Leirum Phee

What is Leirum Phee?

Leirum Phee is a broad shawl of coarse cotton from Manipur, in northeast India. It is worn wrapped about the body rather than stitched, and its woven pattern is unlike any other cloth of the region. The ground is white, with black and red set across it in balanced measure; to Meitei eyes this arrangement stands for three guardian deities. Parents give the cloth to a daughter at her marriage, which makes it a fixture of Meitei weddings. In recent years the prime minister's habit of wearing it has carried the design far beyond the state, and many outside Manipur now know it by nicknames borrowed from him. At heart it stays a handwoven household cloth with a job to do at the big moments of family life.

Where does Leirum Phee come from?

The cloth's beginnings lie in Kangleipak, the early Manipur kingdom. The Cheitharol Kumbaba, the court chronicle, says that when King Khui Tompok, on the throne around 154 CE, married Nongmoinu Ahongbi, a princess of the Angom clan, her parents marked the wedding with a leirum cloth. From that gift, the record suggests, grew the custom of giving leirum at Meitei marriages. Later, in the time of King Loiyumba (1078 to 1112 CE), the kingdom organised its crafts: 32 yumnak, or Meitei clan surnames, were charged with weaving cloth of particular patterns, and the eleventh among them, Shal Chiram, received the leirum as its share. That old bond between one design and one weaving line helps explain why the community guards it so fiercely now.

How is Leirum Phee made?

Cotton is the fibre, and the work sits with the families who hold the design. The arrangement credited to King Loiyumba tied particular weaves to particular surnames, and the Shal Chiram household carried the leirum among them. Only three colours are used, the black and the red worked into the white ground in careful proportion. Nothing in the record says how long a single shawl takes to finish. What is documented is the pressure on the making: factory looms in Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh, have turned out 'Modi gamcha' copies, and Manipur's handloom directorate has petitioned the Union textiles ministry for a halt, so that the state's weavers keep both the work and the market.

Colours, motifs and borders

Three colours carry the whole design: white for the ground, black and red laid over it in even proportion. The Meitei read this as Mangang Luwang Khuman, deities of the Khuman, Mangang and Luwang groupings who guard the universe and are held to be the forebears of every clan of the Yek Salai, the Meitei confederacy. The motifs themselves are understood as a sign of guardianship, one reason the cloth goes with a bride into her new home. No figure or flower is recorded for it; the force of the cloth sits in the colour arrangement itself.

How Leirum Phee is worn

The shawl is a wrapper: a large rectangle thrown round the body, not cut or sewn to fit. In outline it serves as shawls do across the northeast, wrapped and tucked as the wearer needs, its coarse hand making it a practical everyday cover as well as a ceremonial one. Size is part of the point; a cloth big enough to wrap well is also big enough to serve as bedding, which is why a bed and the leirum travel together in the wedding gifts. It has more recently been worn as a shoulder cloth and face covering by the prime minister.

When Leirum Phee is worn

At a Meitei wedding the leirum is not optional. It belongs to the pham konba, the blessing ceremony in which the bride receives ningol gi awunpot, the parting gifts from her family, a bed among them. The cloth comes from her parents, and many families hold that its motifs keep watch over her, a guardianship carried into the marriage. No other rite is named for it in the record, but its place at weddings has held since the chronicle first mentions it, and it is this ceremonial standing that the community now defends against factory copies.

Styles of Leirum Phee

The best-known modern variation is a name, not a weave. Because the prime minister wears the cloth at nearly every public outing, it has picked up three nicknames after him: Modi Gamusa, Modi Gamchha and Modi Gamcha. Alongside the fame came imitation. Powerloom copies have been produced in Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh, and put on the market with no connection to the weavers of Manipur. The difference matters: the original is a handwoven cloth tied to particular families and meanings, while the copies are factory goods carrying the pattern alone.

What Leirum Phee means

For the Meitei the cloth is identity made visible: a design naming the deities from whom the clans descend, given to daughters as they leave home. That standing is now contested property. When the copies appeared, Manipuri people protested publicly, and resentment centred on factory owners who took the design for gain. The state's handloom directorate has carried the complaint to the national textiles ministry, pressing for production to be checked so that Manipur's weavers, the households the old kings set to this work, keep both their livelihood and their claim to the pattern.

Questions people ask about Leirum Phee

Good reading and sources

• Our scarf being made in U.P., says Manipur governmentThe Hindu, Article
• Threads of history: The Story of PM Modi’s ‘Manipuri’ GamchhaThe Indian Express, Article
• Manipur handloom authority urges textile ministry to stop production of traditional cloth in UPHindustan Times, Article

• Leirum Phee on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data