In the age of social media, the nation has by now well-acquainted itself with the horrific incident of rape and sexual assault of three Kuki women in Manipur. But it didn't stop at that as the various platforms seemed to turn into a battlefield for various political outfits which are leaving no stone unturned in leveraging heinous crimes perpetrated against women for individual gains.
Incidents of sexual violence against women have been reported in the Malda district of West Bengal which too has triggered a political slugfest of sorts.
There can be no comparison between what happened in Manipur and the events at Malda in West Bengal. Both are reprehensible in no uncertain terms. However, the two are wide apart in terms of the scale, magnitude, and gravity of events.
The glimpses of violence captured through videos in Manipur are catastrophic evidence of an ethnic strife of the worst order. Hatred and revenge born out of insecurity and fear of displacement have driven communities in the state into an orgy of violence for over three months now.
But it appears that the Malda incident – and almost half a dozen other cases of torture and humiliation of women – that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders have picked up to showcase the "situation" in West Bengal are designed to counter the incidents in Manipur.
Undoubtedly, the videos from Bengal are horrifying and warrant dreadful commentaries on how fragile our policing and security systems have become.
It is, however, hard to draw parallels between the two incidents – and the price of such a social media war seems heavy.
West Bengal Incident Is BJP's Counter-Offensive to Manipur
For context, two women were tortured in an inhuman manner in an open marketplace on suspicion of committing theft in West Bengal's Malda. Instead of handing them over to the police, the public decided to take matters into their own hands.
They repeatedly thrashed the women and ripped their clothes off. Hundreds present at the market watched the proceedings live but did not intervene.
Coming in the thick of the highly distressing Manipur disclosures, the Malda video and several others in West Bengal have provided timely fodder for a counter-offensive by the BJP against its political rival – the Trinamool Congress (TMC) – one of the principal constituents of the 26-party Opposition alliance of the newly formed INDIA.
Both Manipur and Malda are separate incidents of crime, indicative of a deep-rooted social malaise.
But the positioning of the Malda incident shows how women in our country are being used as political pawns. Their torture and rape have been packaged in quick successions and cast on the public domain with a view to attract maximum eyeballs and generate traction.
How Politicians Are Making the Most of the Incident
On 22 July, Amit Malviya, BJP's IT cell chief and co-observer on behalf of the party for West Bengal, tweeted:
"The horror continues in West Bengal. Two tribal women were stripped naked, tortured, and beaten mercilessly, while police remained a mute spectator in Bamangola, Malda….It had all the markings of a tragedy that should have 'broken' Mamata Banerjee's heart, and she, instead of merely outraging, could have acted, since she is also the Home Minister of Bengal … But she chose to do nothing…"
His latest tweet on 24 July read: "Another day, another woman is assaulted and stripped naked in West Bengal Burwan ( Murshidabad). She was assaulted by TMC workers because she supported an independent candidate, who is now with the Congress. Mamata Banerjee has maintained stoic silence. So has Rahul Gandhi…."
Mamata Banerjee did not exactly maintain silence. At a cabinet meeting – and also at the Martyr's Day rally of her party on 21 July – she warned that Manipur-like videos will surface in Bengal soon. Some of these might be fake and designed to malign the TMC government in Bengal, she alerted her party leaders.
Malviya's tweets, however, have already set off a trend with BJP leaders unleashing a barrage of tweets and social media posts heaping scorns on the Mamata Banerjee government and also accusing other Opposition coalition partners of the political alliance called INDIA – like the Indian National Congress and the Communist Party of India – for not criticising incidents like Malda.
But the newly forged INDIA coalition partners like Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury of the Indian National Congress or the Communists in Bengal have been treading cautiously.
"Manipur is not Malda and Malda is not Manipur," said the Congress leader, while the response from the Communists was calibrated not to upset the equations for 2024.
In the simmering political cauldron of Manipur and Malda, more muck is expected to be dug up by political rivals as was evident with BJP leaders travelling back in time and digging up the horrific atrocities on women in different non-BJP-ruled states.
Sample some of these … "Over 33,000 thousand cases of sexual assaults on women in Rajasthan in last four years, over ten cases of women being paraded naked in West Bengal since 2016…." The social media war that has erupted after Manipur is leading to a bitter end.
The video clips and scornful content should come as an awful reminder of how unfortunate is the state of women in our country.
But scaling up such attacks will not help. Political masters cutting across all shades must come up with more effective measures in dealing with crimes against women and restore their dignity.
(The writer is a Kolkata-based senior journalist. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)