Soldiers in Sarong

Manipur, a small state in the North - East corner of India is in deep social and political turmoil. Rising insurgency with political aims of secession from India have produced armed conflict. In the confrontation between the state and non-state forces, violence, death and disaster affected many lives. Under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (Assam & Manipur, 1958), the security forces secured wide powers to search arrest and kill people on suspicion. The impact of the exercise on this Act is most acutely felt by the women, who faced the brutalities of the impact of violence on traditional societies forced into the painful threshold of modernity'.