This article revisits the Manipuri women's protest against the rape and killing of Thangjam Manorama Devi, a suspected Maoist insurgent, by the Indian Army in July 2004. The naked protest by the ‘Mothers of Manorama’ in front of the Indian Army headquarters, urging army men to come and rape them, represents a unique mode of non-violent protest. Its quiet aggression exposed the naked predatoriness of the Indian state against its own female citizens. By enacting the unnaturalness of violence on their bare bodies, they shocked the nation into realising the extraordinary conditions created in Manipur and elsewhere through the deployment of the army and the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act of 1958, which grants them legal immunity. This article explores the significance of the Manipuri women's protest in the light of the history of both the colonial and the Indian state's exploitation of the region as well as the history of women's involvement in its social and economic development and peacebuilding activities.
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