Understanding North-East Woman’s Participation in State Governance- A Power Dynamics

The northeastern states of India, popularly known as the Seven Sisters of India (Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura, Mizoram, and Arunachal Pradesh), along with their brother state Sikkim, stand out with their unique geographical location and are home to several multi-ethnic communities. The region has witnessed several ethnic uprisings following the complexities of autonomy-related movements, the integration process, and the share in the natural resources. Needless to say, with the kind of societal structure prevailing in this region, women’s participation has been a major factor in ethnic movements in the past and even in the present. Indubitably, their participation in the societal and civil sphere of life is impressive. However, their involvement and presence in the larger political scenario, such as state institutions, are hardly felt.
The central inquiry of the paper is to analyse the role of women in ethno-political conflicts and parallelly examine the power-sharing dynamics of women in North-Eastern regions. Methodologically, this research involves a comprehensive study of documents from the Election Commission of India, focusing mainly on the percentage of women candidates in the northeast contesting in Lok Sabha elections from the time period of 2014 to 2024. Through the analysis of this data, the research will try to underscore the reason for the invisibility of women's role in larger power sharing where there is paradoxically huge participation of women in ethno-political issues.