| Publication |
2009.
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| Summary/Abstract |
The Armed Forces Special Powers Act (1958) (AFSPA) has been debilitating for people in Manipur, already struggling with socio-economic and political marginalisation since independence. The consistent erasure of Manipur by an apathetic and forgetful 'mainland' India provides the political impetus for anti-state groups demanding autonomy. The people of the state are, however, ambivalent about taking sides, having experienced the violence engendered by both factions. It is within this complexity that I situate my study of the AFSPA. My paper will elaborate on a theory of haunting, a metaphor I evoke to address this complexity of postcolonial modernity and its silences, by focusing on the protesting icons of the Meira Paibi and Irom Sharmila. Examining the idea of haunting provides us with a vocabulary to push at the limits of rationality that both political movements and social sciences rely upon; haunting, then, is both a methodology and a theme that might help us account for lived realities that are far from rational, clear-cut and thus easy to access. The figure of Sharmila emerges then as one not only haunted by the violence of the postcolonial moment but also simultaneously haunting us - isolated, confined and outlawed, she occupies a liminal position between the living and the dead, enacting a disruption that simply cannot be contained by the modern Indian state or even a rational social science seeking to represent her.
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