The common trait that binds Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chairperson of National Women’s Commission Rekha Sharma, a government appointee, together is their prolonged and intriguing silence on the barbarity going on in Manipur. It took a horrific video and the Supreme Court’s ultimatum that it would step in if the so-called “double-engine” BJP government at the Centre and in the state of Manipur do not act to stop the mayhem to make Modi and Sharma break their silence. Even then, the PM spoke only for 36 seconds after the video went viral and shocked the nation. It showed the bestiality of criminals who stripped two Kuki-Zomi women, paraded them in public, groped them and took them to a field to gangrape them.
The PM, who seems so adept in using communication tools and social media platforms to trumpet his and his government’s activities, kept mum for far too long as Manipur was engulfed in ethnic clashes, killings, arson and rape. His unexplained silence for over two months attracted attention inside and outside the country. But, he remained unmoved. Similarly, the NCW chief, even being a woman, sat on complaints on the horrific incident of stripping and rape for over a month. She seems to be acting like a BJP propagandist and did not speak a word even when the country’s top women wrestlers complained of sexual misdemeanour against BJP MP and Wrestling Federation of India chief Brij Bhushan. She had maintained a studied silence when criminals involved in the Bilkis Bano case were let off. Also, she courted controversy and incurred nation-wide opprobrium for her misogynistic remark on “love jihad” – a pet BJP and Sangh Parivar propaganda initiative against Moslems. This was despite the Union Home Minister Amit Shah having said in Parliament there was no “love-jihad” incident. There is hardly any doubt that she is occupying the chair to help the BJP’s divisive agenda which explains the extension she got.
The NCW received complaints, dated June 12, citing three cases of sexual assault against Kuki-Zomi tribal women by majority Meitei vigilantes. The video of the two women being paraded naked was also mentioned in that complaint. Two activists and the North American Manipur Tribal Association had spoken to survivors of sexual violence before filing the complaint with the NCW. However, they allegedly did not receive any response from the women’s panel.
The NCW Chairperson, who needs to be sacked after her criminal negligence of the worst crime that could be perpetrated against women, has the brazenness to say only after the video surfaced that the commission “had to verify the authenticity” of the complaints. She had the gumption to claim that the NCW had reached out to the state authorities, but did not get any response and took “suo motu cognisance” over a month after the video went viral. She has no answer to the question of what had prevented her for the past one month to take such action after the NCW got the complaint.
The complaints emailed directly to her office on June 12 clearly stated the crimes and abuses faced by women, such as being “disrobed, paraded naked, beaten and then encircled by a marauding Meitei mob and raped in public,” committed on May 4. There were no replies or acknowledgement from NCW of the complaints. Under her leadership, India has seen little to no progress on the women safety front and still ranks among the least safe nations in the world for women.
On the other hand, Modi’s stand on the Manipur violence till date shows the same insensitivity and callousness that he had displayed when he was Chief Minister of Gujarat and the state saw a pogrom against Moslems. This forced the then Prime Minister from his own party, Atal Behari Vajpayee, to reprimand him and ask him to perform his “raj dharma” meaning his role as Chief Minister.
Unfortunately, there is no leader in the BJP now who can utter a word against him for the authority he wields in the government and the Sangh Parivar. Being the party’s tallest leader now, it seems, he can get away with whatever he does. The international community has condemned his silence and partisan handling of the ethnic conflict in Manipur. That made the Ministry of External Affairs to lecture the European Union Parliament on not to interfere in India’s internal affairs. Now the MEA could be questioned if it has any answer to the gravest injustice done to the two daughters of Manipur, making a mockery of the PM’s pet campaign of “Beti Bachao” (save women).
The least the BJP should do is to remove the NCW Chairperson and also the Manipur CM N Biren Singh who has miserably failed to perform his “raj dharma.” But, it cannot take action against him so as not to antagonise the majority Hindoo community – Meitei – for its majoritarian vote-bank politics which is at the root of the current turmoil in Manipur. Presently Indian electoral politics has been corralled by religion. The vote catching apparatus of the BJP is totally dependent on a majority-minority skirmish just before polls to enable it do its scheming successfully. This in turn is creating social divides that will last for decades, if not centuries. People too seem least concerned about issues regarding the nation’s economy, healthcare, education and many other vital and core sectors about which the government alone can do something. Because it remains unquestioned, the government has also started punishing anyone who dares to speak freely as in the case of the influential civil society group called ‘Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity’ against which cases of sedition have been filed by the paramilitary organization Assam Rifles. The situation is fast rolling out towards the end of democracy and establishment of authoritarianism.