Women a soft target in Manipur

IT is a hard piece to begin. On November 7, a 31-year-old woman was shot, tortured and set on fire during an attack on Zairawn village in Jiribam district of Manipur. Most villagers managed to escape, but Zosangkim, a mother of three, was hit by a bullet in the leg. She was a schoolteacher. Her husband alleged that she was raped and then left to die in the burning house.

Zairawn is a Hmar village located just 7 km from Jiribam town. According to villagers, there is a CRPF camp just half a kilometre from the village, and security forces patrol the area daily. The perpetrators are believed to be members of radical Meitei organisation Arambai Tenggol.

No state, national or international organisation has devised an effective mechanism for morally rejecting sexual violence as a weapon of war.

More than 230 people have been killed and 60,000 displaced since the ethnic conflict between Meiteis and Kuki-Zos broke out in May 2023.

On July 19 last year, a video clip of two Kuki women being paraded naked and assaulted by a mob of Meitei men went viral. It brought home the reality of Manipur’s volatile ethnic divide. A day after the video surfaced, the Supreme Court took suo motu cognisance of the case, calling it “deeply disturbing”. The court went on to order an investigation into 17 cases of sexual violence against women and children in Manipur by the Central Bureau of Investigation. The investigations were meant to be monitored by the court. Justice Gita Mittal headed the three-member committee that was formed by the court to probe cases of sexual violence in Manipur. Dattatray Padsalgikar, former Director General of Police, Maharashtra, was appointed to supervise the special investigative teams. A year later, these cases remain in limbo.

A woman’s body as a ‘site of violence’ is a not unfamiliar to conflict zones. Manipur is no stranger to armed conflict; thousands of women have lost their husbands to insurgent violence or the Army crackdown. However, the mayhem over the last year and a half has befuddled observers, who are struggling to make sense of the hatred between two indigenous communities which have lived together for centuries.

This is the very place where Meitei women once disrobed in public to protest against state violence. This is where Irom Sharmila, a Meitei woman, observed an unprecedented hunger strike for 16 years against state violence. And this is where an elected government with a Meitei Chief Minister has been accused of being the defender of an overground radical Meitei group that has been unleashing terror.

How does a democratic nation like India allow an elected representative to operate like a warlord? Why is it that the Centre is reluctant to rein in the BJP-run state government that has overwhelmingly failed to govern? The Prime Minister does not seem to have been moved by all this and has so far refused to even look that way, leave alone visit the state.

It is well known that militarisation often leads to violence by state actors who have jurisdictional power over the area concerned. The state then turns a blind eye to the crimes. For decades, crimes against women in states like Manipur have been virtually effaced under Acts like AFSPA (Armed Forces Special Powers Act) that grant immunity to the state.

In militarised zones across the world, the rules of war are changing dramatically. Civil conflicts have been increasing and targeting of women is being normalised. What used to be safe places, such as one’s neighbourhood, are now ‘enemy lines’.

Women are denied the opportunity to emerge as equal stakeholders in conflict zones; what’s worse, they are becoming obvious targets. Manipur is a disturbing case in point of the rising gender-based violence as well as a decline in the gender-sensitive framework, despite its tradition of an assertive women-led civil society. Acts of mass violence cloak gender-based violence and invisibilise the aggrieved women. The associated stigma of conflict-related sexual violence contributes to the silencing of victims. In many regions, a woman’s honour is equated with the community’s honour. Violations against women then becomes a mode of revenge in ethnic violence.

The triumphant impunity enjoyed by offenders discourages reporting. Disinformation as a tool further exacerbates the faultlines. Little or no media coverage as well as Internet and telecommunication curbs black out the sites of violence.

The initial outrage that follows an act of sexual violence often fails to bring acceptance to the victim, leave alone justice. It could result in displacement; it tears apart the social fabric, destroys families and affects communities. When rape is used as a weapon against neighbours, it splits open society at various levels.

No state, national or international organisation has devised an effective mechanism for the moral rejection of sexual violence as a weapon of war. Nor is there any evidence of a timely response by states in line with constitutional obligations.

It is true that the last decade has witnessed a significant shift, with many armed militias either retiring or laying down arms and joining the political system. I recall a senior Indian intelligence officer’s veiled caution about the de-escalation of counter-insurgency operations in India. He was involved in a ‘peace process’ that was going nowhere. He warned that insurgent violence would soon give way to ethnic wars. He was damn right!