How Women’s Violence Has Became A Weapon During Conflict in Manipur

Three ladies fled their burning houses on May 4 from the Manipuri hamlet of Erup Kangpopki. It took more than 70 days to put together their horrific tale, with fresh information becoming available every day. They were paraded by a throng of hundreds of men while completely nude and then reportedly gang-raped, according to one popular story. According to Manipur’s Chief Minister N Biren Singh, who justified the lack of swift action against the culprits by asserting that “hundreds” of such occurrences have place on the ground, this was not an uncommon incidence in the region’s conflict-torn state.

The Prime Minister finally spoke out against the unrest in Manipur after seeing a bloody, brutal video of a nude lady being attacked by a bunch of men in broad daylight. The opposition’s failure to handle violent crimes against women in its own states also outraged the prime minister. He called the Manipur event “shameful,” yet he also used the cliched description of the ladies as “daughters.” “What happened to the ‘daughters’ of Manipur can never be forgiven,” he said.

Similar stories of being killed, raped, and stripped

Women’s bodies are still exploited as battlefields during times of war. In the instance of the Manipur event on May 4, it turned into a matter of retaliation — one group got its way by dishonoring the ladies of the ‘other’ community.

Manorama Thangjam, 32, was kidnapped from her Manipur home in July 2004 by soldiers from the 17th Assam Rifles. Her dismembered corpse was discovered adjacent to a paddy field the next morning, along with 16 gunshot wounds. She had been killed, raped, and stripped. She was captured, according to the Assam Rifles, because she belonged to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), a terrorist group in Manipur. They said she was a skilled in IEDs and had been a PLA insurgent since 1995. The event, which happened before social media, also went unreported in the national and local media for a considerable amount of time. Until a disturbing image appeared.

At the entrance of the Kangla Fort cantonment in Imphal, where the Assam Rifles were then stationed, twelve middle-aged ladies, or “Imas” (which is Meitei for “mothers”), disrobed as a sign of protest. “Indian Army, Rape Us” and “Indian Army Take Our Flesh” were written on placards they were holding aloft. A flashpoint in Manipur was the video of the 12 women protesting in nude form, expressing their anger over being raped by the armed forces, and yelling “Rape us!” as they pounded their chests. But it wasn’t until 2014 that retired judge Chungkham Upendra Singh, who had been tasked with investigating the woman’s death, came to the shocking conclusion that she had been viciously raped and killed.

Not much has changed for women in the violent state in over 20 years. Days after the discovery of the first video, it was revealed that two more Kuki-Zo women from the Khopibung hamlet of Kangpokpi had been imprisoned in Imphal and sexually raped by at least six men, according to the FIR filed by their families. Hours later, they were discovered dead in the room. A Border Security Force (BSF) security guard was recently caught on tape touching a lady inside a supermarket shop. Only the instances that have been reported so far are included here. Many crimes against women go unreported or, in the case of Manipur, go unrecognized as a result of frequent internet outages and limited access to information. The police were notified about the sexual harassment incident on May 4 that same month. On May 18, a zero FIR was submitted. But on July 20, the Manipur police made their first arrest.

Women’s problems dominate politics.

The government has largely focused on the “security issue” of the state in terms of protecting the nation from external forces or internal issues, rather than in terms of micro lives, writes Shreema Ningombam, Assistant Professor in a college in Manipur, even though the women in the northeastern state have been victims of structural violence since before independence.

She continues, “In such a scenario, the military becomes the main pillar of the state and society, as manifested in the AFSPA, and women end up suffering from ‘double patriarchy’ here: first, they suffer due to archaic patriarchal customs and laws, and second, they suffer due to the patriarchal form of nationalism engulfing Manipur and the Indian state.

The incident’s survivors are being referred to as “daughters,” who are under the authority of the patriarch, in this instance the state. The similar ‘paternalistic’ attitude was evident in the remarks made by other politicians since then. Speaking for the Bihar BJP, Vinod Sharma left the organization, claiming that the episode “defamed India.” It seems that for a violation of women’s bodies to be given national relevance, the viral video must be linked with a violation of a nation’s image, as stated by CM Biren Singh when he ordered statewide demonstrations because it “tarnished the state’s image.”

The Manipur police have so far detained eight suspects in the case more than 80 days after the May 4 event. But why does the state need to see a graphic image of a woman being abused before acting? And is justice served by the delayed action?