The Iron lady of Manipur

The grey single room on the corner of Jawahalal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences is always filled with a monotonous fragrance, that is usual for all hospitals, but for more than one decade the world of a young bright lady shrinked in to that single room just because she is a social activists. A tube that is dangling from her nostril, the only food that helps her to survive, ensuring she is getting drips, a fortnight visit to judg’s court is her only way to the outside world.

Don’t think that this uncompassionate and callous performance is happening somewhere in the middle of the Dark Continent or the Arab country…it is nowhere else than our India, a country which is popular for its stable democracy… a country which is kosher for its rich culture and legacy.

Perhaps the mainstream media is not covering much about Irom Chanu Sharmila like Anna Hazare, his recent 12-day fast paralyzed India’s political system, captured the nonstop attention of its hyperkinetic 24-hour cable news media and inspired hundreds of thousands of people across the country to rally in his crusade against corruption, but no doubt she is India’s best known face of peaceful protest.

This Iron lady from Manipur is a civil a rights activists and a poet. For almost 11 years, Irom Sharmila has been making demand for peace and withdrawal of the draconian Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) from her state by being on a fast-unto-death until the Act is repealed.

The AFSPA that gives sweeping powers to the armed forces to an extent that they can even shoot persons on mere suspicion. She took the step of fast a couple of days after the Assam Rifles Jawans moved down 10 civilians at Malom Village in Imphal West on November 2, 2000, while waiting at a bus stop.

Three days after she began her strike, she was arrested by the police and charged with an attempt to commit suicide which is unlawful under section 309 of the Indian Penal Code, and later transferred to the judicial custody. Then she was taken to the Sajiva Central jail and again admitted to the Imphal’s Jawahalal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences, where she was forced fed liquid diet by the hospital authorities through a nasal tube.

Government keeps extending Sharmila’s remand, year after year, because she resumed fasting after being set free. All these years she has not even had a drop of water and cleans her teeth with cotton wool.

The long struggle for human rights fetched her with many recognition and admiration. Sharmila was nominated to the 2005 Nobel peace prize by a Guwahati -based woman's organization, the North East Network.

She was awarded the 2007 Gwangju Prize for Human Rights, which is given for "an outstanding person or group, active in the promotion and advocacy of Peace, Democracy and Human Rights".

She also selected for the first Rabindranath Tagore Peace Prize in 2010 given by New Delhi IIPM. She was awarded the Sarva Gunah Sampannah- an award for peace and harmony", first Mayillama award from kerala and absentia- a lifetime achievement award.

Having refused food and water for more than 500 weeks, Irom Chanu has been called "the world's longest hunger striker".

Let us salute this extraordinary resilience of Irom Chanu Sharmila.