By Jose Kavi
New Delhi, July 21, 2023: Christians, especially women, have joined nationwide condemnation of parading two women naked and gangraping them in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur where ethnic violence has raged for the past 80 days.
A viral video of 26-minutes shows men sexually attacking women belonging to the ethnic Kuki-Zo tribe.
One woman, aged 21, was gang raped, according to the first information report (FIR) filed by the survivors. The other woman was aged 42.
The incident happened on May 4, a day after deadly ethnic riots broke out between the mainly Hindu Meitei and predominantly Christian Kuki-Zo tribes in Manipur, which has been ruled by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the past six years.
The Meiteis, who constitute 53 percent of Manipur’s 3.5 million population, mainly live in capital Imphal and the prosperous valley around it, while the Kuki-Zo and Naga tribes live in the surrounding hill districts.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke about Manipur after the video became viral on the 79th day of the violence. He told the media near the Parliament House that his heart was filled with anguish and anger over the horrific video and said the guilty would not be spared.
“As I stand next to this temple of democracy, my heart is filled with pain and anger. The Manipur incident is shameful for any civilised nation. The entire country has been shamed,” he added.
Kochurani Abraham, a woman theologian in the southern Indian state of Kerala, is angry with the system that permits criminals to take women’s bodies as sites of violence to give vent to their feelings of vengeance. “The sexual brutalities meted out to Manipuri women fill me with rage,” she told Matters India July 21.
Apostolic Carmel Sister M Nirmalini, head of India’s 130,000 Catholic religious, says her organization “absolutely condemn the video,” which she finds “very disturbing as a woman. It is an outrageous violation of respect and dignity of women.”
Sister Nirmalini, who is based in Bengaluru, Karnataka, wants action against the police and punish the law providers who stood watching the crime. “Those who did this should be booked,” she asserted.
Presentation Sister Dorothy Fernandes of Patna, Bihar, says the “orchestrated ghastly crime” has sent a shiver down her spine. “I am sure all women feel that it has happened to them,” she told Matters India July 20.
Nirmala Carvalho, a Mumbai-based journalist, says the incident was not just a means to terrorize the entire Kuki community, but a horrific and inevitable accompaniment of the ethnic cleansing unfolding in Manipur for nearly three months.
The mob used the spectacle to publicly humiliate, demoralize and subjugate the ethnic Kuki community, and they were emboldened by the mute administration, she told Matters India.
Rape, she adds, has been the weapon and strategy of war in recent brutal civil wars in Rwanda and Sri Lanka. “In Manipur, far from being merely an ethnic violence, it is the massacre and annihilation of the Christians Kukis,” she asserted.
Astrid Lobo Gajiwala from Mumbai, a writer and activist, points out that it took a video of women being forced to strip publicly, to make the state finally speak out against the atrocities happening in Manipur.
“If it wasn’t for the widespread outrage the video provoked and the perceived damage to the image of the government, would the powers that be have broken their self-imposed silence?” she asks.
Women’s bodies, she told Matters India, have always been used “as a battlefield so while the Manipur episode is mind-numbing and horrific, tragically, it is not unexpected.”
What is equally disturbing for her is the timeline. The incident happened on May 4. The first FIR was filed on May 18 and the prime minister apparently got to know of it with the rest of India on July 20.
“The chief minister now has admitted on television that there are more such incidents. So, what does the silence of the state mean? Does it mean that the weaponization of women’s bodies is now par for the course in conflicts and so does not merit state attention and intervention?” she asks.
She asserts the state authorities were complicit in the act if they knew about these atrocities and did nothing to restore law and order. “And if they didn’t know over two months is this not a sign of incompetency?” she asks
Gajiwala wants all concerned about Manipur to document stories from the state, form committees for truth telling, and care for the victims.
Sister Fernandes wonders who would own up to the loss of women’s lives in Manipur. The Manipur chief minister has said that the administration shut down the internet in the state because 100 of such cases have taken place.
“If women’s bodies become a battlefield, what message is being sent out to the nation? Do we women, our dignity, not matter? Do you want to use us and our bodies for your political gain?” asks Sister Fernandes, national convener of the Forum of Religious for Justice and Peace, an advocacy group.
She says justice demands that the prime minister and the chief minister resign along with the entire federal cabinet. “How should we conduct ourselves if we cannot protect the dignity and safety of women who form 50 percent of society?” she asks.
Abraham says the unruly mob with their act wants to show that women’s sexuality is something they can juggle.
According to her, the Manipur incident is a repeat of Bilkis Bano, a gang rape survivor of the 2002 Gujarat riots, and thousands other Indian women with similar experiences. “Their stories are either buried in shame or get labelled as not meriting consideration,” she laments.
Abraham says she does not expect an easy transformation in the country where “toxic masculinities are licensed by the patriarchally inscribed socioreligious and political powers to belch out the venom in public and domestic life.”
Yet, I do believe that through collective resistance this politics of hate unleashed in the country can be challenged and that gives me the audacity to hope in such hopelessness.
The Mothers’ Forum of the Syro-Malabar Church also condemned the Manipur incident. “Amid the painful news of the Manipur riots going on for about two and a half months, young women have been stripped naked and gang-raped in a brutal and inhumane manner,” a statement from the forum laments.
The mothers suspect that the Manipur chief minister and the prime minister are giving tacit approval to what is happening in that state.
“It is disgraceful that the rulers continue to be inactive even after robbing the honor of Mother India,” says the statement that wants the conscience of India awakened against such heinous acts.
The government should bring the criminals to justice and ensure maximum punishment,” the mothers asserted.
Fr C.M. Paul is absolutely right. This is the version of the two victims. The husband of the senior victim is a Kargil war survivor and also Panchayat Pradhan of her village. He lamented he saved his country during the Kargil War but could not save his wife from the perpetrators.
Rape is used as an instrument of violence during riots and conflict situations across the world. It is also recognised by the Genocide Convention international treaty.
The two women were snatched by the mob from Police protection.