But Manipur is no Rwanda

Events in Manipur are more than faintly redolent of Rwanda in the mid-1990s, where Hutus massacred Tutsis by the thousands

A series of judgments by the Supreme Court has raised expectancy that the apex court will dispense speedy justice on Manipur.

Having suo motu taken up the Manipur matter, arising from the video of two women being paraded naked and thereafter sexually assaulted in Kangpokpi three months ago, on May 4, the court has observed that there has been a “complete breakdown” of law and order machinery in the state. The Chief Justice pointed out that “Investigation is so lethargic. FIRs registered after two months. Arrests not made. Statements recorded after a long lapse of time…State police is incapable of investigation. They have lost control. There is absolutely no law and order…… They may have made performative arrests but they were not in charge. Either they were incapable of doing it or uninterested”.

The DGP is to present himself before the court where he is expected to receive a well-deserved dressing down. But how far can the Supreme Court go? New Delhi has maintained a stance of studied nonchalance to the horrific situation continuing to unfold in Manipur, both in the face of increasing domestic outrage and growing international restiveness even as it helms the G20. It thinks the problem will quietly go away on its own before the summit on September 9, barely a month away, where the leaders of the world are bound to privately look askance as Prime Minister Narendra Modi glibly grandstands, with what many may be beginning to think amounts to a genocide as the backdrop.

Ironically, even as the African Union becomes a full-member to the G20, as Modi sagely recommended, events in Manipur are more than faintly redolent of, say, Rwanda, in the mid-1990s, where Hutus massacred Tutsis by the thousands. Yet, here we are in the 21st century under Modi’s leadership, catching up with the darker shades of Africa or further afield, Papa Doc Duvalier’s Haiti.

As long as the Supreme Court paces itself on the way it deals with Manipur, the problem is not going to vanish like a magician’s illusory trick. Already the scope of its work has widened. There are signs that the court might set up a committee of former judges of the high court to assess the situation in its wider ramifications — rehabilitation, restoration of homes, and supervision of the process relating to recording of statements, which precedes investigation.

The focus is on 6,000 or so FIRs that have been registered by the police. That number is certain to be misleading as also the nature of the FIRs and how divorced they may be from the plethora of actual crimes, arson, rape, or murder. The actual number of unrecorded crimes are likely to be many times more than 6,000. Consider the reality, given the extrajudicial killings, the custodial deaths, the false cases, even as the central forces such as the Assam Rifles and the Indian Army are regularly fired upon by the local gendarmerie; and the rampant militias such as the Arambai Tenggol and the Meetei Leepun, the Kanglei Yaol Kunna Lup, who are the Tonton Macoutes of Manipur, leisurely roam around with arms gifted from the State armouries.

The taking of arms from armouries continues unhindered, as instanced by the easy haul of weapons at a police armoury at Bishnupur on August 3. If the amount of weapons and ammunition free-floating in Manipur were awash in Jammu and Kashmir, it would be a war zone, and yet New Delhi continues to pretend it is a sunny Sunday afternoon picnic in the park kind of situation.

Is it any surprise then that the police, as has been reported, actively connive, participating in the murders, which automatically, in other parts of India, attracts the provisions of Section 120 B of the Indian Penal Code, culpable as party to murder? Here, come next August, the same policemen will probably be conferred medals by Chief Minister Biren Singh — for gallantry and utmost devotion to duty.

It is certain that as the Supreme Court trains its sights on the depredations wrought by the local law enforcement agencies, large-scale destruction of evidence and recording of false evidence, recording of false complaints and counter-cases will proceed apace as part of exculpation measures. The deaths due to police attacks will be shown as those resulting from acts of self-defence. Already the Solicitor General Tushar Mehta has paved the way by claiming that most of the bodies that lie unclaimed in many of Manipur’s morgues are those of “infiltrators”.

Then there is the matter of investigations. Even a single murder takes months to investigate. Even at the best of times investigations have infirmities. What investigation could there be in Manipur, where, as the Supreme Court observes, there is no rule of law? In a scenario of flux, where the displaced, alarmingly high in numbers that are growing, cower in buffer zones and bunkers and poorly tended, squalid, relief camps, any investigation will prove, not to put too fine a point to it, exceptionally challenging.

Will there be a time frame? Can the Supreme Court overhaul the police force? Judicial experts will tell you that the judiciary has neither the purse nor the sword. We must be grateful that at least it has the stomach and the heart. The Supreme Court can tell committees to report on progress; it could suggest changing the DGP. The depends on the willingness of the state government to co-operate and the instructions of the Union government to that effect.

As Manipur sinks further into barbarism and squalor, the question is: You can drag a horse to water, but can you make it drink?

(V Sudarshan, a senior journalist who writes on foreign policy, is author of Tuticorin: Adventures in Tamil Nadu’s Crime Capital.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.