TW: This material contains references to r*pe. Readers should exercise caution.
The latter portion of the title may elicit a shocked reaction, but bear with me. Manipur isn’t the first, and it won’t be the last if we continue to put women’s human rights on the back burner, as we have for so long. When we observe a war predicated on ethnic divides, women are utilized as tools to instil terror. They get reduced to “things” that can be trodden on. R*ping women appear to be part of the war toolset. It is not a byproduct but a massive psychological weapon deliberately used to establish power.
Manipur witnessed ethnic tensions between Meitei and Kuki-Zomi tribes since May 2023, resulting in riots. Accusations of sexual attacks on women circulated amid the mayhem, although little was broadcast owing to internet shutdowns. A video of two women being paraded naked in the streets and being taken to the fields to be gang r*ped by a mob of young men floated in the last few days (July) has sparked outrage across the nation.
Why wasn’t this threat assessed from the beginning?
Had it been, these two and so many others could have been saved. Let me try and give you an assessment for anyone who argues or thinks how somebody (the most powerful man in India) could have known this could have happened. Here are some statistics:
During Rwanda’s three-month genocide (1994), approximately 100,000 to 250,000 women were r*ped. Russian soldiers on the move r*ped hundreds of German women. In 1937, Japanese troops launched a six-week-long bloodbath that obliterated the Chinese city of Nanking and r*ped between 20,000 and 80,000 Chinese women. Nazis r*ped countless Jewish women.
In 1971, r*ping Bengali women during night raids was Pakistan’s show of force against Bangladesh. Twenty years have passed since the Gujrat riots, which saw gang r*pes, breast mutilation, and naked women paraded through the streets. The most hush-hush; the 1991 Kunan Poshpora’s (J&K) “alleged” mass r*pes, which affected girls and women aged 6 to 60.
And so many others. What seems to be the common denominator of wars/riots based on the ethnic divide? Take a rational guess.
And so I ask, what have we learned from history, not just ours, but the world?
The ghastly crime supposedly happened on May 4, 2023, and it took for the vile video to go viral more than two months later to catch the attention span of the “protectors” of this country to break their silences. I fear that the survivors’ voices will be put in the backseat (yet again), and the entire focus will shift towards media highlighting their favourite speechmaker and his endearing way of emotional delivery, forgetting all about the issue at its core.
Politicians will use them as political manifestos, giving no heed to the trauma these women endured and will continue to do for the rest of their lives every time this matter is brought up. In the midst, also left behind, will be the ones whose screams were heard only by the ones committing and the ones hiding. I am afraid these survivors will just be reduced to numbers.
Unless we go to the absolute root cause of the problem and make changes in policies, governance, and institutions, as the title suggests: it won’t be the last of incidents. And so I would leave with a question for everybody to ponder: how do they (those involved in the Manipur incident) come together as if they were pre-programmed in a way that someone says let’s r*pe, and others (hundreds) flip to attacking?