Biren Singh is the Modi of 2002

Manipur Chief Minister Biren Singh and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in New Delhi. File pic/AFP

The nation must thank Prime Minister Narendra Modi not only for belatedly breaking his silence on Manipur, but also for the language he used to condemn the parading of two Kuki women stripped naked in public there, with one of them brutally gang-raped. Modi said his heart was filled with "anger and sorrow" at the barbaric act captured in a video that went viral.

His remark is in sharp contrast to the regret he expressed, in 2013, over the 2002 Gujarat riots. If "someone else is driving a car and we're sitting behind, even then if a puppy comes under the wheel, will it be painful or not? Of course, it is. If I'm a chief minister or not, I'm a human being. If something bad happens anywhere, it is natural to be sad," Modi told the Reuters news agency.

Modi's sensitivity seems to have deepened ever since he became the Prime Minister in 2014. But he had as the Gujarat Chief Minister provided a model of politics that other chief ministers could follow to enhance their popularity. This model involves an elected leader demonising the minorities, whether religious or ethnic, and rallying the majority community behind himself or herself.

This is precisely the model Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh has adopted. In April, a month before Manipur slipped into mayhem, he told the Organiser, the mouthpiece of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, "The indigenous people of the state have been reduced to the status of second-class citizens after the ‘foreigner Kuki' immigrants took control of the social, political and economic affairs."

Singh claimed that villages along India's international border had seen a substantial rise in the Kuki population, which he said was on account of militant Kuki outfits, flush with black money generated through the drug trade, facilitating the influx of illegal immigrants from Myanmar into Manipur. "No need of doing politics; if we cannot protect our people from dying," Singh told the Organiser.

It would seem that to "protect" his own people from "dying," Singh has let the Meiteis war against Kukis, with the police idly watching killings and rapes being committed. In May-end, he framed the violence as nothing more than his government's "operations against the terrorists who have been attacking civilians with sophisticated weapons." He projected the 40 who had been killed until then as terrorists. Weeks later, Singh blamed the "foreign hand" (read China) for lighting the fire in Manipur.

Singh's remarks echo the statements Modi made in 2002, which can be read in Manoj Mitta's The Fiction of Fact-Finding: Modi & Godhra. On February 27, 2002, when a train at Godhra was set ablaze, Modi said the arson was a pre-planned conspiracy involving terrorists, triggering a reaction against Muslims. In Gujarat then, as in Manipur in 2023, the police allowed Hindu mobs to go berserk.

Soon, Modi went on Doordarshan to appeal for peace, but did not demonstrate the neutrality expected of a chief minister. About the burning of the train, he said, "The culprits will get full punishment for their sins… We will set an example that nobody, not even in his dreams, thinks of committing a heinous crime like this." As for the violence against Muslims, Modi said, "I can appreciate your [Hindu] sentiments. But I appeal to you with folded hands, we must maintain peace and self-restraint."

In an interview to Zee TV, he blamed Ehsan Jafri, the former MP who was hacked to death, for sparking the Gulberg Society massacre. The reason: Jafri, whose calls for help to the administration went unanswered, had fired to disperse an armed mob about to break into the housing society.

At a rally, months after the riots, Modi advocated the closure of relief camps established for displaced Muslims thus: "Should we open child producing centres?" He was alluding to the unfounded belief that India's developmental advantage is eroded because of the Muslim population growing at a higher rate than the national average. "We are five and ours are 25," he quipped sarcastically.

Modi launched a diatribe against Chief Election Commissioner JM Lyngdoh for postponing the Gujarat Assembly Election, highlighting his Christian identity by taking his full name - James Michael Lyngdoh - at election rallies. At one meeting, Modi said, "Some asked [me], is he [Lyngdoh] a relation of Sonia Gandhi? I said, perhaps they meet in Church."

Modi wrote a letter, in August 2003, to then President APJ Abdul Kalam, claiming that the allegations of human rights violations were being raised by vested interests. "They are identifying stray incidents and exaggerating them with the sole objective of slowing the pace of development," Modi noted. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

These examples from Modi's past explain why he cannot criticise or sack Singh, for the latter is pursuing the model of politics the former invented 21 years ago - and perfected it since then. The Gujarat riots enabled Modi to capture the commanding heights of Indian politics. Singh has already become a household name countrywide, a rare achievement for chief ministers from the Northeast. Let's face it: the blood of the minorities has increasingly become the fuel powering the rise of leaders.

The writer is a senior journalist

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