manipur. A chronotopical explication is obligatory to understand the poetry to the core. 

The poet begins the poem with an image of present state of Manipuri, where people shouting “Volcano, remain asleep you cannot erupt/ Volcano, stay asleep you cannot get angry”. He uses the suspected volcano eruption of ukhrul as Deus ex machina which acts as a destroyer/ a destructive force. The opening stanza provides a picture where “Some, among them” pleading the volcano not to erupt or stir. The phrase, “Some, among them” yields to various interpretations.

            The second stanza,

                                               Inside chose dark, bolted cages

                                               How would they bear, eyes closed and feet bound.

           Those who wished to soar at will in the sky's pristine air,

                                   Those fledglings, the children of gods.  

- Refers to the crisis of Manipur during the insurgency of 1970s, in which hundreds of children were killed and kidnaped by the Indian Army Forces using the Special Power Act. The words used by the poet gives a gloomy atmosphere to the poetry. Ibopishak describes the condition in which the children were kidnaped. The “dark, bolted cages” metaphorically symbolize subjugation of the natives.  The stanza further more gives a picture of the dead children killed in genocide. The “dark, bolted cage” also embodies the coffin, in which the children are kept “eyes closed and feet bound”. The poet laments that the children’s desire to fly in the colourful sky has been shattered and destroyed and calls them “the children of gods”.

Pour in filth, pour in faeces,

                   By heaps, the unholy misdeeds to fill up

                   The clear depths of the earth to the brim;

                                               For future generations too, for the years and the centuries

                Create an unregenerate, rotten society;

                                                    Then say, Volcano, you cannot erupt. Lava, you cannot open - your eyes.

The third stanza, Is an Apostrophe addressed to the Volcano by the poet. He instructs the Valcano to discharge filth and dirt, which indicates the misdeeds done by the villainous Army/Oppressor, back to the earth and create “an unregenerated, rotton society”. This shows the poets rage towards the dystopian reign of the oppressor.

In the stanza four, the poet again talks about the children who were dear to their parents. He describes them as “Precious gems tied to the hems of cloaks”. But now, the children have left unending tears and sorrows in their places.  He ends the stanza with a saddened question “Where have all of them gone?”. 

The fifth stanza works as a refrain in the beginning but eventually it ends as a picture of pain and suffering. In the stanza, the poet compares the children of gods as birds. The comparison gives a wider perspective to analyse the subject. The birds are inside the cage, they attempt to fly inside the cage but unfortunately their wings are unbalanced or cracked and furthermore the birds are described as bleeding. The image of caged bird can be analogized with Maya Angelo’s “Caged Bird” which indicates the child labour/ slavery system.

            The final couplet, “Of the endless blue sky, / They've left a dream unrealized.”, denotes the children’s journey to the next world and how they died of unfulfilled dreams. The dream of children may be the dream of freedom, the dream of peace or may be the dream of overcoming the suppression. We can assume that the children could have achieved their dream by their death which serves as a backdoor to the next world where they will be free and peaceful. As, “The Land of Half Humans”, the poem “Volcano” also provides a derisive commentary on the existing power structures which exploits the natives. Though the poem is read as a satire on the dystopian society of Manipuri and its government, it also functions as an elegy to the dead children.

Historical Backdrop:

            The Kingdom of Manipur was conquered by Great Britain following the brief Anglo-Manipur War of 1891. Manipur became a princely state under British rule in 1891, the last of the independent states to be incorporated into British India. Manipur Constitution Act, 1947, established a democratic form of government with the Maharaja as the Executive Head and an elected legislature. In 1949, Maharaja Budhachandra was summoned to Shillong, capital of the Indian province of Meghalaya where he signed a Treaty of Accession merging the kingdom into India. Thereafter the legislative assembly was dissolved and Manipur became part of the Republic of India in October, 1949. The idea of democracy was a new concept to the general people who was just breaking off from decades of British-backed monarchy. Old world was breaking up and a new world was yet to be shaped. Some natives who do not want to be under Indian government, rebelled against the government and formed “People's Liberation Army of Manipur” and began to attack Police and other government officials. So, the government of India gave special powers to the police of Manipur, which was called as Armed Forces (Special Powers) Acts. The police of Manipur misused the law and killed innocent children and raped native girls and arrested anyone. The Indian army also abducted/kidnapped the children of Manipur and later turned them as child soldiers. This invoked the Separatist group to begin Insurgency in Northeast India. Violence has become the only form of human expression. Anger takes over patience. Everyone seems to think only violence can solve everything. In the power struggle of the leaders and ethnic politics, only the common people suffer or become victims. The poet takes the persona of an ordinary man and censures the State power.  
Symbols: 
Lava : The Lava or the Volcano indicates the rage of the native people of Manipuri, which is going to bust out. 
Caged Bird : It symbolizes the children whose fathers are clipped and locked inside the cage/coffin. 
Filth/ Dirt : They indicate the misdeeds of the army. 
Themes: 
One can find various themes such as Female supression, slavery, death, rage, colonizer/colonized interaction, war and etc. in the poem.