President of the Indian National Congress Mallikarjun Kharge despicably politicized the violence in Manipur in a tweet on Thursday that read as follows:
“Humanity has died in Manipur.
Modi Govt and the BJP has changed Democracy and the rule of law into Mobocracy by destroying the delicate social fabric of the state.
@narendramodi ji,
India will never forgive your silence.
If there is any conscience or an iota of shame left in your government, then you should speak about Manipur in the Parliament and tell the nation on what happened, without blaming others for your dual incompetence – both at the Centre and the State.
You have abdicated your Constitutional responsibility.
In this hour of crisis, we stand together with the people of Manipur.”
He published it after a video emerged of sexual violence being committed in Manipur a few months ago, which shocked the world and prompted a very fierce condemnation from Indian Prime Minister Modi.
Foreign meddling in Manipur like the European Parliament’s example thereof earlier this month is already bad enough, but it’s even worse when domestic actors like the INC behave as their “useful idiots” by politicizing crises for self-interested electoral reasons. Kharge and his clique are inadvertently lending credence to foreign actors’ efforts to discredit the Indian state, impugn its armed forces and security services, and maximally divide the cosmopolitan Indian people on the basis of their identity.
His tweet advances all three of those goals without realizing it. For starters, what took place in Manipur several months ago was the result of a sensitive legal ruling unexpectedly being exploited as the pretext for bad actors from both minority communities to carry out preplanned violence against their rivals. Those democracy, rule-of-law, and other issues that the opposition has criticized the BJP for since 2014 had nothing to do with this unrest since it was a geographically isolated and politically unique event.
Regarding Prime Minister Modi’s silence about it up until that previously mentioned video of sexual violence emerged last week, it can’t be ruled out that this was due to the advice given to him by the armed forces and security services, who could have wanted to avoid further inflaming tensions. It’s important to sustainably restore order, resolve the root issues of this situation, and compellingly reassure the locals that there’s no credible chance of the recent events reoccurring before anything else.
Considering how tense everything remains, one accidental wrong word by the Indian leader could have been taken advantage of by bad actors to manipulate those radicals who are still under their influence into attempting to carry out another spree of violence, hence why likely remained reluctant to address it. Everyone’s entitled to their views about whether or not he should have spoken about this prior to that video, but the point is that he wasn’t silent for nefarious reasons like Kharge maliciously implied.
Far from “abdicating his Constitutional responsibility”, Prime Minister Modi remained so firmly committed to it that he kept silent for what he sincerely believed to be the greater good of the nation even if he himself might have wanted to talk about this before that video forced him to. This self-discipline isn’t ever displayed by INC members, however, who never miss a chance to sensationalize something out of desperation to revive their dying party even at the expense of national interests.
The last part of Kharge’s tweet about how “we stand together with the people of Manipur” is pure demagoguery that actually risks harming the same people who he claims the INC supports if his implied wish comes true of everyone in the country talking about that region. The situation there remains so tense that reckless rhetoric spewed by self-interested forces could easily spark another round of violence if it gets back to one of the two minority communities there and is subsequently exploited by bad actors.
Regrettably, the viral spread of last week’s video from early May showing sexual violence being committed in Manipur risks nullifying the state’s efforts thus far to prevent the scenario of irresponsible media reports reversing their previously mentioned efforts to sustainably address the situation there. There’s now a greater chance than ever that the earlier warned sequence of events might materialize in the coming future, which complicates the noble work of all relevant stakeholders.
Kharge should have placed national interests before partisan ones and thus exercised enough self-discipline to not politicize the violence in Manipur despite how tempting it was for the INC to do so. By tweeting what he did, it’s Kharge and not Prime Minister Modi who abdicated his Constitutional responsibility by showing that the INC can’t be trusted to put India’s interests before its own. Hopefully the damage inflicted by his reckless words will be contained and not incite another round of violence.
