Contesting Militarized Violence in “Northeast India” Women Poets Against Conflict
ESSAY Brinda J. Mehta ......................................................................................... Contesting Militarized Violence in “Northeast India” Women Poets against Conflict Abstract: The northeastern states of India have been positioned as India’s postcolonial other in mainstream politics with the aim to create xenopho- bic binaries between insider and outsider groups. Comprising the eight “sister” states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, and Tripura, this region represents India’s amorphous shadowlands in arbitrary political markings between the main- land and the off-centered northeastern periphery. These satellite states have been subjected to the neocolonial governance of the Indian govern- ment and its implementation of political terror through abusive laws, mili- tarized violence, protracted wars against civilians and insurgents alike, and gender abuse. Women poets from the region, such as Monalisa Changkija, Temsüla Ao, Mamang Dai, and others, have played a leading role in expos- ing and denouncing this violence. This essay examines the importance of women’s poetry as a gendered documentation of conflict, a peace narrative, a poet’s reading of history, and a site of memory. Can poetry express the particularized “sorrow of women” (Mamang Dai) without sentimentality and concession? How do these poetic contestations of conflict represent complex interrogations of identity, eco-devastation, and militarization to invalidate an elitist “poetry for poetry’ssake” ethic? ............ Poetry must be raw like a side of beef Should drip blood, remind you of sweat and dusty meridians feminism, race, transnationalism 20:1 April 2021 doi: 10.1215/15366936-8913107 © 2021 Smith College Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/meridians/article-pdf/20/1/53/928158/53mehta.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 54 meridians 20:1 April 2021 slaughter and the epidermal crunch and the sudden bullet to the head —Mona Zote, “What Poetry Means to Earnestina in Peril” ...........
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