Manipur & Northeast India is a region of immense geo-strategic importance that shares borders with five countries namely Myanmar, Bangladesh, China, Nepal and Bhutan. The region, home to 45 million indigenous people belonging to 272 beautiful ethnic groups has been facing the onslaught of violent conflict for the last 72 years. A martial law called the Armed Forces(Special Power)Act has been imposed in the region for the last 61 years which is a violation of basic fundamental rights.
More than 50,000 lives have been lost in the violence. 20,000 women widowed & many disappeared. The lecture will focus on one of the world's unreported and undocumented conflict and share the extraordinary efforts of decades of mobilisation and non-violent resitance methods of indigenous women of Manipur who form strong groups that patrol the streets at night with bamboo torches and other forms of unique way of resistance to bring peace in this entrenched conflict that remains unresolved till today.