A gendered military history of the Meiteis in Manipur (in India’s northeast) and Burma

This project explores the military history of the Meitei community of Manipur in India’s Northeast through the lens of gender.

The Meitei are a martial community and their kingdom of Kangleipak has a long history of wars and conflicts with its neighbouring states including colonial British rule. The merger of this kingdom with the Indian Union is also controversial. After being reduced to a state in the Indian Union, militarisation, in the form of the imposition of martial law such as the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and various secessionists/nationalist movements, turned this state into a war zone. 

The current civil-war-like situation in Manipur only reinforces this observation. However, existing scholarship on these movements often confuses the Meiteis with Manipur ignoring the Nagas, the Kukis, and the Pangals who also inhabit the territories of this Indian state. Consequently, each community has its own version of a history of secessionists/nationalist movements that often conflict with one another. In the midst of this confusion and conflict, this research wishes to revisit the military history of the Meiteis in Manipur and complicate these already tangled histories by introducing another coordinate of Myanmar (Burma). 

Moreover, gender is also going to be an important prism to interrogate these tangled histories.

About the speaker

Natasa Thoudam is an Assistant Professor in English at IIT Jodhpur. Her research interests are Comics Studies, Digital Humanities, Gender Studies, Literary Studies, Performance Studies, Religious Studies, and their intersections focussed on Manipur (India’s Northeast).

Registration

This event free, open to the public, and held in person only. If you would like to attend, please register using the link above.

• Organiser: SOAS Centre of South East Asian Studies
• Contact email: centres@soas.ac.uk 

Header image credit: Nyi Wai Yan via Unsplash