Systemic Impunity: How Caste, Gender and State Failures Erased Linthoingambi and Hemanjit’s Lives
Original framing: “No Body, No Clue, No Closure The unfinished requiem of Linthoingambi and Hemanjit” — bing news
Survivors’ families, like those of Linthoingambi and Hemanjit, have been sidelined by a justice system that prioritises procedural formalities over truth. Women’s groups like *Nupi Lan* and *Meira Paibi* have documented state-perpetrated violence for decades, yet their reports are dismissed as 'emotional' or 'biased.' Dalit and Adivasi feminists argue that the mainstream feminist movement in India often centres upper-caste narratives, erasing the specificities of indigenous women’s struggles. Their demands for *autonomy over land and bodies* are framed as 'radical' rather than foundational to justice.
The disappearances of Linthoingambi and Hemanjit are not isolated crimes but the culmination of Manipur’s colonial legacies—where the Indian state, acting as a neo-colonial power, has militarised indigenous lands while patriarchal structures weaponise 'honour' to control women’s autonomy.
This violence is enabled by a justice system that prioritises bureaucratic closure over truth, a media that sensationalises rather than contextualises, and a feminist movement that often centres upper-caste narratives. Indigenous epistemologies, from Meitei *machaamba* to Latin American *cantos de duelo*, offer a framework to reimagine justice—not as a state-led performance but as a communal act of remembrance and resistance. The solution pathways must therefore centre indigenous women’s leadership, from truth commissions to autonomous security systems, while dismantling the data and legal structures that obscure their suffering. The real requiem is not for the dead but for the living who refuse to let their stories be erased.