As a start-up project of the May 18 Photo Exhibition, there has been the photo exhibitions under the title of "The Great Heritage of Democracy" in 4 South Asian countries(Nepal, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan) from April 15th, 2016. Here is a vivid report from the field.

The Great Heritage of Democracy, a photo exhibition which was launched in the armed conflict region of North East India, Manipur, from April 15 2016 to May 3 2016 to draw a unique struggle of Korean to achieve democracy in Korean peninsula. The photo exhibition is quite relevant to the present contextual issue in Manipur, North East India and other conflict region of Central and North India. Korea (South Korea) ends armed conflict but to almost all South Asian countries protracted conflict continues to be present ranging from internal armed conflict to ethnic unrest. Most particularly in North East India since the inception of ‘democracy’ India armed, conflict continues with India and followed by the muffling of democracy with the arbitrary imposition of military law (Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958) to certain section of population most particularly mongoloid stock of North East India and Manipur.

The photo exhibition was organized in Manipur, India in partnership with The May 18 Foundation in Gwangju, Korea that showcased a military atrocities in the 80s and uprising of democracy in South Korea. Due to the ongoing crisis of strikes and blockades, the photo exhibition was not able to be carried out on the schedules; it was postponed couple of times and finally launched in three 3 different locations of Manipur.

The first exhibition was launched at Lamyanba Sanglen, one of the most popular social event sites in Manipur. It was inaugurated by Professor SoyamLokendrajit, Head of Department of Philosophy, Manipur University. In his inaugural speech for the two week long photo exhibition, he expressed a great need to have this photo exhibition in several rural areas to inspire the common citizens for extending people’s attention to strengthen peace and democracy in the region. He also lamented about the armed conflict continuing for over four decades in the region, while in South Korea peace and democracy have been achieved to a great extent at a great pace. He further stressed that we needed to learn several things from the Korean people and our relationship with them needed to be strengthened to enhance our movement. Irom Singhjit,the brother of IromSharmila who was a Gwangju Human Rights Foundation awardee in 2007, was also present and gave a short speech stating that the Korean people has been continuously supporting our democracy movement in different areas including education, arts and culture and exchange program of human rights defenders in the past and present and this photo exhibition gave another opportunity for us to be inspired. He further stated that this exhibition was not merely a photo exhibition but a meaningful reason to have in our conflict region. He stressed that this photo exhibition told the story of Korean people struggling to achieve democracy during the military rules and their people’s sacrifices,

which were admirable lesson to be learned by the people of India, most particularly Manipur. One of the young participants in the exhibition said, “We are surprised and never know Koreans had suffered to this extent; what we have heard about Korean is about their rich culture and modern music which is very popular in Manipur.” Further, another young participant said,“This photo exhibition brings tears and inspiration to fight for peace and democracy in India.” At the end of the program Prof SoyamLokendrajit suggested to the organizers to make use of this opportunity to disseminate by launching this exhibition in different locations of conflict regions of India.

The second event of photo exhibition was launched at the Church premises of Manipur Baptist Church in Imphal, Manipur, India. Several church goers thronged the exhibition both young and old people. Many young people were keenly following the sequential photos of the exhibition and remarked “excellent!” and urged to the organizers to launch this photo exhibition in their villages. At least 500 people came to see the exhibition. Several people were also busy taking photographs of the exhibition. One old man opined that Korean people are successful because of their courage and determination and we should be like them to bring peace in the region.

The last event took place at the remote outskirt of Imphal city at Phayeng during an annual 3 days program, an annual event program of music and arts show held every 1st of May to 3rd of May. Amongst the other sites of the photo exhibition, it was the largest one and more than one thousand people came to see the exhibition in 3 days.

Amongst the people who came at the event included artists, army, villagers, and critics.

People continued to come till late in the evening. The wider peoples who came to see the photo exhibition madeit a grand success at the final site of the event.

Conclusion

Although there were some challenges in launching the photo exhibition continuously for 15 days due to the present unrest in Manipur, overall it has achieveda success with a greatnumber of people participating in three different spots. ‘The Great Heritage of Democracy’photo exhibition capturedthe old, the young, and people from all walk of life. What was unique about this photo exhibition was the narration of social values and meanings of each photograph that inspired and gave hope to the oppressed people of Manipur, India.

Many audiences who came for the exhibition understood Korea as a developed nation with a great life. However, after seeing the photographs, people began to realize and understood the struggle and sacrifices Korean people had made to become what it is now.

The sequential photos exhibited the different phase of struggle in the late 80s that told the story of how the struggle began from the non-violent movement to the uprising with violent oppression.The achievement of democracy in South Korea clearly was defined to the audience at large. Many of the audiences turned up to ask why they failed and Korean achieved in the struggle. This one repeated question made a very hard time for the organizers to answers and people discussed continuously.

Again, one of the frequent requests from the exhibition participants was to launch the same exhibition in their community and provinces to make their people aware of the situation of the Korean that could further inspire them to struggle. It might be little hard for the organizers to handle volley of questions and requests, yet the whole process was very encouraging and inspiring to further enhance our activism and to strengthen peace and democracy in the armed conflict region of India. It broughta new light of hope from the Korean people to the people of India when there is hopelessness under the military law in ‘democracy’ India. By and large IromSharmilaChanu’s 16 years of hunger strike struggle to repeal this military law from the soil of India gives another ray of hope for more supporters from ‘The Great Heritage of Democracy.’