Journalist and documentary filmmaker Anto Akkara, currently travelling across the country with his documentary on the Manipur strife a year after it erupted in May last year, here on Wednesday demanded to know why Prime Minister Narendra Modi is yet to visit the northeastern state when he had rushed to utilise Bengal’s Sandeshkhali incident as a Lok Sabha poll plank.

The material for Akkara’s 24-minute documentary — Manipur – a Blot on Indian Democracy — was gathered during his extensive travels for investigative research through the trouble-torn state after violence begun there on May 3 last year.

“The nation is baffled why Prime Minister Modi has not bothered to set foot in Manipur in a whole year, while, shockingly, he rushed and held a rally on Sandeshkhali to express his anguish,” said Akkara, after the documentary was shown in the
afternoon at Press Club Kolkata.

“What did he say (on Sandeshkhali)? ‘I feel ashamed! Everyone in the country is seething with anger about Sandeshkhali’.... You all know the reality of the Sandeshkhali complaints (of sexual crimes) by now,” he added.

“Then he goes to Kaziranga for an elephant safari…. So what is his message, other than he doesn’t care?”

Asking if Modi considers Manipur a part of India, Akkara tore into him for boasting of the greatness of Indian democracy under him before global audiences, and being “deaf and mute” to desperate calls for restoration of law and order in the northeastern state.

He underscored the alleged Hindutva agenda of the Sangh Parivar, in the guise of the Meitei-Kuki strife in Manipur, and accused the saffron ecosystem of having played a dubious role.

Akkara’s investigative documentary on the bloodshed and lingering anarchy in Manipur, according to him, exposes the “pathetic state” of Indian democracy, “crippled by paralysis”. “Indian democracy has never undergone such a protracted shameful situation,” he said.

“Police armoury looted, an ambulance carrying an injured child torched with the mother, thousands of soldiers silent spectators... due to lack of stern orders... a police officer kidnapped from a guarded residence in Imphal forcing the police to lay down
arms in protest, MLAs beaten up in the presence of security forces. Do you even call it a democracy?”