There is a core of unreason in acts of violence. That is perhaps the only explanation for the brutal madness of the attack on a temple near Imphal that killed five people. This certainly is not the first time that innocent lives have been lost in senseless violence in Manipur. Long years of ethnic insurgencies and the state’s battles against them have claimed hundreds of such lives. But the attack on the temple of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness exposes how violence can lose meaning even to its perpetrators. The devotees who gathered at the temple did not represent any of the forces that the militants of Manipur have been battling. There is a dark irony in the fact that the killings took place in a temple. It suggests that no place is safe enough from such killers. Also, it shows to what length mindless violence can go. There is a hint, though, of a cultural context to the tragedy. Some militant groups see all rituals linked to Hindu religious traditions as alien to Manipur’s ethnic culture. In fact, they see such rituals as instruments of Indian ‘domination’ of the erstwhile princely state’s politics and culture. It is the same argument that advocates the restoration of the Meitei script for the Manipuri language. It is not unusual for communities to argue about historical “wrongs” or to seek cultural changes. But violence is not the way to win such arguments.

The chief minister, Mr Okram Ibobi Singh, has predictably condemned the violence. But his government does not seem to know enough about either the assailants or the motives behind their action. It is important to get to the roots of the incident simply because it is uncommon and very different from the known patterns of militancy-related violence. There obviously are violent forces other than the ones that the army and the police fight in Manipur. Unless such forces are identified and tackled, the people will be forced to live in perpetual fear of undefined enemies of peace. The government has to fight the militants and, at the same time, try to win them over to democratic ways. But the government and the politicians have a constitutional obligation to provide peace and security to the people. It is time also for the ordinary people to cry louder against the cult of violence. The bloodbath at the temple is a grim wake-up call.