Manipur, the Northeastern Indian state has been hogging the headlines for wrong reasons since May of 2023. She was torn apart by bloodcurdling violence, brutality and anarchy.

The source of information about the gory goings-on in Manipur till date has been the press. The visual media had been relating the sordid Manipur tale through primetime news and high-octave discussions. The print media, which has been on the ventilator since 2014 seemed throttled, biased and fearfully hesitant, while the social media fished in bloodstained slush, as always, to confuse and add to the already gory picture though unsubstantiated hearsay.

Violence between Hindu dominated Meitei community and Christian dominated Kuki tribe, in lines of ethnic strife reached its zenith in the recent bloodbath.

Violence between the two groups isn’t new in Manipur. The state of three million had been witness to waves of ethnic strife much before Indian independence.

But the present spell of violence outdid preceding bouts in terms of terror, intensity and brutality. Manipuris have seemingly ceased to be human.

Instances of coldblooded murder committed in goriest manner, rape and torching of dwelling places were reported in Manipur unprecedentedly. It is said Manipuris used the arms belonging to the army and police, whose barracks rioters looted to unleash atrocities on fellow Manipuris. Instances of pregnant women being forced to deliver before policemen and Armed forces made rounds too. Students had nowhere to study but skeletal remains of smoldering schools. Orphans wailed in vain. Murderers took selfies with their victims which law-enforcers watched with folded hands.  

 Churches were torched. A more civilized world watched with concern as smoke bellowed from Manipur.    

Statistically, 140 have perished and 60,000 displaced thus far (officially). Numbers mount as this is being written.

Who will tell us what really happened in Manipur? Was the madness another eye-for-an-eye phenomenon? Are both communities equally to be blamed?

It is the government’s duty, either the state or the centre to tell us when things go terribly wrong in the country.

The forum for the government to do this is the Parliament. But, the present central ruling disposition seems reluctant to relate the Manipur Story to rest of us for reasons best known to them.

The Modi government which is verbose by default on other issues seems scared to talk on Manipur.

What people expect to hear from Parliament is not rabblerousing and yelling indulged in by Minister of Women and Child development whose decibel levels had yelping canines run for their money, when she attempted to put the opposition on the mat when it questioned her government on Manipur.

She wondered about the opposition’s timidity to speak on atrocities on women in opposition-ruled states. Was she condoning the unspeakable violation of womanhood in Manipur? If so, she has no business to cling to her portfolio.

We expect somebody more decorous behind Parliament’s microphones.

The nation looked up to the Prime Minister or the Home Minister to tell us the Manipur Story. Strangely, they were tightlipped.

  As Manipur was systematically being shredded to pieces, the state seemed abandoned by government, both the state and centre. Manipur’s’ ‘double-engine government’ seemed to have derailed and in mangles.

Rest of a horrified country sought answers. None were forthcoming. People responsible to give answers seemed to have deserted the sinking ship.

The Prime minister was busy globetrotting in the US, France, Egypt and the UAE. He was busy hugging heads of states of those countries, partaking of state dinners, exchanging indigenous gifts, and receiving highest state awards of those nations. All this when citizens in one of India’s states murdered, looted, and raped fellow citizens, and burnt their homes.

The Prime Minister did a Nero by playing the lyre in lands he visited when Manipur burnt. The Home Minister back home metamorphosed into an ostrich.

Manipur’s invisible Chief Minister Biren Singh seemed to fan the flames that bifurcated his state along ethnic lines with the Meiteis in the valley and the Kukis in the hills. He seemed interested not to ruffle the feathers of the Meiti community he belonged to. Rumors of Women belonging to one community being violated by rabid men of the other led to more atrocities against women who were sitting ducks in Manipur’s latest mayhem.

India under NDA rule was deafened by the deafening silence of the legislature who shied away from speaking on the Manipur story. The Prime Minister went into silent mode, saving his eloquence for addressing Parliaments of nations he visits and election rallies.

The peculiar phenomenon of words failing him in his own Parliament when incidents that does not brook well for him and his government stuck to him like a leech.

That was when the video of two Kuki women being forcibly stripped naked, groped and then allegedly gang raped by Meitei mob on May 4 in the Thoubal District of Manipur caused outrage in the country. That was also when the Prime Minister chose to indulge in the exercise that only politicians are experts at- shedding crocodile tears.

‘What happened to the daughters of Manipur can never be forgiven. The entire country has been shamed by the incident’ he bellowed in his characteristic chest-thumping, fist-clenching, biceps flexing methodology.

Soon arrests of alleged assailants of the violated women followed.

The opposition, which by then had formed an alliance- ‘INDIA’ (acronym for Indian national Developmental Inclusive Alliance) to take on the NDA in the 2024 general elections demanded Parliamentary debate on Manipur. NDA imitated its sphinx-like boss.

Instead of addressing INDIA’s demands, Modi beat around the bush by ridiculing them by drawing parallel between the name of the Alliance INDIA with East India Company, Indian Mujahedeen and Popular Front of India and other organizations of dubious distinction. Instead of speaking on Manipur in Parliament, he termed INDIA the most directionless entity the country had ever seen’; typical of Modi- silent on issues that mattered, and verbose on the irrelevant!

Will Indians have to wait for a Sudipto Sen to tell us the ‘Manipur Story’ someday?