Thanks to the proliferation of conflict-related news, accounts of women in conflict situations -- be it reports on armed women combatants or women peace groups -- are now common knowledge. Women have served in various roles -- as victims, survivors, combatants, peace activists, negotiators, household heads, and labourers, in traditionally male dominated fields. While these are known to policy circles, we seem to be unable to grasp what is at stake in understanding women’s situation in a high conflict region like the North East (NE), in the perspective of the ongoing social and economic changes there.

Some of the representative data with regard to women’s situation in this region speak of the factors influencing women’s emergence as public actors in the North East, at a time when peace building there is dominated by policies and visions marked by neo-liberal developmentalism.

However we have to keep in mind that the region is still marked by a situation of women’s insecurity. Despite a recommendation by an official review committee (2004) to repeal the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, the Act still remains in force. A recent research found that of the 25 studied cases of sexual assault dating back to 1990 only two cases have been processed. Trafficking in and from the region further adds to the existing insecurity of women. Assam and Meghalaya constitute -- what one report terms -- “the epicentre of human trafficking”, due to floods, disasters, and conflict induced displacements. Likewise child rape cases as the NCRB data highlights are significantly high in this region.

Yet women seem to be doing better there in public health and education. As per the 2011 Census, the overall sex ratio at the national level is 940 females for 1,000 males, but the situation in the North Eastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, and Sikkim is better. Incidents of foeticide or infanticide in the North East, are almost nil. In literacy, with the exception of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam, the remaining six North Eastern states have a total literacy rate that is higher than the national average.

However, out of eight North Eastern states, six have a higher dropout rate than the national average. The lack of separate toilets for female children is one reason for girls dropping out of school: 78.5% of schools in Manipur and 60.4% of schools in Arunachal Pradesh do not have separate provisions for girls’ toilets. Barring Assam, the gender gap in literacy has been narrowed down in all the states in the region. In any case it seems that women here are doing better than in the rest of the country vis-à-vis education. There is a definite rise of the female literate class in the North Eastern societies which sooner or later will impact the occupational structure as well as peace politics.

With regard to work, economy, and women, out of 131 countries with available data, India ranks 11th from the bottom, in female labour force participation. However women’s work participation in the North East has not declined. In 2001, while the national figure in women’s participation in work was 25.6%, in Arunachal Pradesh it was 36.5%, in Meghalaya 35.1%, in Nagaland 38.1%, and in Mizoram 47.5 %.The first Human Development Report prepared by the Planning Commission of India revealed that gender disparity across the states has declined. But the group in the topmost bracket (0.75+) of this scale is composed of the North Eastern states (except Assam), and the states of the South. Further, the Third Census of Micro, Small and Medium Industries revealed that the total number of women headed enterprises in the entire small scale industries (SSI) sector was estimated at 1,063,721 (10.11 %), and the estimated number of women managed enterprises was 995,141 (9.46 %). In Mizoram, the share of women’s employment was significantly higher (more than 20%).

Perhaps much of the conflict emerged in the wake of marginalisation of the old self-sustaining mode of production in which hills were trading with the valleys. The marginalisation was the effect of an aggrandising state, ever expansive governmental machinery, spreading banks, the neglect of the hill economy, and the rise of the commercial, administrative, and service towns. And now with changes reflected at least partially through these data, we can make three broad observations

First, states in this conflict-torn region do not present a homogeneous picture on how women are doing in the time of conflict and peace building. Three states by gender development indices are above the national level and four states have GDI values marginally below, implying that women of the region are perhaps subjected to less disparity in terms of life expectancy, educational achievement, and access to resources. The gender gap is narrow for Meghalaya, Mizoram, and Nagaland. The prevalence of women’s markets in Manipur is perhaps a cause for the reduced gender gap in the state. However the situation is worse in Tripura and Assam. It is also to be noted that the health indices for women in the region are better than at the national level.

Second, North Eastern states do not present a uniform structure of women’s social existence. Yet viewed from Delhi the entire region seems to be uniformly the same. Is this administrative gaze merely one due to ignorance, or is it a deliberate strategy to temper the North Eastern states marked with thousand mutinies?

There is one more paradox: while the poorer sections of women take the lead for peace, as the society demands greater educational and health facilities, this demand in time leads to a professionalisation of a section of women, spawning women teachers, doctors, white collar employees. These however are the sections which do not join the peace movement in the same energetic way as others have earlier. Likewise, the increasing demand for gender specific measures, such as women’s commission, gender budgeting, greater electoral participation of women, extension of the panchayat system, whittles down the collective resistance. The disaggregated data relating to women in differential social milieu throws light on this paradoxical process.

The author is Director, Kolkata Research Group