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ID: 166633

Between underground and over ground: narratives on the identity of women insurgents in Assam’ / Deka, Dixita

Deka, Dixita	Journal Article
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Summary/Abstract

The Assam Movement (1979–1985) has been a turning point in the politics of Assam in India that has raised the question of identity and at the same time triggered the struggle to self-determination by the insurgent organization United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA). This paper aims to take identity as the point of departure to mark the transition of women’s role from the Assam Movement into their underground roles in ULFA. In such narratives of hero-making and patriotism, under-representation of women’s strategic involvement and self-sacrifices in the insurgent outfit often leaves the lives of the women members misrepresented and fails to highlight the in-betweens of life and death. This paper pushes the idea of identity assertion in Northeast India beyond citizenship and questions the way women’s presence in the insurgent organization gets narrated, documented, and established. Oral histories are crucial sources of data for this study.

Key Words

ULFA ; Identity ; Northeast India ; Oral History ; Women Insurgents

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ID: 178053

Living without closure: memories of counter-insurgency and secret killings in Assam / Deka, Dixita

Deka, Dixita	Journal Article
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The experiences of insurgency and counter-insurgency in Northeast region of India have left behind some of the brutal memories of violence. This paper intends to explain how fear and suspicion in societies under counter-insurgency build up the narrative of silence and secrecy when the state and the security forces allegedly commit excesses against civilians. For this, the paper revisits the ‘secret killings’ of the family members, close aides, and sympathizers of the insurgent organization United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) between 1998 and 2001 in Assam. Personal narratives question the official statistics of deaths and explore the conditions under which silence is manufactured in cases of violence which do not qualify for legal evidence. The motivation then is to disrupt the silence in absence of closure to those affected. From interviews conducted with sixty individuals representing multiple backgrounds, violence and power emerge to be integral in understanding secret killings in Assam.

Key Words

Violence ; ULFA ; Memory ; Counter - Insurgency ; Secret Killings

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