Dismay over government silence on sexual violence

As footage emerged last week of two women in the state of Manipur being forcibly stripped, paraded naked, publicly molested and allegedly gang raped , everyone from prime minister Narendra Modi to the chief justice of India publicly expressed their shock and disgust.

- Hannah Ellis-Petersen, Aakash Hassan

Breaking his long silence on the conflict that has been raging in the northeastern state for months, Modi declared that “what happened to the daughters of Manipur can never be forgiven” and that “the entire country has been shamed” by the attack.

Yet, as many were keen to emphasise, the incident in the footage was not new, isolated or unknown to the authorities. Since violence erupted in early May, between the majority Meitei and minority Kuki tribes, activists and academics believe sexual violence has been systematically used in "revenge attacks" against women from the Kuki community by Meitei mobs.

"The heinous crimes committed against the Kuki community, the targeting of Kuki women, the use of rape as a weapon by Meitei mobs - all carried out with impunity by these groups has been kept silent and concealed by the state," said Kham Khan Suan Hausing, a professor of political science at the University of Hyderabad. "It wasn't until this video went viral that this overzealous attempt by the state to control the narrative has finally been exposed."

It was only last week, after the video began trending and the prime minister spoke out, that police made arrests almost 70 days after the case was filed.

The use of rape as a weapon has been systemic, academics claim. On 4 May, the same day the women in the video were attacked, two Kuki women were working in a carwash 30km away when a Meitei mob, armed with knives and sticks, came hunting for them. Eyewitnesses and relatives told the Observer that the two women were gang-raped.