In Manipur, Women Take the Lead

By LYDIA POLGREEN

Manpreet Romana for The New York TimesA Manipuri woman arguing with an Indian army official in Gamgiphai village of Manipur, in this file photo from August 31, 2011.

India is the land of a million mutinies, in V. S. Naipaul’s indelible phrase, but almost all the mutinies I have witnessed have been led and populated by men. When the farmers of Uttar Pradesh demonstrate against a new highway, they leave their wives at home. When the Jats agitate for caste-based job and education preferences by sitting on railway tracks, their daughters remain in the village, their faces, in all likelihood, covered by dupattas.

Even the massive marches against corruption in New Delhi during Anna Hazare’s hunger strike had an overwhelmingly male cast. When the barricades go up in India, it seems they are almost always manned by men.

But when I rolled up to an agitation in the village of Gamgiphai in Manipur earlier this fall, the ramparts were lined almost exclusively with women. The road connecting the village, which sat nestled in the hills outside the state capital, had been torn up. The protesters had blocked the roads into Manipur, as so often happens in this remote region. They hoped that strangling commerce would force officials here to grant their request: a separate administrative district for their ethnic group, the Kukis. I used my cellphone to record a video that captured just how unafraid Manipuri women are to confront soldiers.

“Women take the lead in these protests,” explained  Lamshi Haokip, one of the women at the barricades. “If the men did it the army would kill them.”

Perhaps, but the involvement of women in the struggle for human rights and self-determination in Manipur has a long history. In 1939, Manipuri women launched what was called Nupi Lan, or the women’s war, against the maharaja that ruled the kingdom over what they called his oppressive policies.

The state’s most famous activist, Irom Sharmila, is a woman who has been on a hunger strike for more than a decade, seeking the removal of draconian laws that shield the armed forces from prosecution for crimes committed here. She is force-fed through a feeding tube in her nose.

In 2004, a group of middle-aged Manipuri women protested against the same law by stripping naked in front of an army barracks in Imphal and unfurling a banner that read: “Indian Army: Rape Us.” Their protest was prompted by the killing of an activist named Thangjam Manorama, who was taken into custody by the Assam Rifles — a paramilitary force in India — and later found dead, her body riddled with bullets and showing signs of sexual assault and torture.

Statistics from the most recent census show that women in Manipur fare better than other Indian women on several counts. The ratio of boys to girls is closer to even here, a crucial marker in a country where female fetuses are aborted and female babies killed or neglected by parents who prefer sons. Its female literacy rate here is 73 percent — higher than the national rate for women of 65 percent.

One afternoon during my visit to Manipur, I went to a meeting of a group of activists working on Ms. Sharmila’s case and broader human rights issues in the state. It was the first meeting that I had ever been to in India on a topic not exclusively female-oriented (like women’s rights or gender violence) where the majority of participants were women: nine women and six men attended.

“It is a patriarchal society, but women take very strong roles,” said Basantakumar Wareppa, a lawyer who works at Human Rights Alert, one of the groups working on Ms. Sharmila’s cause. “They are not afraid to fight for their rights.”

Indian women have come a long way. The country has had a female prime minister and president, and women occupy top leadership roles at major companies and institutions. But when it comes to hitting the streets and making their voices heard, Manipuri women seem to be leading the pack.