Heroes Or Villains? Dubious Roles For Manipur's 'Mothers' And Assam Rifles in Sexual Violence Cases

Portraits of Hindu deities cover the blue walls of Dolendro Singh’s home in Bamon Kampu Mayai Leikai neighbourhood of East Imphal, Manipur. But it’s another picture that draws the gaze of visitors--the life-size portrait of Thangjam Manorama, who was killed after allegedly being raped by Indian security forces twenty years ago. The picture is propped outside the door to Manorama’s room, where she had reportedly been sleeping on the night of July 10, 2004, when a group of soldiers belonging to the paramilitary force 17th Assam Rifles stormed into the house and “arrested” Manorama on suspicion of being a member of the banned insurgent group People’s Liberation Army. The next morning, the bullet-riddled body of the 32-year-old was found by villagers. “It was cold-blooded and a cruel abuse of power. No one was ever punished for it,” said Manorama’s brother Dolendro, who has been fighting for justice for Manorama for two decades. 

Dolendro, who was in his twenties when the incident happened, remembers it like it was yesterday. “They came to the house at night, near midnight and started searching the house for Manorama. They dragged her out of her room. When we tried to protect her, they beat up me, my older brother and our mother and asked us to move to the back of the house,” he recalls. Laisharam Rameshwari, Manorama's sister-in-law, was also present in the house at the time. She still remembers Manorama's cries as the soldiers interrogated her out of their sight. “They tortured her,” she said. No female officer was present at the time of her arrest and no police complaint was ever filed against Manorama. 

‘Indian Army Rape Us’ 

86-year-old women’s rights activist Ima (mother) Ngambi Lourembam also remembers the incident vividly. Manorama’s killing led to instant protests and outrage in the state with several civil society groups like the Meira Paibi calling for a 48-hour strike on July 12, 2004, and demonstrating by burning tires and carrying placards. But it was the “naked protest” by Manipuri mothers on July 15 that brought the incident to international attention and shed light on the human rights abuses in Manipur under the draconian Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). Ima Ngambi was one of the twelve elderly mothers of Manipur who marched to Imphal’s Kangla Fort with a banner reading “Indian Army Rape Us” and stripped in public, challenging the security forces to rape them in public. “We told the soldiers, rape our body, feast on our flesh, if that’s what you want. But you have to do it in broad daylight, not in the cowardice of darkness at night,” she said.

Meira Paibi is a civil society organisation of Meitei women who act as peacekeepers across the state. While initially involved in curbing alcoholism and drug abuse among Manipuri men, the AFSPA years brought Meira Paibi’s (meaning women who bear the torch) work as women’s rights activists to the fore. “After Manorama’s murder, we couldn’t sleep or eat. She was shot in her vagina several times and a cloth was shoved inside her private parts. We believe it was done to remove evidence of sexual assault. Semen was found on her clothes, confirming that she had been raped first,” Ima Ngambi stated, adding, “such acts had been happening for some time. We knew we had to do something to shake India’s conscience”.

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For Manipur, the AFSPA years are an era of repression, forced disappearances, extrajudicial killings staged as “encounters” and rampant violence against civilians, especially women. The law has been applicable in Manipur--a former Union Territory which attained Statehood in 1972--since 1981 and remains active in the hill regions to this day. The Extrajudicial Execution Victims Family Members (EEVFAM), a collective fighting for justice since 2009, lists 1,528 civilians who have been killed between 1979 and 2012 by armed forces in Manipur, including 98 children. In a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by the group along with Human Rights Watch in the Supreme Court in 2012, the activists named all the killings as “murders”.

Roles reversed? 

While civil society protests led by the likes of Meira Paibi have helped to bring down extrajudicial killings and violence against women by security forces in the state, Manipuri society remains patriarchal in many ways--one such being the culture of silence around issues of sexual violence. Women’s bodies remains a site of conflict in the state, which is currently divided along ethnic lines between the Meiteis and the hill-dwelling Kuki-Zo communities. Clashes between the two, which erupted on May 3 last year, have so far claimed over 220 lives, including scores of women. Several cases of sexual violence have also come to light since. In July, a viral video of two tribal women being paraded naked by a mob of angry Meiteis went viral, once again drawing global attention to the human rights violations inflicted on women in the state.

Incidentally, the role of Meira Paibis, hitherto hailed as peacekeepers, has come under severe scrutiny following multiple allegations of their involvement in perpetrating crimes against women, including sexual violence. The survivors seen in the “viral video” who were allegedly gang-raped by members of the very mob seen in the clip, were beaten up and handed over to the men (said to be from a militant Meitei group, Arambai Tengol) allegedly by women belonging to Meira Paibi. The group has been named in multiple FIRs and testimonials of Kuki-Zo complainants including survivors of sexual violence and physical assault. “It was the Meira Paibi women who assaulted me first and then handed me over to armed men who went on to sexually assault me,” Angel* a 19-year-old gang-rape survivor from the Kuki community currently recuperating in Kangpokpi stated. Angel was kidnapped in a car from outside an ATM in East Imphal where she had gone to collect some cash on May 15, a fortnight after the violence erupted. Similar accusations were made by parents of Flora*, who was allegedly gang raped before being murdered by a mob of Meiteis on May 4 inside a car wash in the Porompet area of Imphal. “The women handed over the girls to the men,” Flora’s father claimed. Former nursing student Chin Sian Chiang, who was dragged out of her college on May 4 and assaulted by Meitei women before being paraded on the streets, said that the women threatened her and her friend, both Kukis, with rape. “They said that Kukis had raped Meitei women in Churachandpur and so Meitei men would do the same to us as revenge,” Chiang recalled. She claimed she was not sexually assaulted, adding that she got “lucky”. “It was very disheartening to see women whom we respected as peacekeepers and mothers turn into perpetrators of violence,” the 23-year-old who was admitted to AIIMS, Delhi, following the assault last year, said from Churachandpur where she currently lives.

