In and out of jails for
the past 11 years, Manipur's 'Iron Lady' Sharmila has a tube running down her
nose as the government alternately force feeds her and incarcerates her for
attempting to take her own life through her hunger strike.
Irom Sharmila
Chanu (born March 14, 1972), also known as the "Iron Lady of
Manipur" or "Menghoubi" ("the fair one")[1] is
a civil rights activist, political activist, and poet from the Indian state
of Manipur.
Since 2 November 2000, she has been on hunger strike to
demand that the Indian government repeal the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act,
1958 (AFSPA), which she blames for violence in Manipur and
other parts of India's northeast.[2] Having
refused food and water for more than 500 weeks, she has been called "the
world's longest hunger striker".[3]
Manipur
is far removed, in more ways than one, from the political nerve centre of the
national capital. But Irom is not a stranger to Jantar Mantar in the heart of
Delhi, where she herself has launched a series of protests in the past to seek
the repeal of a law that gives the state army draconian powers.
Though
a recipient of many awards and international commiseration over her iron
resolve to fast unto death unless the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (1958) is
repealed, Sharmila's movement has somehow failed to capture the imagination of
India's burgeoning urban middle-class who can better identify with issues that
affect their lives directly.
