The latest bout of ethnic violence in Manipur erupted on May 3. Since then, reports of looting and arson have been coming in continuously. But that large-scale, brutal sexual violence has also been carried out only came to light after a video went viral on July 19. It finally forced the prime minister to break his silence on the riots that have been going on for nearly three months. The chief minister also spoke up and promised action against the culprits. The incident is reminiscent of how violence in Noakhali was acknowledged by the then Prime Minister of Bengal, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, only after Mahatma Gandhi camped there and toured the district in a mission to restore communal harmony.
The 1946 Noakhali riot is considered to be the most brutal episode of violence in pre-partition India. It was organised against the minority Hindus by the majority Muslim community in a planned manner at the behest of the incumbent All India Muslim League government of the region. Following the call for Direct Action Day by Mohammad Ali Jinnah demanding a separate Pakistan, a spate of violence, pogroms, looting and killing of Hindus in Calcutta erupted which continued for several days.
Because the violence had government patronage, the victims received no help. Congress workers also felt helpless. Getting no support from outside, the Hindus decided to organise themselves into groups and took up arms against the Muslims. The League could not tolerate it and hence the Noakhali riots were planned in revenge.
Noakhali was a Muslim-majority district in the Chittagong division. Here, the Hindu minority were mostly zamindars and possessed vast tracts of land. The riots continued for several days. Reports of violence and killings were continuously reaching Delhi but no one could tell the actual magnitude of the violence.
It made Gandhi anxious despite the Bengal government denying all reports of violence and claiming that things were normal. Even the Congress leaders in Calcutta had no clue of the real situation. Finally, one day Bapu asked the Congress president in his evening prayer meeting to visit the district, even if he faced a threat to his life. As a result, J.B. Kripalani left for Calcutta accompanied by his wife, Sucheta Kripalani, the next day.
When they reached Calcutta, the state Congress president told them that the rioters had blocked all routes to Noakhali and it was impossible to visit it. He refused to accompany Kripalani out of fear. When Kripalani met Suhrawardy, the latter maintained his stance that the situation was fine and there was no need to go there.
Despite being discouraged so, the Kripalanis managed to reach the district only to find that a large number of Hindus had been killed there. Dead bodies had piled up everywhere. Hindus had been forcefully evicted and their homes were captured. Forced religious conversions had been carried out. In addition to abduction, rape and sexual violence, girls were forced to convert and married off. Temples were pulled down. The ploughs of the zamindars were set on fire and their oxen were slaughtered and cooked.
Those Hindus who had managed to save themselves were so scared that they were hiding in clusters of 2-3 families sharing a single room along with their animals. They remained hungry and thirsty for several days. There was not a single police or administrative official in the area. After taking stock of the situation for three days, J.B. Kripalani returned to Delhi. But Sucheta Kripalani stayed there.
Why?
Because when both of them decided to leave, a few Hindus requested JB to allow his wife, a motherly figure for the victims, to stay with them. Their pitiful exhortation left the couple speechless and Sucheta remained there for six months until Gandhi arrived there on November 7.
Except forced conversions, the events that unfolded in the violence against the Kuki community and women in Manipur bear stark similarity to the Noakhali riots. Sexual violence against women started as soon as ethnic violence erupted in the region on May 3. But neither the chief minister nor Union home minister Amit Shah nor the governor of Manipur who is a woman, nor the peace committee nor any army officer, even suggested that women were being subjected to violence there or made any effort to stop it.
What does this signify? Back then it was Suhrawardy who kept assuring everyone that everything was fine. And here, it was the ‘let things be’ attitude.
A spate of violent attacks against women happened one after the other in May. Especially in Kuki-dominated area Churachandpur. Organised sexual violence and gang rape was perpetrated against them by members of the majority Meitei community. According to the statements given by the Kuki rape victims, Meitei women were also inciting the mob to commit sexual violence.
It all happened because on May 4, fake news was spread that Kuki men had raped a Meitei woman in Churachandpur. On May 5, the Inspector General of Police denied the news. The father of the girl who was believed to have been raped also denied the reports. But by then the crowd had gone berserk. In such a situation, it was the responsibility of the police and the administration to pacify the people by taking them into confidence, but no such efforts were made.
The two Kuki women whose video has gone viral allege that the police themselves brought them out of the village and handed them over to the mob. The husband of one of these women lodged a complaint with the police station on May 18, but no action was taken. The police (reluctantly) arrested the youth seen in the footage only when the video went viral after more than 70 days.
