‘Mengoubi’ Irom Sharmila changes tact by ending forced nutrition giving way to democratic electoral representation as a weapon against AFSPA

Imphal July 28:Manipuri rights activist  and Iron Lady of Manipur Irom Sharmila’s announcement to end her 16-year-long hunger strike for the repeal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, has drawn mixed reactions from her supporters, many of whom are still trying to understand the reason for her decision.The 44-year-old Irom feels that fasting as a weapon alone, cannot change or repeal the AFSPA act.

Besides being under hospital arrest ,she is unable to go on life as a normal person.She expressed her desire to get married to her Goan-born British boyfriend Desmond Coutinho.

After a large duration of resisting palatable food ,she has been also physically affected by the fast .

My goal cannot be achieved by the democratic means of fasting nor through violent means when the democratic rights are not respected”, Irom Sharmila says.

She said she will continue her battle against the dreaded legislation from a political platform.

Sharmila said that she would contest the Manipur Legislative Assembly election as an independent candidate.

The political rulers who have been occupying the seat of power after buying voting rights with crores of rupees have never paid any attention to the popular demand to scrap AFSPA.
The popular aspiration can never be fulfilled until and unless the existing political and administrative system is overhauled, Sharmila continued.

It is for this reason that she has decided to delve into politics and contest the election as an independent candidate.

Sharmila’s native village Kongpal Kongkham Leikai belongs to Khurai AC.

As a crusader for human rights, I wish my campaign ends in victory. For the last 16 years, I did not touch a single morsel of food. I’m aware my life will enter a totally new phase when I start eating again”, she continued.

If the electorates do not acknowledge by sufferings for the last 16 years and sell off their voting rights and if I lose the election, I would not be ashamed. But I would not return to fasting”, Sharmila categorically stated.

Coming back to normal life is a form of resistance, against being branded forever as the face of a cause and thereby denied a personal life.

Perhaps she has done all she could by the fast. Certainly, it is too much to ask an individual to put her own life in abeyance.

The government has given in incrementally , withdrawing the Assam Rifles from Kangla and AFSPA from segments in Imphal.

But overall, AFSPA remained in force, with Ms. Sharmila its constant conscientious objector.

Sharmila ironically managed to bring the issue back to the headlines by ending the fast.

The Assam Rifles troops shot dead 10 civilians at Malom Lamkhai on November 2, 2000.

The victims included Leisangbam Ibetombi, a 62-year-old woman, and 18-year-old Sinam Chandramani, a 1988 National Bravery Award winner .

Three days after the Malom Massacre, Sharmila launched her historic hunger strike from November 5.

She has been force-fed all these years through her nose at a special ward in the Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences in Imphal.

Since then she has been detained under IPC Section 309 on the charge of attempting to commit suicide although she was freed periodically only to be re-arrested.

In 2004, for example, 12 women led an agitation against the killing and suspected rape of a  32-year-old woman , Thangjam Manorama, in the middle of the night,by the Assam Rifles, by stripping themselves at Imphal’s Kangla Fort and proclaiming, “We are all Manorama’s mothers.”

In Manipuri society, the “mothers” are a courageous constant, organising the daily commerce of life and standing up defiantly to oppression.

In July 2016, the Supreme Court gave hope that crimes committed under the cover of AFSPA could be investigated and justice won for 1,528 deaths in Manipur.

As Irom Sharmila ends her hunger strike and enters electoral  her equation with the state is likely to drastically change.