Manipur Crisis Tests Modi’s India

It took a viral video for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to finally break his silence on ongoing ethnic violence in the northeastern state of Manipur. The footage, which became public only last month, sparked outrage far beyond the state: Filmed on May 4, it shows a mob assaulting two women from the Kuki minority—stripped naked—before pushing them into an empty field. Reports citing the survivors’ families revealed the complicity of the state police. Ironically, the police station a few hundred yards from the site of the crime was awarded the “Best in the Country” title in 2020.

Violence between the Meitei ethnic majority and the Kukis has hounded Manipur since May, when a court order reserving some government jobs for Meiteis exacerbated tensions over land rights, poppy farming, and religious freedoms. Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh has carved out a role for himself as the Meitei community’s de facto leader. More cases of sexual assault have come to light in the past two weeks, but Singh—a member of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)—now denies that the women in the May 4 video were raped. His state government imposed an internet shutdown for weeks, hindering the spread of information.

The crisis has not subsided, and thousands of weapons stolen from police armories are still circulating among mobs. On Tuesday, India’s Supreme Court described the violence as “an absolute breakdown of law and order.” The presence of federal forces in Manipur hasn’t improved the situation: New Delhi’s strategy has instead divided the state, burning bridges between the Meiteis and Kukis. This apparent political ineptitude falls in line with the BJP’s Hindutva ideology, which identifies Hindus as India’s rightful inhabitants, justifying violence against religious minorities. In Manipur, the Meitei community sees itself as the state’s original inhabitants, replicating the use of violence against Kukis and others whom it perceives as outsiders.

The use of state machinery to aid the majoritarian project in Manipur recalls the 2002 Gujarat riots targeting the state’s Muslim population, which occurred while Modi was chief minister. (An opposition politician has even invoked dark parallels to the Rwandan genocide, where the role of the state is well documented.) Manipur’s internet ban, now partially lifted, underlines institutional paranoia about controlling the narrative. Tensions have already spread into other Indian states as well as neighboring Myanmar, where the Kuki community shares ties with the Chin minority. The crisis raises serious questions about Modi’s governance model and his political ability to deal with India’s diversity and the tensions it raises.

Manipur’s state police force is not incompetent or careless; its inaction amid the violence borders on complicity. A bulk of the weapons stolen in Manipur have not been returned to or recovered by security forces, and it is not for a lack of personnel in the state. In addition to the 29,000-strong state police, New Delhi has sent 124 federal companies—each with between 80 and 100 troops—to Manipur. Then there are 164 columns of similar strength from the Indian Army and the Assam Rifles, a paramilitary affiliate. For a state with a population of 3.2 million, this comes out to an average of nearly one security person for every 55 citizens.

In May, Modi’s government sent its army chief to Manipur and brought in a new police chief from another state to restore order, but both officials have failed to overcome the partisan state government. The state police forces are split vertically, with the new police chief asking cops to report to duty in areas where their ethnic group is in the majority. New Delhi also issued directions that cleave the state with a federally manned buffer zone between the Meitei-dominated valley and the Kuki-dominated hills. Rather than bringing the violence under control, this approach has cemented the divide between the ethnic groups. The Kukis now demand a new administrative structure separating them from the Meiteis, which is vehemently opposed by the majority community.

The administrative incompetence on the part of both the national government and the state government led by Singh reflects the majoritarian nationalism espoused by the BJP. The embrace of Hindutva in states led by the ruling party has led to the lynching of young Muslim men for the flimsy excuse of smuggling cows and to the creation of laws that seek to criminalize interfaith marriages. In Manipur, the same ideology is tailored at a subnational level: The majority Meiteis have found resonance between their indigenous Sanamahi faith and Hindutva, targeting the largely Christian Kukis. Although the fault lines of the conflict are not drawn explicitly around faith, there are religious undertones to the violence.

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New Delhi’s failure to stop the violence in Manipur has not yet affected Modi on the international stage. In the wake of the Gujarat riots, which began after a fire in a train compartment killed 58 Hindu pilgrims traveling from Ayodhya, Modi described the ensuing attacks against Muslims as “a chain of action and reaction.” India’s Supreme Court at the time called Modi a “modern-day Nero,” and he was denied a visa to the United States on the grounds that he was responsible for violations of religious freedom. The ban was reversed only after he became prime minister in 2014. By contrast, in June, with violence escalating in Manipur, Modi chose to travel to Washington for an official state visit. French President Emmanuel Macron welcomed him to Paris in July.

All the while, he remained silent. In the three months since the violence began, Modi has not publicly chaired a meeting on Manipur or issued an official statement for the victims, let alone traveled to the state. In a rare press conference for Modi following his meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden, the Indian leader responded to a question—only one was allowed—about the status of religious minorities in his country. Despite the question coming while churches were burning and women were being assaulted in Manipur, Modi blurted out meaningless paeans to Indian democracy. At the time, complaints to state police and federal authorities were still awaiting a response.

The situation in Manipur has also raised alarms about the capacity of the Indian state to clamp down on violence. Whether unable or unwilling to restore order in Manipur, the national government finds its credibility and authority frayed by the crisis. The state’s internet ban suggests a government that fears the free flow of information, using the suppression of violence as a pretext for broadly curtailing freedom of expression and depriving the citizens of their rights. No modern state can function in such digital darkness—and especially not as Modi boasts on the global stage that India’s digital public infrastructure is “highly secure, highly trusted, and highly efficient.”

In fact, the violence in Manipur is putting India’s desire to be recognized as a global power to the test. Apathy on the part of top leadership, targeting of minorities, and internet shutdowns are not the hallmarks of a country that hopes to be respected as an important player on the world stage—as much as Modi would like to avoid mentioning the issue. Furthermore, the violence in Manipur only draws attention to the fact that India has not held local legislative assembly elections in Muslim-majority Kashmir for more than a decade. The country christens itself as the “mother of democracy” and others hail it as the world’s largest democracy, but such hypocrisy overpowers any public relations campaign by New Delhi and its cheerleaders in foreign capitals.

India is no longer the world’s fastest-growing economy; Saudi Arabia is, followed by Vietnam and the Philippines. Unemployment is a serious concern, as is widening inequality  and weak rural demand. Modi and the BJP head into national elections next year with an economic record that they cannot boast about. The Ladakh border crisis with China has stripped the prime minister of national security talking points. Amid the Manipur crisis, he cannot brag about his ability to make tough calls. If the BJP decides to double down on religious polarization ahead of the elections, as it has regularly done under Modi, it could render India’s minorities even more vulnerable.

India’s leaders once stressed that the country embodied the idea of unity in diversity, allowing it to manage social and ethnic differences without pandering to majoritarian impulses. The violence in Manipur serves as a warning of just how far the BJP’s pursuit of such politics could drag India down.