Between footnotes, rumours, and field notes, locating memories of extra-judicial killings from North East India

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Journal Article
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Project Monma Research Centre
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2019
Authors
Deka, Dixita
Abstract

This paper attempts at initiating a conversation on an under-represented event of extrajudicial executions popularly called ‘secret killings’ in the North East Indian state of Assam. Ever since India’s independence in 1947, the North East region of India has witnessed the beginning of armed struggles towards self-determination and sub-nationalism. Unlike and until the late 1990s, today the region is comparatively ‘peaceful’ if peace would equate to the official death statistics. However, an ambivalent meaning of peace unfolds in the region’s oral narratives coming from the people who have experienced, witnessed, perpetrated, recall or overlooked violence that had left them without closure. In this paper, I intend to reach out to the under-represented voices irrespective of their sex but with a keen reflection upon the difficulties of locating women and representing their testimonies of violence. I have attempted to do this gravitating towards the footnotes, rumours, and field notes. These vignettes and memories contest the homogeneity of women as a category and necessitate making the narrative on secret killings inclusive

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Keywords
rumours, memories, women, ULFA, North East India, Secret killings
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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.