ABSTRACT
The gender dimension of armed conflict is marginal in the scholarship on Peace, Conflict, and Security Studies and requires further engagement through a feminist lens. It disrupts the notion that participation in these movements helps women escape patriarchy and raises questions about the ‘ambivalent emancipation’ in India’s ‘Red Corridors.’ Through a historical and contextual reading of various resistance movements in South India and West Bengal, this paper explores how women navigate and negotiate varied socio-cultural and gender norms around women’s participation in the conflict. This reading is beyond the notion of women in conflict as passive participants or victims.