Here, it is crucial to understand that there are mainly two communities in Manipur between whom there is an ongoing tussle. One is the Kuki-Zomi community, who are tribals, Christian and dwell on the mountains. The Meiteis, on the other hand, are wealthier Hindus who have more participation in power and inhabit the plain areas. Now, the Meiteis are demanding that they be declared as tribal, which would mean that they too will get the right to buy tribal land.
This is a big concern for Kuki and other tribal communities because it will make the Meiteis even stronger. The conflict of interest between the two communities is quite old. Needless to mention, chief minister N. Biren Singh is also a Meitei. If he wanted, he could have used his influence to pacify his community, at least in the matter of women. But when it is about Hindu nationalism, then a free rein has to be given. And that’s what is happening. Had the ill-fated video not come to the fore, the prime minister would still be silent.
And when he spoke, he dragged Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh into it.
They say that the violence in Manipur has brought shame to the country. Wrong. What has put us to shame is a prime minister who doesn’t even know the difference between everyday rape incidents and deliberate sexual violence carried out as part of caste riots. Biren Singh and his statements are enough to enrage any sensitive citizen.
When the prime minister and the chief minister chose to remain silent and the governor depended on social media for information, how could the chairperson of the National Commission for Women, Rekha Sharma, question the Manipur police and the administration? Two women from Manipur and the Manipur Tribal Association, whose headquarters are abroad, had informed the Commission about such incidents through a letter mailed on June 12. Believing the Commission to be the protector of women’s honour, and constitutional and human rights, they requested it to take suo moto cognisance of the incidents, take action and, if possible, set up an inquiry committee. But they did not even receive an acknowledgment of the mail from the Commission.
The mail should have sufficed for Sharma to take action and send the commission’s representatives to the spot to get the matter investigated. But it was the video which evoked some sort of a response from her – in the form of a hasty tweet. If a tweet had the power to stop the violence, the Union government would not have despatched a large number of central forces there. Clearly, Sharma missed the chance to win the people’s trust and pacify them.
Swati Maliwal, chairperson of the Delhi Women’s Commission, has announced that she will visit the state, but the question is whether she will be able to carry out any work without the consent of the chief minister and the Centre, considering the Delhi government’s relationship with the Centre and the BJP.
Now, let’s talk about the media. Most of the major newspapers and TV channels in Manipur belong to the Meitei community and are not reporting much about the violence against the Kukis. The Sangai Express newspaper went so far as to call the community ‘alien’. But the national media also received information about the organised sexual violence happening in the state only through the viral video. Why?
Let’s leave aside TV channels based in Delhi as they didn’t deem it important enough to be discussed even after they had received information. By doing so, they have demonstrated that anarchy is acceptable to them. If it were not so, the love affair of Seema Haider, who eloped from Pakistan, would not have been the primetime story on every channel bar a few. Why did major English newspapers, with a network in the North-East as well, fail to find out about the violence?
The first detailed report on sexual violence in the state was published by The Print on July 12. Earlier, Newsclick had published an article on June 1.
It calls for the media to introspect.
If peace is really to be established in Manipur, then someone will have to camp in the state, the way Mahatma Gandhi did in Noakhali. He went there with his entire team, stayed there for three months and surveyed the area barefoot. According to him, the entire land had become a crematorium for its people and walking on it with shoes on would be an insult to them. He couldn’t bring himself to do so. He stayed at the houses of Muslim attackers and inspired them to help resettle the Hindus back in their houses. He got them to embrace each other by removing the mistrust and hatred between the two communities. Peace and relief committees were set up. He left the place only after things had calmed down.
The violence of Noakhali and the restoration of peace in the region by Gandhi are both remarkable events in the history of India. We must learn from our past. The Kukis of Manipur are in a state of fear today similar to what the Hindu community must have felt in Noakhali back then. But does Prime Minister Modi have anyone who could be a Gandhi?
However, the bigger question is whether they really want to stop the violence happening under the patronage of the Union and state government – perhaps only if the objective of the majoritarian violence has been achieved. It will be a different matter if the Supreme Court intervenes, as the chief justice has said – or if the Kuki women’s heartfelt pleas inspire the president to issue some directives.
Neelam Gupta is a senior journalist and former Adjunct Professor at Gujarat Vidyapith, Ahmedabad.
Translated from the Hindi original by Naushin Rehman.
