Holding Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh culpable for the ethnic violence in the state, the CPIM on Thursday accused him of Meitei chauvinism and branding the Kuki tribal minority as ‘foreigners’ and ‘poppy cultivators’.
In the latest editorial in party mouthpiece People’s Democracy, the CPIM has alleged Singh has been openly speaking out against the Kuki community.
It also highlighted remarks made by the CM where he allegedly echoed ‘longstanding propaganda of the RSS about illegal immigrants flooding Assam and the North East.’
“It is the culpability of Biren Singh in brewing the ethnic violence, which Narendra Modi and the BJP want to conceal,” the editorial alleged.
The central government has not intervened despite knowing that the chief minister and the state administration are compromised and are unable to act in a neutral fashion, the editorial charged.
“In many ways, Biren Singh has behaved in the same manner that Narendra Modi did as the chief minister of Gujarat during the 2002 violence. Modi knows very well what is the root cause of the current travails in Manipur, divisive Hindutva politics in an ethnically diverse and sensitive state. Modi also as an authoritarian leader does not think he is accountable to anyone, least of all parliament,” the editorial said.
The Supreme Court had last year upheld a Special Investigation Team’s (SIT) clean chit to 64 people including PM Narendra Modi in the 2002 Gujarat riots case and dismissed a plea by deceased Congress leader Ehsan Jafri’s wife Zakia Jafri.
Hitting out at the PM, the editorial said the cases of abuse of women in Manipur are unlike any other as in this instance a specific ethnic community is being targeted simply because they belong to that community.
The editorial alleged that it was only when the video showing two women being paraded naked by armed men went viral on social media on the eve of the parliament session that the prime minister ‘was compelled to speak’.
“He did so outside parliament on the opening day expressing shock and sorrow at what was done to the two women. But he immediately sought to divert and trivialise the issue by talking about how such crimes against women must be firmly put down in states like Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Manipur.
“This was the cue for BJP leaders and the party’s IT cell to take up the refrain of how women are being abused and assaulted in states run by the opposition parties like Rajasthan, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh.
This stance of the prime minister and the BJP is a cynical manoeuvre to deny the gravity of the situation which has developed in Manipur,” it said.
