Keep politics out of debate on protecting the dignity of women

For some it seems this entire issue is not about the dignity of women or the plight of the Christian Kukis. It is all about throwing out Modi.

The horrific video of two Manipuri women being paraded naked down a road and then allegedly raped depicts an act of unparalleled barbarism and rank moral depravity; an exposition of male human bestiality that has no place in a modern civilized world. The public outrage that this incident sparked was natural, the shock genuine and the calls for capital punition entirely justified. It goes without saying that the guilty must be identified, tried and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Additionally, this despicable incident should open up the forum for a wider debate on the politicization of rape especially in the context of this Manipur crisis: the hypocrisy, bigotry and double standards that have come to characterize such crimes in recent times, a phenomenon that was in full display post the release of this video.

First there is no denying that accountability must be pinned for this gruesome crime. But this must be an accountability based on facts and logic.

Let us look at the timeline to unravel a few relevant details.

• The actual incident occurred on 4 May in the valley district of Thoubal, a day after the Tribal Solidarity March on 3 May, which triggered this violent conflict.
• The FIR was filed as zero FIR (in a jurisdiction different from the site of the crime) by the husband of one of the victims on 18 May.
• Then there was an additional delay in transferring the case from the police station in which it was filed (Saikul) to the relevant police station (Nongpok Sekmaiand) in whose jurisdiction the incident occurred.
• The video depicting this crime went viral on 19 July.
• Arrests were made a day later.
  In such instances it is usual to make the police the whipping boy by casting them as negligent, tardy and insensitive. Headlines like, “Rape FIR gathered dust for 62 days as high-level meetings went on” (Indian Express, 21 July) make for sensational reading. But how accurate is this assumption and how valid is this charge against the police?
  When confronted, Thoubal Superintendent of Police, Sachidananda said “police could not take any action” so far due to “lack of evidence”.
  The initial FIR was registered against “unknown miscreants numbering about 900-1,000” and there is no proof so far that the police were privy to this video prior to 19 July.
  The police certainly could not have acted without plausible evidence.
  Sachidanand went on to say, “We only came to know about the video yesterday. Now that we have evidence in the form of the video, we have swung into action and have begun making arrests.”
  Also, the fact that there were almost 6,000 FIRs filed during this period makes prioritization an important factor in this analysis. Can the police be faulted for using its limited resources to prevent more such atrocities in a state that was still in the midst of violent hostilities or should it have focused its attention on a case with little initial tangible evidence against specific culprits (not a mob of 900-1000) is the million-dollar question.
  The police must be given the benefit of the doubt.
  The timing of the release of this video, more than 70 days later and when some degree of stability has returned to the state raises more questions. The identification of the culprits via this video is an incidental but welcome fallout of a what appears to be a larger sinister political game plan.
  If the primary intent was to deliver justice to the victims, whoever was in possession of the video should have publicized it immediately after the incident. The excuse of an internet shutdown will not fly. The video could have been physically handed over the authorities or if it was felt that the authorities could not be trusted, the video could have been channeled through non-partisan establishments like the media or the judiciary.
  The delay in the surfacing of the video is baffling.
  There have been more reports of outbreak of violence post the release of this video. Additionally, it has led to the targeting of Meiteis in neighboring Mizoram where they have been warned to leave.
  As per the PTI the video came to light when it was “doing the rounds on the eve of a planned protest march announced by the Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum (ITLF) on Thursday (19 July) to highlight their plight…”

(https://www.onmanorama.com/news/india/2023/07/20/manipur-violence-women-paraded-naked-raped.html)

And last but not least the timing of the video release has come as a godsend to a desperate opposition and a frustrated liberal lobby. What better opportunity could they have asked for to embarrass the government and take some sheen off the immensely successful foreign trips to the US and France by PM Modi and that too on the eve of a Parliament session.

Rape is a criminal assault on the dignity of a woman perpetrated by lumpen elements who exist in every society, in every community and in every religion and who exploit troubled circumstances to fulfil their base desires. We need to look at rape dispassionately sans the baggage of ideology, religion or ethnicity and we need to rise above petty politics. Rape occurring in BJP-ruled Manipur cannot be more heinous than one occurring in Congress ruled Rajasthan. And neither can the rape of Girija Tickoo who was brutally gang raped by men including one who was her colleague and then cut into two by a carpenter’s saw in Kashmir in 1990 be played down because the victim was a Hindu. Her family is still waiting for justice—no Supreme Court intervention in that case.

It would be naive to assume, extrapolating from this one video, that it was the only such incident that occurred during this two-month long Manipur conflict and that only Kukis were the victims. Common sense tells you that there were probably many more unrecorded instances like this one with victims belonging to both communities.

The sensational narrative that is being built up by our woke liberals to project the BJP as shirking responsibility, immoral and partisan and blaming the Prime Minister for not speaking out earlier is gaslighting at its worst.

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writing in the Indian Express (22 July 2023) speaks of the Prime Minister’s “moral evasion” and avers: “But don’t let his whataboutery disguise the plain facts. Whatever the historical social contradictions in Manipur between the Kukis and Meiteis, the horror unfolding at present has been exacerbated by the present governments at the state and the Centre. They have legitimized majoritarianism in Manipur and unleashed ethnic fear.”

Whether the PM spoke earlier or not is not the issue. Actions speak larger than words. And the government acted. Immediately after the outbreak of violence on 3 May, in one of the largest deployments of security forces outside of J&K, 125 columns (one column includes 60-80 soldiers) of the Army were deployed in Manipur.

Finally, P.B. Mehta concludes that “unless we throw out from power this morally callous regime that peddles absurdities and revels in atrocity, our expressions of shame will just be empty hand-waving…” thus inadvertently letting the truth slip out.
For some it seems this entire issue is not about the dignity of women or the plight of the Christian Kukis. It is all about throwing out Modi.

Politicising a crime against the dignity of women must not be allowed to hijack a necessary debate on refining and redefining our society to enhance its gender sensitivity.