The Bilkis Banos of Manipur

Kukis stage a protest over the ongoing violence in Manipur, at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on June 24. Pic/Damlemsang

On July 15, 2004, a group of Manipuri women assembled in front of Imphal's Kangla Fort, the Assam Rifles headquarters, took off their clothes and held aloft a banner that declared: "Indian Army Rape Us." These Meitei women were protesting against the Assam Rifles soldiers accused of raping and killing 32-year-old Manorama Thangjam. Images of their protest became iconic representations of resistance against uniformed men violating women in conflict zones.

In sharp contrast to the 2004 protest at the Kangla Fort, Meitei women have not only been part of mobs hunting and killing Kukis, but they have also reportedly egged on men to rape Kuki women caught in the bloody maelstrom of Manipur's ethnic-religious conflict.

Take Hahat, a resident of B Phainom village, Kangpokpi district, whose account to the Kuki Women's Forum, a civil society group, makes for a chilling read. On May 4, the village repulsed the raid by a Meitei mob comprising men and women. The Meiteis regrouped and attacked again. With their defence crumbling, the residents, including Hahat, fled to the hills. Once at a safe distance, Hahat watched the horror unfold: her brother and his son were executed. Her niece and the village chief's wife were disrobed, paraded around naked, and raped.

Hahat's account echoes the experience of Bilkis Bano during the 2002 Gujarat riots. Then 21 years old and pregnant, Bilkis and her extended family fled Radhikpur village, in Dahod district, at the outbreak of violence across Gujarat. The fleeing villagers were waylaid by a group of men armed with swords and sickles. Bano, her mother and three other women were gangraped. Eight were killed, another six went missing. Bano survived, and went on to courageously wage her struggle for justice.
It is a cruel twist of history that the land of Meira Paibis, or Women Torch Bearers, who led the iconic 2004 Kangla Fort protest, has spawned its own Bilkis Banos: vulnerable women raped, assaulted and left to die.

There seems to have been a demonic strategy to incite Meiteis to rape Kuki women and justify these barbaric actions as retaliatory in nature, a strategy laid bare by Hoineilhing Sitlhou, assistant professor at the University of Hyderabad, in a piece she wrote for NewsClick. Fake news about Kukis raping Meitei women was first spread via social media and word of mouth. The sexual assaults on Kukis were then projected as retribution.

Here are some instances of fake news that Sitlhou cited in her piece. It was claimed that Kukis, in their stronghold of Churachandpur district, had raped Meitei women. Manipur's Director General of Police denied it forthwith. It was bandied around that a Meitei nurse in Churachandpur had been raped; her father went to a local TV channel to deny it. Imphal's Shija Hospital scotched rumours that the bodies of 37 Meitei rape victims were in its morgue.

Yet just about every rape survivor or eyewitness to the violence against women told Sitlhou that the Meitei assailants spoke of the violation of their women even as they proceeded to sexually assault Kukis. The survivors also testified to the participation of Meitei women in the violence against their Kuki counterparts.

For instance, employees at a car-wash company in Imphal hid two Kuki girls as a Meitei mob of men and women came searching for them. Under duress, an employee revealed their hideout. The two girls were gagged and dragged to another room, where they were mercilessly beaten and tortured. Their fathers, in their testament to the Kuki Women's Forum, said, "Shockingly, women were among the perpetrators." The two girls are dead, their bodies lying in a government hospital's morgue. A doctor there told a family member of one of the two girls that "maybe" they were raped.

Kim (name changed), 18, was abducted from Checkon, in Imphal, and ferreted away to a Meitei locality, where a group of men and, yes, women, battered her with rifle butts. Her hair was snipped off to break her resistance to the men's sexual advances. The Meitei women did not intervene. Kim courageously, and miraculously, escaped from her captors. Her medical report confirmed she had been raped.

Bilkis Bano not only symbolises the vulnerability of women during spells of social chaos, but also the resolve of the weak to secure justice. The first step to justice requires an impartial investigation into the reports of rape discussed above. As Tracy Mate, of the Kuki Women's Forum, says, "Justice is not served until the voices of rape victims are heard, their pain acknowledged, and their rights protected." For the Forum's Daisy Mate Munluo, though, justice has quite another meaning: "Associating with Meiteis only leads to our oppression. For me, justice means Kukis must have their separate administration. Families of survivors deserve separation from their tormentors."

Gujarat's Bilkis Bano suffered during the rule of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which is the ruling party in Manipur, where its Bilkis Bano and the families of those who did not survive the ordeal of rape struggle to find closure to their suffering. It is for the readers to figure out whether the BJP factor, common to the social breakdown in Gujarat and Manipur, is merely a coincidence.

The writer is a senior journalist

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