...the BJP's template of operation was different or if the Centre and the state were ruled by dissimilar parties? asks Shyam G Menon.
Over July 19-20, things happened in quick succession.
News broke of the shocking incident wherein two women were paraded naked and one of them gang raped, in Manipur.
A video of the May 4 incident circulated on social media, the Opposition mounted pressure and public anger built up.
The prime minister broke his silence on Manipur. He promised action.
That very day, the first arrest in the case was reported. By noon July 21, the number of those arrested, touched four.
The questions raised by the episode are serious. On July 20, the Manipur chief minister told a television channel that many such cases had taken place.
In a telephone conversation with a 19-year-old student who was assaulted, reported by The Telegraph on July 21, the victim said she was provided medical attention first in Imphal and later, in Delhi.
It points to details known to authorities, on a scale wider than previously assumed.
The abject madness of the ethnic conflict was clear in her reference to the women among the attackers, applauding the violence unleashed.
The same day, Press Trust of India reported that 'more than a month before the horrific video of two women being assaulted publicly in Manipur, went viral' activists had informed the National Commission for Women of the case and other similar incidents.
As per news reports, the FIR related to the incident of the women paraded naked was filed on May 18.
Two-and-a-half months separated the incident and the disturbing video shaking us up.
Like a bizarre movie, the background score for the time elapsed would be the applause and ovation India's political leadership scored as the prime minister toured abroad.
Plus, the political machinations the BJP deployed to unseat state governments and crack political parties. In other words, it was business as usual.
In the greatness of India that fetched Narendra Modi attention overseas, Manipur would rank as a state that gave more than its fair share.
The small state brought laurels to India in sports. It contributed to India's diverse culture, and manpower to the security forces.
In fact, on July 21, another shocking aspect about the incident of women disrobed and assaulted, surfaced - the husband of one of them, was a Kargil war veteran.
By July 22, there were questions in the media on what Home Minister Amit A Shah had understood from his three day-visit to Manipur starting May 30.
The real problem is -- the violence in Manipur; including the central government's response to it, tracks a familiar behavioural pattern.
In an environment in which, indoctrination is widespread, agendas dominate, the appetite for reality is low and pivotal institutions appear sufficiently influenced to play along, 'brainwashed' fails to encapsulate the establishment's character.
It is alternate reality. From Vishwaguru to sengol in Parliament to preening overseas in the season of Manipur's violence, India was leading an unbelievable existence.
For a country shaped by the hardships it endured and where the greatest blessing still is that one doesn't lose sense of reality, the years since 2013 have been a freefall into deceptive imagery.
India couldn't be bothered about its warts like communal violence, suppression of human rights and poor ranking in press freedom. What counted was its made-up image in the mirror.
The situation depressed anyone with general awareness.
One's frustration with PR-laden discourse, one's sorrow at the polarisation of people, religions and cultures, one's anger at politicians claiming the high ground of majority to push divisive agendas and the employment of economic development and technology as distractive spins -- they appear problems without solution.
As many have pointed out, it's the dangerous genie we always knew resided in the bottle but the issue now is -- the BJP has set it free and as with those cheetahs paying the price for human vanity, the party itself has no clue how to stuff the genie back. We pay the price.
While the violence in Manipur may be the latest, the preceding list (since 2014) of provocative posturing and clashes reported from various parts of the country to the accompaniment of a chest thumping, macho politics that rarely condemned such acts -- they shouldn't be underestimated.
They set the tone for majoritarianism and belligerence as acceptable means to mould our environment.
The only thing we could do, again like those cheetahs, was soldier on in new political landscape and hope that the compassion resident in our collective, delivered us a fresh, enduring equilibrium.
Is such helplessness, what we elect governments for?
The victims of the May 4 incident from Manipur (and other such cases reported since from the state) should no doubt be given justice.
But if we don't trace the infection and its permissibility to their source, which is the ambiance of entitlement afforded to violent tendencies; we would have failed in delivering a comprehensive solution.
At the heart of the propensities leading to Manipur-like violent explosions is the very incorrect, childish, notion in the political Right-Wing that their idea of country is the best there is.
Such a belief immediately clothes its agenda in self-righteousness, excludes others, blames others for things gone wrong and gives the political Right-Wing the feeling that collateral damage is acceptable.
The GDP-lobby's fancy for the Right-Wing as an agency that executes mission-mode, legitimises its rowdy ways and that of similar models.
When legitimacy is enjoyed, appetite for difference in perspective dwindles as does the ability to find solutions inclusively.
During the past decade, the BJP did not have enough vote share nationally to claim that it represented the majority of Indians.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha election the BJP's vote share was 31 per cent; in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the share was 37.36 per cent (Source: Wikipedia).
What it, however did, was use its tenure in power to brew an alternate reality that made it seem the singular nation-builder around. It was rewriting perception.
The approach hid some basic questions -- who builds nations; who sustains nations?
Overlooked in the BJP formula was the existence of the public and the importance of coexistence, which is what actually builds and sustains communities and countries.
Unlike the bGDP-worshipping industry, coexistence is rooted in humaneness. The BJP's understanding of humaneness is suspect.
For instance, if being humane genuinely mattered, the prime minister would have spoken up on Manipur earlier or visited the state with an urgency exceeding his posturing abroad.
That he didn't betrays the BJP's imagination of itself as a flawless, non-negotiable ideal no matter what it does.
It also exposes its humaneness as structured intervention lacking spontaneity, lacking heart.
Fact is, the BJP lives in its own ivory tower.
It made flirting with religion for political power a regular practice (t is a habit founded in the misplaced confidence that the BJP represents the majority and can keep on pushing the envelope) and assumes that its agenda will get by as long as we grow GDP. That is so wrong.
This is why the Manipur tragedy disturbs. First, the way it dragged on says something about the imagination at the Centre.
Why couldn't it see what was going on? On the other hand, if it knew, then why was it business as usual and the violence continuing?
Second, the staging of the violence in a larger political environment where machismo and aggression became fashionable and collateral damage got justified as inevitable when pursuing a greater cause, shouldn't be forgotten.
Originally fringe, the template was mainstreamed in the BJP years.
Flirting with religion for acquiring power and flirting with ethnicity for power and not different.
When a giant template exists unchallenged, don't be surprised if minions inspired by the model and the legitimacy, author new similar ones.
Would the Manipur violence have dragged on like this if the BJP's own template of operation was different or if the Centre and the state were ruled by dissimilar parties?
Governments need checks and balances.
A robust democracy with freer opposition and media and concern for human rights would have ensured that the violence which began in May didn't drag on the way it did with many people dead, more displaced and a video in mid-July underscoring the shocking gravity of events past.
It shamed not just the National Democratic Alliance government but all of us.
Would you now travel overseas and hold forth on our greatness, prime minister?
Shyam G Menon is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
