- Ima Keithel, or the Mother Market is located at the primary entrance into Imphal, Manipur
- The stalls, includes fresh vegetables, spices, handwoven fabric, and handmade items
- The market is operated by thousands of women, a lot of whom are mothers, widows, or divorced women
Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Manipur to pay tribute and celebrate the celebrated Ima Keithel otherwise known as the Mother Market which has been run by women for nigh on 500 years. The Ima Keithel market is located at the entrance point to Imphal and is a women-only market.
Mothers, widows or divorcees are allowed to sell produce, spices, handloom and traditional handicrafts. Men can only enter to buy something. The market was a symbol of women's economic freedom, social and cultural empowerment and a statement of the status of women in the region.
PM Modi, during his trip, declared proposals to open new all-women markets in several districts of Manipur, namely Tengnoupal, Noney, Pallel, and Moirang.
The objective is to set an example for Ima Keithel's success, giving women more economic opportunities, developing rural areas, and promoting local self-sufficiency.
It is also spending close to ₹8,000 crore on more general development activities in the state as a whole, such as infrastructure, hostels, tourism, Special Economic Zones (SEZs), highways, schools, and healthcare.
Ima Keithel is also of special significance since it aids women's economic autonomy and self-management, retains traditional arts, and is a political and social arena for women.
It has various challenges, including illegal vendors challenging licensed stall owners, financial hardship for vendors, facility and infrastructure problems, and the necessity for explicit regulatory systems.
In the future, there are questions about how the new women's markets will be organized. It is not certain if they will adhere to the historic practice of Ima Keithel, which mandates the vendors to have been married, or even include unmarried, younger women and widows.
Stall allotment, infrastructure, regulatory management, competition from unlicensed vendors, and fitting in with contemporary market trends such as supermarkets and online shopping are other unknowns.
The success of such an initiative would, however, depend on how well these problems are tackled, making the markets socially relevant as well as economically viable.
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