Not a drop of water nor a Morsel of food through her lips, for 11 years and still counting...

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commiseration over her iron resolve to fast unto death unless the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (1958) is repealed, Sharmila's movement has somehow failed to capture the imagination of India's burgeoning urban middle-class who can better identify with issues that affect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.