Leirum Phee

What is Leirum Phee?

Leirum Phee is a woven cloth of the Meitei people of Manipur, in the north-east of India. It is large and rough to the touch, closer to a shawl than to a stitched garment, and it is used as a wrapper. Three colours shape its pattern. For Meitei families it is a wedding cloth: parents give one to a daughter when she marries. Historically one clan was charged with weaving it. In the 21st century it became known far beyond Manipur, because the Prime Minister Narendra Modi wore it in public, and people began calling it the Modi gamcha.

Where does Leirum Phee come from?

The cloth is traced to Ancient Kangleipak, the early kingdom in the land that is now Manipur. Its story is tied to King Khuyoi Tompok, who ruled around 154 CE. The Cheitharol Kumbaba, the court chronicle, records the marriage of the Angom princess Nongmoinu Ahongbi to King Khui Tompok and notes that a Leirum cloth travelled with her as a gift from her parents. Giving the cloth at a Meitei wedding has carried on since. Later, under King Loiyumba (1078 to 1112 CE), thirty-two yumnak, or Meitei surnames, were each allotted a textile to weave with its own design. Leirum Phee fell to the eleventh, Shal Chiram.

How is Leirum Phee made?

Leirum Phee is woven from cotton on a hand loom, and its pattern sits inside the weave. Nothing is printed or stitched on afterwards. White covers most of the surface; black and red are worked into it in measured amounts, so the three colours stand in proportion to one another. Weaving was organised by family. In King Loiyumba's time each of thirty-two Meitei surnames, called yumnak, took on a textile to produce, and this cloth went to the eleventh of them, Shal Chiram.

Colours, motifs and borders

Three colours make the design: white, red and black. White is the base and takes up most of the cloth, while the darker two are set into it in balanced measure. Meitei tradition reads those colours as guardians of the universe, named Mangang, Luwang and Khuman, each linked to a group of deities. The Meitei hold these three to be the forebears of every Meitei clan, which together are known as the Yek Salai, or Meitei confederacy. Many people also see the woven motifs as a mark of protection.

How Leirum Phee is worn

A Leirum Phee is not stitched or pleated like a saree. It is a large, rough shawl, and the wearer throws it over the body as a wrapper. It can also be folded across the head or face, as the Prime Minister once did. In Meitei households it is kept for weddings, where it arrives as a gift from a woman's parents and forms part of the blessings she receives.

When Leirum Phee is worn

A Meitei wedding is where Leirum Phee belongs. It takes part in pham konba, the blessing rite held at the marriage, when the bride's family gives her the ningol gi awunpot, the goods she carries with her, a bed among them. The chronicle links this giving of the cloth to the marriage of King Khui Tompok, and families have kept the custom up since. In the 21st century the cloth also appears far from Manipur, at public events where the Prime Minister wears it.

Styles of Leirum Phee

Handwoven cloth from Manipur is now only one version of Leirum Phee in circulation. Factory owners in Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh, took the design and sold it in bulk as "Modi gamcha", with no link to Meitei weavers. The two differ in how they are made: the original comes off a hand loom, worked by a family, while the copies are turned out in quantity in factories. Manipuri people treat the copies as theft rather than as a variation of the craft.

What Leirum Phee means

Leirum Phee carries Meitei identity. Three colours stand for guardian deities, and a wedding gift of the cloth is a blessing. When factories in Barabanki began selling copies as "Modi gamcha", above all after the Prime Minister wore one over his face, people in Manipur objected. Officials in charge of handlooms there appealed to the central Ministry of Textiles, urging it to end the production so that local weavers would not lose their trade, and anger was voiced at factories profiting from a copied design.

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