NATIONAL COMMISSION FOR WOMEN VISITS LAMKA, RISKED BEING CALLED A NATIONAL POLITICAL COMMISSION FOR WOMEN
The Chairperson of National Commission for Women Smt Rekha Sharma roughly visited Lamka on July 26, 2024 and met with the Kuki Women leaders.
The Honourable Chairperson's visits to the tribal District after 2023, lasted briefly for about 40 minutes. During her visit, the Chairperson had lunch at the Deputy Commissioner’s Office and a short meeting with the District Administration and a few women groups.
Prominent tribal women’s organisations like the Zomi Mother’s Association (ZMA), Headquarters, Lamka and their constituent members recused themselves from attending the meeting, as a symbolic protest to voice the indifferent attitude and neglect of Zo tribal women victims from the violence by the NCW since last year. During the meeting, the Chairperson, NCW refused to entertain the various grievances of the attending women leaders, they were informed that she will only take cognisance of the plight of Zo women victims for their justice, if and only when the attending women leaders initiated a ‘peace process’. She further appraised the attending women leaders that she will be the voice for Kuki women, if the Kuki women become the voice of the central leadership.
The Zomi tribal women leaders saw the visit as a deceptive appeasement policy, not as a visit to adequately and earnestly address the grievances of thousands of Zomi, Kuki and Hmar women victims - who are still awaiting justice as most of the cases are yet to be heard by the court of justice. Among the high number of women victim cases, the heinous case of B. Phainom viral video case and the heinous case of the Imphal Car Wash incident are pending before the court, even after more than a dozen witnesses are examined
TRIBAL PERSPECTIVE
The main purpose of the Chairperson visit to Manipur was to inaugurate the Gender Sensitization for Police Personnel programme in Imphal organised by the National Commission for Women. However, her extended visit to Lamka is not necessarily fuelled with the enthusiasm and primary rationale to take cognisance of the victims of gender based violence faced by the Zo tribal women due to the ethnic violence in Imphal and its bordering villages. It is worth noting that the Chairperson is yet to deliver any of the promises made during her visit to the State last year. While it was understood that the Mission of National Commission for Women is ‘...devising strategies for solution of specific problems/situations arising out of discrimination and atrocities against women’ the Chairperson's indifference towards the plight of Zo women is seen as symptomatic negligence.
The visit by the NCW is only a politically motivated ploy to gain political mileage rather than an earnest attempt to resolve the deep-seated issues faced by tribal women victims. Ironically, though the Commission is a statutory body empowered to protect and safeguard the rights of women, the visiting Commission has personally extended the National Commission for Women Act, 1990 requirement provision by insertion of a political condition i.e. initiation of peace process by tribal women. Only upon fulfilling the political conditions, the Chairperson assured the attending women's leader that she will take cognisance of the women victim cases, whose cases are yet to be heard.
The slogan "No Justice, No Peace" raised by the Zo tribals since the ethnic violence in 2023 till date, reflects a broader sentiment of disenfranchisement and a deep mistrust in the mechanisms that are supposed to protect them. The visit by the NCW, devoid of any substantial promise of justice, risks being perceived as an empty gesture rather than a step towards reconciliation and peace resolution.