Opinion: Manipur Needs Healing, Today

As I write this, we have just concluded the seventh day of parliament. No sign yet of Prime Minister Narendra Modi inside Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha. The closest he has come to the chambers of both Houses is to address the media somewhere in the precincts of parliament House. The INDIA parties (preferred usage to "Opposition parties") are striving to get a discussion going in parliament on Manipur. There is one hitch. The PM does not want to participate in the debate. The INDIA parties insist he must. Hence, the logjam.

Let's leave parliament aside for a moment, and consider the footage that has surfaced from Manipur. Last week a bone-chilling video was circulated on social media. Two women from the conflict ridden state were being paraded naked by a mob of men, some of whom seemed to be teenagers.

Since then, several details have emerged. What we know so far is that this incident occured soon after the violence in Manipur erupted. That it was caused in retaliation to a piece of fake news that went viral in early May. This piece of false news showed the image of a young woman wrapped in a plastic bag. The claim was that she was from a particular ethnic group, and had been raped and killed by men from a rival group. As it was discovered later, the woman was a Delhi murder victim from 2022. The image enraged men belonging to one group, who then abducted the women who appeared in the video and revenge raped them.