Divisive Politics of the Inner Line Permit in Three Stories from Manipur in India’s Northeast

In the context of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, and the National Register of Citizens in Assam, this paper interrogates the xenophobic dimensions of Meitei nationalism that translated into a demand for the implementation of the Inner Line Permit (ILP) regime in Manipur in India’s Northeast. The ILP was extended to Manipur in 2019, regulating the entry of ‘outsiders’. Moreover, the recent pandemic has also visibilised the figure of a migrant worker. This paper, however, goes back several years earlier to examine literary representations of the anti-migrant ILP demand. It also highlights its gendered aspect by looking at three texts by ‘dominant’ Meitei women: Ngaseppam Nalini (Nee) Devi’s ‘Mukti’ (2002), Huirongbam Benubala’s ‘Blockade’ (2000) and Kshetrimayum Subadani’s ‘The Heat and the Agony’ (2007). Drawing on theorisations by Anne McClintock and Rosemary Marangoly George, and focussing on the figure of the migrant worker, these stories open up the question of belonging beyond the scope of the nation.