It has taken almost three months of violence, deaths, displacement and, finally, the horror of the defilement of two Kuki women — they were paraded naked by a mob of vigilantes — for the prime minister to speak up. Breaking his long silence after a video depicting the heinous acts perpetrated on the two women outraged the nation, Narendra Modi said that the crime — not uncommon in conflict zones — had shamed India and asked chief ministers to take stringent action against violations, especially those committed against women. The Supreme Court articulated its anguish on the same day. While condemning the crime, the highest court said — this is important — that the visuals were suggestive of “gross constitutional failure”. It also warned that it would take up matters even if the government remained unmoved. Whether the prime minister’s remark is in any way connected to the judicial censure will remain in the realm of speculation. But what cannot be denied is thatMr Modi’s silence — he is yet to comment on the crisis as a whole — has cost Manipur and India greatly. A word of condemnation from the prime minister and a strict warning against mischief earlier — Manipur has been burning since May — could have made a difference on the ground. It would have also spared India the blushes on the global stage: the disturbances in Manipur have attracted international attention, the European Parliament’s censure being a recent example.
The constitutional failure in Manipur that the apex court referred to merits attention. Mr Modi’s party is in power both at the Centre and the state. Yet, the — mythical? — assertion of seamless ‘double engine’ governance has faltered if the loss of lives and deepening ethnic chasms in Manipur are any indication. What has also been punctured is Mr Modi’s pledge to uphold the spirit of his Act East policy. Whether these failures on multiple fronts are the result of misgovernance or complicity would be revealed in time. The truth is that be it Manipur’s prolonged suffering in recent times or the pain inflicted by the pandemic or, even earlier, by demonetisation, Mr Modi’s regime has fallen short, quite often, of alleviating the misery of the people. This government, intoxicated with its majoritarian triumphalism, has lost the healing touch. That it continues to win elections still can be attributed to its masterful — perverse — employment of deflection and other, equally troublesome, tactics. But even these dark arts of evasion are failing in Manipur.