Send message to Author

Paper short abstract:

Inter-ethnic conflict in Manipur threatens intra-community gains made in gender equity, shrinks space for gender progressive conversations, and calls for devising creative pathways forward to foster gender justice

Paper long abstract:

India’s Manipur state hosts several ethnic communities, including those designated ‘tribal’. ‘Tribal’ communities are structured around customary laws. This abstract is concerned with Thadou-Kukis, afflicted, like other communities, by gender violence.

Customary verdicts ‘settle’ GBV cases by butchering pigs. These all-male customary courts lack investigative and rehab capacities. Victims approaching Indian judiciary attract fines from customary courts. Indian penal system, also corrupt, favours the influential.

Within this complexity, Centre for Women and Girls (CWG), a non-profit, tackles gender violence by addressing both episodic (comprehensive legal aid) and long-term (gender sensitization).

But this balancing act (contending with state and non-state groups) and the gains over recent years (with several women filing court cases) now stand threatened by an unprecedented conflict that broke out mid-2023 between Kukis and dominant Meiteis, resulting in demographic separation, militarization, and vigilantism.

Now, with courts disrupted and Manipur police seen as partisans, CWG can no longer convince GBV victims to approach Manipur police and Indian judiciary. The education and mobility of women and girls are severely affected.

Simultaneously, Kukis’ priorities are stark — roof, water, warmth, safety, money — leaving little space for holding gender sensitization. This space shrank as gender violence increased — within the house (as stressors worsened) and outside (sexual violence used as weapon of war). Kukis, inclined to defend ‘culture’, always resisted gender justice grounded in human rights, but now find their identity existentially threatened. This jeopardizes the small progressive window CWG, along with the community, had created. Creativity in pursuing gender justice is ever more important