NEW DELHI (AP) — His social media accounts suggest that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is launching high-speed trains and rubbing shoulders with foreign leaders as a powerhouse on the global stage and the face of an ascendant India.
But that carefully crafted image, followed by millions, sits uncomfortably at odds with his silence on what’s come close to a civil war engulfing India’s northeastern state of Manipur.
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NEW DELHI (AP) — His social media accounts suggest that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is launching high-speed trains and rubbing shoulders with foreign leaders as a powerhouse on the global stage and the face of an ascendant India.
For three months, the strongman leader has been absent on arguably the worst ethnic violence ever seen in the remote state, where Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party is in power.
A harrowing video showing two women in Manipur being assaulted and groped went viral a few weeks ago, forcing Modi to condemn the specific attack even as he held back from addressing the overall conflict.
The danger of violence and distrust between communities remains high in Manipur, which has essentially been split into two parts – between the hill tribes home to the Kukis and the plains below, where the Meitei live.
They have also raided police armories, looting nearly 3,000 weapons including rifles, machine guns and AK-47s, said Sushant Singh, a senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research and an Indian army veteran.
There’s also growing fear that the turmoil in Manipur could potentially spread across India’s northeast, a region with a fractured history of ethnic violence that previous governments have long tried to resolve.
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