Binalakshmi “Bina” Nepram is the senior adviser on Indigenous issues for the religion and inclusive societies team at USIP.

Nepram joined USIP after spending time as a fellow at the Carr Centre for Human Rights, Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Governance and at Harvard’s Asia Centre, where she worked on documenting Indigenous nations and aspects of gender and peacebuilding with Indigenous women peacebuilders. Prior to joining Harvard University, Nepram also worked at Connecticut College, where she taught a course called “Women, War and Peace.” Nepram also was a research assistant in the Indigenous rights summer program organized by Institute of Human Rights at Columbia University.

Nepram founded the award-winning and women-led Manipur Women Gun Survivors Network and served as its director of programs. She also helped found the Northeast India Women Initiative for Peace; the Control Arms Foundation of India; and the Global Alliance of Indigenous Peoples, Gender Justice and Peace.

Nepram has worked closely with the U.N. Development Programme in India, the Indian government’s National Mission for Empowerment of Women, as well as with the European Union and a host of other civil society-based and women- and indigenous women-led organizations in South Asia and in seven sociocultural Indigenous zones around the world.

Nepram hails from the state of Manipur in Northeast India and has extensive experience researching armed insurgencies and responding to conflict areas, the linkages between small arms and narcotic, women in decision-making processes, and ensuring support to women and families who are survivors of armed conflict. Nepram has researched extensively on the linkages between arms and narco-trafficking and its humanitarian consequences, Indigenous governance, nonviolent movements and women-led peacemaking issues in various conflict zones around the world.

Nepram earned her master’s in South Asian studies from the School of International Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. She also has two other master’s degrees — one in modern Indian history from Delhi University and another in sociology from The New School of Social Studies in New York.

She has authored a book of poetry, a historical fiction novel and three academic books that connect democracy, diversity and issues on women, peace and security. Nepram is the recipient of the Sean McBride Peace Prize, Anna Politskovskaya Award and the CNN IBN Real Heroes Award for her lifetime of work with women survivors of armed violence in Manipur.

Nepram has authored op-eds for The Washington Post, Times of India, Hindustan Times, Democracy Now has made media appearances on Channel 4, Al Jazeera, BBC, India Today, NDTV, CNN, TV18, Mirror Now, News 24, The Wire, and Quint.

Publications By Binalakshmi

Indigenous Pathways to Peace

Indigenous Pathways to Peace

Wednesday, April 3, 2024

Many of the world’s Indigenous peoples live in unstable areas, struggling to survive as conflicts, transnational organized criminal networks and extractive projects upend their lives and livelihoods. Unfortunately, peace processes in these contexts are often negotiated at high political levels without the inclusion of Indigenous peoples. This can undermine the chances for success, as Indigenous peoples are a crucial population in some of the world's longest-running conflicts. But even further, excluding Indigenous people means overlooking how Indigenous traditions, rituals, and religious and political practices can help advance peace and resolve deadly conflict.

Type: Analysis

Peace Processes

In Northeast India, Manipur’s Violence Echoes Sudan’s Darfur

In Northeast India, Manipur’s Violence Echoes Sudan’s Darfur

Thursday, October 12, 2023

Rising violence this year threatens to deepen instability in India’s far northeastern region. Ominously, the bloodshed centered in India’s state of Manipur includes elements that were visible in early stages of the 20-year-old conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region. Darfur’s violence has killed or displaced millions of people and helped lead to this year’s civil war across Sudan. Tragically, both countries have seen these disparate conflicts intensify through widened opportunities for ill-governed ethnic militias and for hate speech. These evolutions have hardened local conflicts over land or water into more extreme, venomous warfare between ethnic or religious communities. Darfur’s example underscores the urgent need for responses in Manipur.

Type: Analysis

Conflict Analysis & PreventionViolent Extremism

Earth’s best defenders are Indigenous. They pay a price: violence.

Earth’s best defenders are Indigenous. They pay a price: violence.

Thursday, June 8, 2023

Little noted by the world, warfare in India’s northeastern state of Manipur this spring has killed hundreds of Indigenous people and uprooted more than 35,000 residents. This violence along the India-Myanmar border fits a global pattern, also little noted: For decades, some 80 percent of human conflicts have smoldered in the “biodiversity hotspots” where our planet’s flora and fauna are most threatened by battles for resources and wealth — and where Indigenous peoples suffer the violence while protecting humanity’s common ecological heritage. We should strengthen the world’s inadequate public attention and policies on this crisis, and 2023 offers a chance to do so.

Type: Analysis

Environment

Understanding India’s Manipur Conflict and Its Geopolitical Implications

Understanding India’s Manipur Conflict and Its Geopolitical Implications

Friday, June 2, 2023

Since May 3, the northeastern Indian state of Manipur has witnessed repeated inter-ethnic clashes primarily between two local ethnic communities, the Meitei and Kuki. The violence has resulted in over 75 deaths and the burning of at least 1,700 buildings (including homes and religious sites). More than 35,000 people are currently displaced as well, with many now living in one of the 315 relief camps in the state. As the fighting continues, these numbers may also be rising.

Type: Analysis

Conflict Analysis & Prevention

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