Sony Chongloi, a young woman from Manipur’s Kangpokpi district, repeated several times: “Their audacity to flip the news everytime.”

At a protest in New Delhi on Friday against the Manipur violence, Chongloi was referring to the army of trolls on social media who shame the victims of targeted sexual violence — like the two women of her tribe who were seen in a viral video being paraded naked by a mob in Manipur on May 4.

The video compelled Prime Minister Narendra Modi to end his silence on the Manipur flare-up that has claimed over 150 lives and displaced around 60,000 people.

On Thursday, BJP MP Ravi Shankar Prasad questioned the timing of the video, a day before the monsoon session of Parliament began. He said: “When a particular incident is surrounded with a lot of mystery and suspicious circumstances about the timing part, then you can draw your own conclusion.”

Chongloi accused Manipur chief minister N. Biren Singh of catering to only his own community and said his removal was the panacea for the ills that have crippled the state.

Sony Chongloi from Manipur's Kangpokpi district speaking at a protest against the atrocities in the state at Jantar Mantar Road, New Delhi on July 21, 2023. Photo by Pheroze L. Vincent

“Biren Singh, last year you said that we are all human beings first, and Meiteis, Nagas or Kukis later…. Where are the values you used to preach?” asked Chongloi, adding: “To those of you who only read about what’s happening and do nothing, I tell you it will happen to you one day and you will not be able to bear it and you will ask yourself what you did when it happened to Manipur.”

The protest called by leftist student groups and trade unions on Jantar Mantar Road drew a cross-section of civil society.

CPIML-Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya told The Telegraph at the protest on Friday: “In 2002 in Gujarat, we saw what happened to Bilkis Bano. One must understand that what is happening in Manipur is not isolated. When Section 370 was abrogated, the AAP supported it without realising that it would soon happen in Delhi (changes in laws to transfer powers from the Delhi government to the Centre). It is a warning to the whole of India as to what will happen if this reign of hatred continues unabated.”

Sumedha Boudh, general secretary of the Rashtriya Dalit Mahila Andolan, told this newspaper: “It’s impossible that the government did not know of the May 4 incident…. Ever since this Manuwadi (based on the principles of the Manusmriti) government has come to power (at the Centre), they talk about creating a Hindu nation. To create this, they go after the most oppressed in society —women. This reminds me of Khairlanji (the murders of four Dalits, including the gang rape of two of them in Maharashtra in 2006).”

Jawaharlal Nehru University professor of community medicine Vikas Bajpai quoted RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat as saying in 2013: “Such crimes (rapes) hardly take place in ‘Bharat’, but they occur frequently in ‘India’.”

Bajpai explained: “If you see the PM’s silence (until Thursday), it seems like he thinks what is happening is a lesson to those who are suffering it. After 2014, rapists shoot videos and publicise their misdeeds.”

The Meitei Heritage Society complained to Delhi police that they weren’t being given permission to protest at Jantar Mantar, while Kukis raised slogans for a “separate administration” at the agitation on Friday.

Kakai Houninaai, a Kuki BPO worker at the protest, told this newspaper: “ I lived for three years in Imphal and I have many Meitei friends. We love each other very much. But since the violence started, they have not called me even once…. I haven’t either.”