In wake of recent attacks amid fresh tensions in Manipur in which drones were alleged used by alleged “Kuki militants” to attack Meitei civilians on September 1-2 in Kangpokpi, the Meira Paibis and other women’s organisation have condemned the use of drones said that both the Centre and the state have failed in resolving the conflict. Kuk-Zo women and community leaders however, remain mistrustful of the groups and accuse them of spreading anti-Kuki propaganda.

“They are correct in claiming drones are a danger to civilians as well as security forces. But they have also tried to vilify Kukis by fabricating stories and using doctored images to prove that Kukis were the attackers when in fact, the bombs were dropped by Meitei militia like Aramabai Tenggol”, Kuki Women Human Rights Organisation General Secretary Kimneihoi Lungdim told Outlook in Churachandpur. As per a statement by KWHRO, Meira Paibis have facilitated the Arambai Tenggol’s acts of violence, and given them “their blessings as mothers”. They have also been shielding against action or arrests of members of Aramark Tenggol, which draws moral authority from the various women’s groups under the Meira Paibi umbrella.

Meitei women’s organisations like Imagi Meira have also been criticised for statements like the recent justifications given by them about the violence against Kuki-Zo women that took place last year. In an interview which has attracted sharp criticism from tribal groups, the Imagi Meira leader said that “As a woman, I feel pity for them (Kuki-Zo women facing violence). But this is war”.

Not all Meira Paibis, however, seem to share the same view. While the denying the organisation’s involvement in violence and blaming the media for misreporting, Ima Ngambi said that the group’s role was to fight for the rights of women everywhere, including women belonging to “enemy communities”.

“We protested against the viral naked parade video as well. It should not have happened and we condemn all forms of violence against women, no matter who they are,” the elderly activist said.

Indeed, units of Meira Paibis and certain other Meitei CSOs protested last year after the release of the video on social media, informed Anandi Khangembam Devi, Another senior member of AMKIL. During one such demonstration held in Tera Bazar in Imphal West by the Tera Ideal Club, a Meira Paibi leader asserted that the crime committed by “some miscreants” had tarnished the image of Manipur, a place where women are highly respected as “mothers”.  Ima Ngambi also agreed that the “stripping and parading of women” should not have happened. “In times of conflict, some men become out of control. It is our job as mothers to nudge the sons who stray out of line back to the right path,” she said.

Meitei women leaders nevertheless maintain that rumours of the alleged rape of Meitei women in Churachandpur spurred the incidents of violence against Kuki-Zo women. While most of these rumours appear to have been unfounded, a 37-year-old married Meitei woman filed an FIR on August 9, 2023, in Bishnupur police station, alleging she had been raped by “Kuki men” in Churachandpur. The incident was reported days after the viral video of the “naked parade” of Kuki-Zo women went viral, leading to national outrage and a volley of directives by the Supreme Court, including setting up of SITs and a committee to look into the nature of violence against women during the ethnic clashes. The court also involved the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to investigate the cases of violence.

Over a year since the clashes, the cases of sexual violence remain in limbo with a chargesheet being filed in just one out of the 17 cases of violence against women that the CBI is investigating in Manipur. Moreover, with the conflict leaving Manipur divided politically and geographically along ethnic lines, the situation in border areas remains tense, bringing the focus back on security forces and the changing socio-politics of “safety”. Assam Rifles, that were once accused of perpetrating atrocities against women, are today being hailed by Kuki-Zo women as their protectors. “We have been very grateful to Assam Rifles since last year for providing security to us from Meitei attacks. We have become familiar with their presence and feel safe around them,” Margaret Haokip, a resident of Torbung village in Churachandpur stated. For the last month, however, she and other women of Churachandpur have been sitting in a day-night protest to stop the Union government’s recent decision to remove Assam Rifles troops from Kuki-dominated districts like Churachandpur and Kangpokpi and replacing them with Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). “The decision to move the AR out was influenced by Meiteis who have political power in the state. This leaves us (Kuki-Zo women) in an uncertain place as we do not trust Meitei-dominated state police”.

This reversal of the women’s attitude toward Assam Rifles, the same against whom the Meira Paibis had fought in 2004, reveals the precarious position of women in the state at present. “We are not condoning what the Assam Rifles did with Manorama in 2004. Those guilty should be punished. But removing them from our areas now in the middle of the ethnic conflict will help the Meiteis and we do not support it,” Haokip said.