Eighty percent of the world’s conflicts are happening on biodiversity hotspots where indigenous peoples live, said Binalakshmi Nepram at a recent event hosted by the UCSB Department of Feminist Studies last Thursday.

Nepram, an indigenous scholar, author, and human rights activist, visited UCSB to give a talk on global conflict and its impact on indigenous communities worldwide. The event concluded with a Q&A session with Professor Anshu Malhotra of the Global Studies Department.

Nepram is from Manipur, a region of northeast India home to 39 diverse indigenous groups – and South Asia’s longest running conflict.

“It should be a National Geographer’s paradise,” said Nepram on the rich culture and biodiversity of Manipur. Instead, it is heavily militarized. “Everything stops around 3 or 4 o’clock p.m. Only wild dogs and military remain.”

May of 2023 marked the beginning of the current conflict between two northeast Indian ethnic groups, the Meitei and the Kuki. But Nepram said the conflict goes deeper than just intergroup ethnic violence. The root of the issue, she explained, is a lucrative arms trade and unregulated weapon supply in the region. Specifically, 58 types of weapons, from armed drones to American M-16s, are being funneled in by 13 different countries.

“War profits, peace doesn’t,” said Nepram. “If we lose our lives, our limbs, our homes in this conflict, some people will be laughing their way to the bank.”

Binalakshmi Nepram, human rights defender and indigenous scholar and author. Photo credit: Hadi Nasiri

Yet the profits only reach a select few. Though there is a wealth of resources in the region, 30 to 40% of Manipur’s citizens live below the poverty line. Obtaining a respectable job requires bribery, and corruption runs rampant in the political process. According to Nepram, people are “living for survival.”

Nepram also discussed the prevalence of violence against women throughout the conflict. Sexual violence and trafficking has increased in the region, targeting both women and children. Women are routinely brutalized in the streets, Nepram said.

But they have also resisted.

Nepram said that Manipur has “a very strong feminist history.” Women and mothers have played an extraordinary role in peacemaking, she said. Manipuri women patrol the streets with bamboo torches to protect their children and each other. They hold the Ima Market, a 500-year-old women’s-only market that offers a safe space amidst the conflict. After the rape and murder of Thangjam Manorama, a 31-year-old indigenous woman, a collective of mothers engaged in a baren body protest to expose these violent acts.

Nepram stressed these are not isolated incidents.

“The issue of Manipur is not happening in Manipur alone,” said Nepram. “We are in a pivotal moment in history.” This is where her work, and the work of countless indigenous women around the globe, comes in. In 2010, the Northeast India Women Initiative for Peace was launched, an alliance of women’s groups advocating for peace, designed to ensure that women have a place in the peace process. This led to the first northeast Indian female peace congregation, Nepram said. There, the women drafted a national action plan on women, peace, and security.

Nepram herself has founded three organizations that prioritize women in the peacemaking process: the Manipur Gun Survivors Network, the Control Arms Foundation of India, and the Global Alliance of indigenous Peoples, Gender Justice, and Peace. She plans to continue her work and extend it to indigenous communities affected by violence around the world.

“Our quest for peace is greater than your thirst for war,” she said. “As long as we exist, we will fight.”