Manipur Flower Festival 2025: Cultural Significance and Emerging Challenges

• GS1 (Art & Culture): Highlights tribal customs, local art, and cultural heritage.
• GS3 (Environment): Reflects biodiversity concerns and sustainability issues.
• Ethics & Essay: Shows the balance and conflict between culture, ecology, and development.

Recently, the Shirui Lily Festival has commenced in Manipur after a two-year gap caused by the ongoing conflict in the state

About Shirui Lily Festival

• Organiser: The festival is conducted by the Department of Tourism, Government of Manipur.
• Launch: It was first held in 2017 and is now one of Manipur’s two major tourism festivals (the other being the Sangai Festival).

• Origin: Named after the Shirui Lily (Lilium mackliniae), the State Flower of Manipur.
• Location: The event is held in the Ukhrul district, home to the Tangkhul Naga community.
• Purpose: It aims to raise awareness about the Shirui Lily and promote eco-tourism in the hill regions of Ukhrul.

Key Activities:

The festival includes cultural performances, music concerts, a beauty pageant, a cooking competition, and a trash collection marathon.

Shirui Lily

• Habitat: The Shirui Lily grows only in the upper reaches of the Shirui Hill range in Ukhrul district, at an altitude of 2,673 metres.
• Local Name: It is locally known as ‘Kashong Timrawon’, named after a mythical hill guardian.
• Discovery: British botanist Frank Kingdon-Ward identified it in 1946 and named it Lilium mackliniae after his wife Jean Macklin.

Conservation Status: Classified as Endangered by the IUCN. (It is not listed by CITES or the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. Shirui National Park is named after it.

Threats: The flower faces threats from climate change, human encroachment, resource exploitation, and invasion by wild dwarf bamboo.

PRELIMS PRACTICE QUESTION

1. It is endemic to the Eastern Ghats of Andhra Pradesh.
2. It is the state flower of Manipur.
3. It blooms naturally only in the summer months of May and June.
4. It is classified as an endangered species under the IUCN Red List.

Which of the statements given above are correct?

A. 1 and 2 only
B. 2 and 3 only
C. 2, 3 and 4 only
D. 1, 3 and 4 only

Answer: C. 2, 3 and 4 only

Explanation:

• Statement 1 is incorrect: Shirui Lily is endemic to the Shirui Hills of Ukhrul district in Manipur, not the Eastern Ghats.
• Statement 2 is correct: It is indeed the state flower of Manipur.
• Statement 3 is correct: It blooms during May and June.
  Statement 4 is correct: It is listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List due to habitat destruction and overexploitation.