On July 19 2023, the video of two young women belonging to the Kuki Zo community of Manipur was circulated in various platforms of social media. This exposed the failure of the country in protecting daughters from the most heinous crime of rape. The State was compelled to swing into swift action.
Who is the culprit in a situation like this, the unethical men lacking basic morality or, the indifference attitude of the State to the plight of many such women who are victims of the ethnic driven internal conflict in Manipur since 3rd May 2023? The traumatic sufferings of the victims and their families are incomprehensible, to say the least.
The question of removing/deleting the video which may have been downloaded a thousand times is an impossible task. Every time there is a view, the wounds of our sisters are scratched afresh and left to bleed.
“Let us celebrate the birth of the girl child,” said Narender Modi in his opening remarks at the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP) scheme launched on 22nd January, 2015 at Panipat, Haryana. This was a milestone for the Government in trying to bring about a transformational shift in the way our society looks at the girl child through nation-wide awareness and advocacy campaigns.
Yet with over a dozen laws for women in the country, this video of the two women being harassed, assaulted and humiliated if taken as an indicator, our progress on achieving gender equality and protection of women, appears to be moving in the back gear rather than forward.
The Government that prides itself on transforming the nation and meeting the obligations under the Sustainable Development Goals is today hanging “in shame” aptly expressed by the Prime Minister, eventually breaking his silence which he held onto rather dearly since the early days of the mayhem in Manipur. The PM calls upon the Chief Minister to strengthen the laws for stringent action on crime against women.
This call by the PM fails to display honest concern on the affairs of the state that has resulted in the blatant violation of human rights in particular atrocities on women undermining every sense of morality.
One must be mindful that the assault on these women is a manifestation of the ethnic violence, which is beyond the subject of law and order in Manipur. The Prime Minister’s take on the video fails to address the root cause of this incident which is not an isolated act.
By drawing a comparison of the assault on these women in Manipur with crimes against women in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, certainly creates an impression that the PM is deliberately looking at this video merely as a crime against women open to numerous interpretations.
It is tempting to question if this is an attempt to save the disgraced BJP Chief Minister’s total failure to normalise the situation in the state. There can be no denial that these two women were picked from the Kuki Zo (KZ) community.
The underlying cause of the crime is the genocidal approach of ethnic cleansing by the majoritarian against the tribals of the KZ community. This apprehends pertinent counter to the narrative that has been widely construed by the Meitei community continually accusing the tribals as perpetrators, illegal migrants, narco -terrorists, to name a few. It is very unsettling that even at this juncture no lasting solution is sought to address the crime of ethnic cleansing disguised under multiple violence especially against women in the state.
Some questions must be answered before any attempt is made towards assuming an honest concern by the government. Why has it taken the police to register the FIR post two months of this assault?
The family of the victims are said to have lodged zero FIR on May 18 but no investigation had been initiated until recently. The ugly truth that cries aloud is what if this horrific video had not surfaced?
The rape and assaults on these women be have gone unheard, denied and the heinous crimes evaporate just as it could be the case for other women. Do the laws on protection of women come into force only when such distraught evidence surfaces publicly?
The case of two Kuki girls from H.Khopibung village, employed in a car wash in Imphal brutally raped and killed in Konung Mamang. Was this not adequate to be investigated? Or, in another case, where an elderly Kuki mother and her two daughters were butchered in their own backyard. Or, the kidnapping and rape of yet another Kuki woman from Imphal’s Checkon (a locality inhabited by Kuki-Zo community) where her testimony itself would have sufficed for a probe?
Even in the absence of proof, the murder of a 62-year-old Schizophrenic women accused of being a suicide bomber appears to be accepted by the state without any inquiry. In the absence of a video clip what is the degree of proof or the nature of evidence the state is seeking which may then qualify victims of these heinous crimes as deserving of an impartial and timely investigation.
Where do we proceed from here?
The pain of the victims is unfathomable. Especially in the case of the 21-year-old who was shamed and molested. As if that was not enough, she even witnessed the murder of her father and young brother. Both the men died trying to defend her – a daughter and a sister.
What wrenches the heart is the indifference of the onlookers who watched the entire episode with no sense of remorse. The men and women in the video are undoubtedly accomplices in the crime. Will action be taken against them? The Supreme Court in Bodhisatwa vs. Ms. Subdhra Chakroborty (1996) has held "rape" as an offence which is violative of the Fundamental Right of a person guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.
Rape is a crime not only against the person of a woman; it is a crime against the entire society. It destroys the entire psychology of a woman and pushes her into a deep emotional crisis. Rape is therefore the most hated crime.
It is a crime against basic human rights and is violative of the victims most cherished right, namely, right to life which includes the right to live with human dignity contained in Article 21. Is there a punishment befitting the miscreants for violating the fundamental right of these victims?
In a case like this, the arrest of two or three persons do not make up for the incompetence of the Manipur state Police to uphold integrity in their service.
The apex Court's willingness to take suo motu cognisance should the government fail to act immediately leading to arrests in less than 12 hours is not enough to restore normalcy in the state divided on ethnic grounds since early May.
That would be mere eyewash. This incident also encapsulates the policy violations by social media platforms for spreading hate crimes. Response to the National Commission for Women issuance of a show cause notice to X Corp. in permitting the video to be uploaded on twitter is patiently awaited.
As a signatory to the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), we must still tell the world it is our internal matter.
Multiple petitions have been filed in the Supreme Court seeking the restoration of normalcy, rehabilitation of displaced persons, humanitarian aid and setting up of SIT to improve the situation in the state. In the latest hearing before the Supreme Court, Senior Advocate Dr. Colin Gonslaves on behalf of the Manipur Tribal Forum Delhi informed the bench that the situation in the state was worsening.
In his counter, the Solicitor General stated that the imposition of curfew hours being reduced to 5 hours daily and deployment of sufficient numbers of armed forces, setting up of relief camps were indicators of improvement, adding that “a communal angle may not be given like Christians or something. Real human beings are being dealt with”.
Indeed it is time for real solutions in Manipur, no amount of cosmetic surgeries will hide the painful scars in real human beings. Definitely not to the victims who have lost their homes, livelihood, relatives, education with no clear plan of rehabilitation till date. Perhaps we can begin at attempting to let the sense of justice prevail.
Dr. Mercy K Khaute Guite teaches at the Faculty of Law, University of Delhi. Views expressed here are the writer’s own.