Manipur shame, have our tears dried out?

I wanted to cry. But I am tongue-tied and I am weeping silently. Manipur has been on fire for well over two and a half months and the national leadership showed no sign of any concern. The Nation has been crying for the PM’s intervention and Modi chose to make a comment only after the shameful video of a woman being sexually harassed in full public glare. The atrocity itself had taken place on May 4 in Kangpokpi district and the PM’s “pain and angry” comments came on July 20. It is difficult to believe that Delhi was not aware of the horrible incident for full 75 days. Home Minister Amit Shah himself had visited Manipur on May 29 to assuage the warring factions and try and bring peace to the North-Eastern State. It is again impossible to think that the police would not have briefed him on the atrocious incident.

The video surfaced on July 20 sparking a national outrage that prompted the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice of India Dhananjay Y Chandrachud to comment that the incident was deeply disturbing and a gross violation of constitutional rights. Certain BJP elements did not appreciate this concern, but it’s not worth discussing them here.

What is even more outrageous is the fact that the National Commission for Women (NCW) did not act admittedly even after receiving several complaints. This forced many to dismiss the NCW as a goongigudiya (dumb doll) as it failed to express its anguish at such a horrific incident.

In these columns on July 21, we have called for the Prime Minister’s interference as the double engine Manipur Government had miserably failed to contain the violence. Worse still, it chose to close its eyes to the stripping and parading of a woman and murder of her brother who tried to save her.

Unhesitatingly, the Centre ought to have dismissed the Chief Minister Biren Singh and imposed the President’s rule on May 5 itself. BJP is supposed to be the world’s largest political party with a wide network plus it enjoys the strength of the RSS cadre. The Home Minister gets minute-by-minute updates on such incidents particularly when the violence in the valley spread faster than the forest fire.

And where was the national media which had its correspondents in Imphal? I refuse to accept that the journalists would not have got even a whiff of murder of constitutional rights. Journalists always report based on information from reliable sources. Where have their sources disappeared? Or was there any information blackout? If yes, why was this mini-Emergency not reported? Where were the elected representatives though some of them were also targeted in the senseless violence (of course violence of any kind is unacceptable in any society – democratic or dictatorial)

All in all, Manipur is a reflection of a national collective failure. The 140-crore strong nation is forced to mutely watch the horror by just a thousand rowdy elements.

The reprehensible incident itself was based on rumours fanned by fake news. Where was the State intelligence machinery? Can anyone believe that the Union Home Ministry was oblivious of all these developments and that the PM was not informed? Why, why didn’t they act against such fake news that led to the shaming of India among the civilised global society?

Independent media like ours and the opposition have been shouting from the rooftops that the PM must speak out and appeal for an end to the riots and clashes between two rival factions of the Manipur Society. We have also called for getting both the warring sides to the negotiations table. We regretfully note that the Centre has failed in its federal duty to protect the people of Manipur.

The international media was rife with reports of the violence when the PM was too busy touring the US, France and of late the UAE. I would not like to bring in petty politics here, but had it been a non-BJP government ruling the State, all hell would have been unleashed on that party. Remember, 47 years after the Emergency, the BJP leadership and its trolls continue to tear into the Congress party and Indira Gandhi for the “murder of democracy”.

The BJP, in opposition on Benagl, was quick to point out a case of cruelty against two women in Malda district. The women might have been accused of stealing something in the rural market, but who gave the crowd the authority to strip them and beat them up? Women welfare minister Shashi Panja said the police stepped in and arrested five people. Then, we read about rape cases in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Such incidents are unacceptable in a civlised society. These cannot be covered up under the blanket of Manipur violence and vice versa. Crime should be above politics.

The pro-BJP section of the media was not expected to say a word against their ‘masters’. After all the hue and cry raised by the conscious media, post the PM and CJI’s comments, the so-called beacon of the shouting media finally opened its mouth. Immaterial. Enough damage has already been done. The European Parliament discussed the violence. Shame on us!

During the election campaign in February 2022, Modi said that the double engine government had laid a strong foundation. The stability and peace achieved in the last five years have to be made permanent, he said and asked the people to re-elect the BJP government. Writing from Mumbai, we noticed the strife between the hill tribals Kukis and the valley majority Meiteis but the Centre has miserably failed to bridge the trust gap between the two warring groups.

Modi often blames the Congress and other non-BJP parties for playing vote bank politics while he himself blatantly indulged in the same game in Manipur (and of course elsewhere).

Diversion, thy name is BJP. All along, the party leadership has been trying to divert people’s attention (and reinforcing the trend with the media under its thumb) by raking up issues and sometimes non-issues whenever the government is faced with crisis. The same trend continued with certain elements digging out old videos to spread fake narratives against non-BJP ruled States, apparently to opaque the Manipur fallout. And the national leadership does not say a word in these cases either. What was even more shocking was that a national news agency spread false news about the arrest of a Muslim youth in connection with the Manipur fake video case whereas the police tweet said the man was held in an altogether different case. The news agency tweet which was later deleted led to a twitter storm with politics in the name of religion getting overplayed. The agency in question did not apologise while deleting the wrong news but did so after a full 12 hours – enough time for the vested interests to whip up religious frenzy. The fake news had 707K views, 2,422 retweets, 395 quotes and 5,807 likes.

The Prime Minister is the most active global politician on social media. As we repeatedly said, he does not address media conferences to make announcements, but uses social media tools. But in the case of Manipur, he did not put out a word, not even one!

Words fail me to express anguish at the Manipur crisis. Let us hope that wiser counsel will prevail and the Centre begins to act to bridge the social, geographical, demographic, economic and even political gap between the Kukis and Meiteis by taking the nation into confidence and before Supreme Court comes down heavily to defend the constitutional rights of the people. But before that Biren Singh must go (if he has not already been dismissed by the time this column appears). We have had enough of his resignation drama.

(The columnist is a Mumbai-based independent media veteran, running websites and a youtube channel known for his thought-provoking messaging.)