It took over two months, three weeks, 10 hours, and 39 minutes for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to finally speak about the ethnic and communal violence in Manipur. It took a viral video of two Kuki-Zo women being paraded naked by a mob of men from the majority Meitei community in Manipur for him to break his silence.
A silence that was most painfully felt by the women in the video, who were displaced from their villages and did not receive any support from the prime minister or his party’s government in the state despite filing a police complaint in May. One of them even lost their brother, who was murdered on the spot when he tried to save her.
The ethnic-communal clashes that broke out on the evening of May 3 have killed over 160 people and destroyed churches and villages, leaving over 75,000 displaced. A disproportionate number of those affected – nay targeted – by the violence are people from my community, the Kuki-Zo tribes.
It is important to say this at the outset because when Modi spoke, he said that “the number and identity of the perpetrators is one thing but the crime is an insult to the entire country.” But the identity of the perpetrator(s) or the victim(s) is never a minor (or an irrelevant) detail in any conflict, where women’s bodies inevitably become a battleground for nationalism and identity assertion.
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The dominant Meiteis are seeking to restore, nay extend the limits, of their ancient Kangleipak kingdom into the hills. It’s a miniature Manipuri version of the ‘Akhand Bharat’ dream, built on imagined boundaries, a prayer. But it is a wish seemingly backed by the state government, led by chief minister Biren Singh, a Meitei, and a Meitei-dominated assembly.
In this civil war between armed Meitei and Kuki-Zo villagers and militants, Meitei women mobs now infamously known as ‘Meira Paibis’ are using their bodies against the Army and Assam Rifles to allegedly protect their warring side and enable them to safely attack Kuki villages. The women are allegedly ready to disrobe before the armed forces personnel if they try to break through their barrier. The women have on their side the sordid history of their naked protest from 2002, following the rape and encounter of Thangjom Manorama Devi, allegedly by Indian Army personnel.
But importantly, and ironically, they also have the Armed Forces Special Powers Act on their side this time, since it’s applicable only to the hills now, leaving the army to adopt a restrained approach in the valley. Secondly, as The Print reported, the Meira Paibis gather in places to block the security forces based on leads from the state police, divided along ethnic lines now, who must be kept informed of operations and their movements by the security forces in the current rules of engagement.
The foot soldiers of Meitei nationalism, who have been at the frontline and were present on that fateful day in the village that was looted with “sophisticated weapons”, are even named as accused in the FIR. They were members of Meitei Leepun (whose founder openly expressed his loyalty to Singh in an interview with Karan Thapar), Kangleipak Kunba Lup, Arambai Tenggol, and the World Meitei Council. They share much of their ideology with banned secessionist groups like United National Liberation Front (UNLF) and Kanglei Yawol Kunna Lup (KYKL), who had killed 19 Indian Army personnel in a 2017 ambush.
None of these groups ever entered into formal negotiations with the Government of India, remaining true to their cause. With no desire to secede from India, these armed radical groups are a more acceptable version of the Meitei nationalistic cause for the government.
Manipur police checking the back of an auto. Photo: Twitter/@manipur_police
Not justice alone, but political solution too
Singh claims that he discovered this incident only after it went viral on social media and is baying for capital punishment for the perpetrators who were caught on camera. But aside from the accused being allegedly from the Meitei nationalist groups, the victims have also mentioned the complicit role of the state police. Before declaring capital punishment, Singh has a lot to answer for in terms of the active role of his state police in heinous crimes such as rape and cleansing of the Kuki-Zo tribes from the Imphal valley, documented in many other videos.
Modi still has a lot to explain why he hasn’t already fired a chief minister who couldn’t restore peace in almost 3 months and has, instead, further demonised the Kuki-Zo minorities as “poppy cultivators” and “militants”. Instead of banning the videos to be circulated on Twitter, he could turn the internet fully back on, which would unleash many more such videos that haven’t made it to mainstream press yet.
It is incumbent on the prime minister and the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party government to not only speak of all the atrocities that people in Manipur have suffered and bring justice to the aggrieved, but move towards finding a political solution to the problem.
The Kuki-Zo communities have been demanding a separate administration for a long while, with the so-called representative militant groups sitting on negotiations with the government for decades now. The demand is no longer backed by any nationalist or idealistic dream to be a king in one’s own land (they prefer to be a part of Mizoram than Manipur) but a question of their rights and literal survival.
It is this right to survive that the ‘whodunnit don’t care’ perpetrators have stripped, paraded naked, fondled with, and assaulted.
Makepeace Sitlhou is an independent journalist based in Guwahati, Assam.
Note: An earlier version of this article erroneously stated that a police complaint on the women sexually assaulted was filed in June. An FIR on the matter was filed on May 18.