Protesting the AFSPA in the Indian Periphery: The Anti-Militarization Movement in Northeast India

In Manipur and India’s other northeastern states, human rights violations are being perpetrated by army, security personnel, and police forces during counterinsurgency operations since the Armed Forces Special Powers Act was enacted and enforced in 1958. The issue has become widely known since the 2000s when the anti-militarization movement became active in the area. In this chapter, Kimura focuses on two prominent cases of protests against human rights violations in the state of Manipur. Incidentally, in both, women played an important role in very different manners. Kimura discusses how the anti-militarization movement in Manipur has achieved certain success in reducing human rights violations perpetrated by the army, paramilitary forces, and police in the region through both “institutionalisation from below” and “institutionalisation from above.”