From peaceful polling amid a four-month long economic blockade, the BJP's surge as a formidable opponent in this Congress stronghold to activist Irom Sharmila's foray into politics and a high voter turnout in the two-phased polls for the member assembly, Manipur is experiencing an Uttar Pradesh and Manipur Assembly witness the last phase covering 40 and 22 seats respectively.
UP Elections Highlights: Uttar Pradesh is voting in the final and last phase of the seven phase elections today. A total of 1. More News ». More Videos ». With the central government deciding to decriminalise attempt to suicide, there is fresh hope for the release of civil rights activist Irom Chanu Sharmila who has been on a fast-unto-death for 14 years. Barring seven Assembly constituencies within Imphal Municipal area, the controversial Armed Forces Special Powers Act will be extended foranother year in insurgency-hit Manipur from tomorrow.
In an exclusive interview to CNN IBN, the iron lady of Manipur, Irom Sharmila, calls Anna's movement 'somewhat artificial' because it is largely supported by prominent bureaucrats, who themselves are corrupt. If she was force-fed through her nose, she reasoned, she was holding to her promise not to eat until Afspa was repealed.
And so, several times a day for the next 16 years, Sharmila was kept alive by a mash of nutrients and water pumped through a a three-feet tube between her nose and stomach. Manipuris were initially baffled, Loitongbam says.
People asked, how can this girl from the middle of nowhere be doing this? Me, my organisation, her family members worked hard to establish her. Indian authorities could detain Sharmila for one year at a time: the length of the penalty for attempting suicide.
Outside, Manipur continued to boil. On 10 July , a young woman named Thangjam Manorama was dragged from her home by Indian soldiers. A judicial inquiry later found that Manorama was tortured and her body dumped near a police station with 16 bullet wounds. Nobody was charged; the soldiers invoked Afspa. Outrage after the murder paralysed Manipur for months and turned Sharmila into a hero.
She became the symbol — for better or worse — of the Manipur resistance. In her guarded ward, Sharmila occupied herself with passing the endless time alone. She wrote poetry. She rose in the middle of the night to walk in circles in the corridors. She held yoga positions for hours. She fought the maddening dryness of her mouth — having also eschewed water — by sucking cotton balls to keep saliva flowing. She awaited the day Manipuris would be inspired by her strike to organise, shed their divisions and force the government to repeal the military special powers act.
Then she could get on with a normal existence. Yet as her aura grew, Sharmila felt like this goal was becoming more distant. It needed to be a collective cause, a mass cause.
At the peak of her powers, Sharmila was being sought out by Nobel laureates and diplomats. She was called the Iron Lady of Manipur. She was miserable. Early in , a British-Indian named Desmond Coutinho arrived in the country. His mother had just died from cancer, and the west Londoner was questioning his life.
So a friend suggested Coutinho, now 55, follow in the footsteps of generations of listless westerners and go to India to find himself. On July 26th she announced her decision to end her fast and enter politics to ensure that AFSPA is repealed through political means. A national party will have their own policies and we do not want to align with their policies," she says. Sharmila, who has been fasting for over 15 years demanding repeal of Armed Forces Special Power Act, expressed dissatisfaction over the Centre's delay in scrapping the law.
The year-old iconic rights activist is, however, yet to walk out of her jail ward at Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences pending the release order. In a statement, it said the state government must immediately and unconditionally release the year-old activist and drop all charges against her. Sharmila began her hunger strike in November against the killing of 10 civilians by security forces a bus stop near Imphal airport. The MHA in July came out with tougher guidelines to regulate the entry of NGOs and filmmakers into the prison for making documentaries.
A day after being released from jail, rights activist Irom Chanu Sharmila was arrested once again by police under the same charge of attempt to commit suicide by means of her indefinite fast. Though there was some decline in militant activities, nevertheless 13 civilians including 5 non-Manipuris were either killed by unidentified gunmen or in bomb explosions.
Whatever happens she will continue with her fight. Condemning the re-arrest of Irom Chanu Sharmila, her family and various civil rights groups in Manipur today termed the move as illegal.
The order of the sessions court that I am not attempting to commit suicide is welcome," she said. Sharmila, 42, is now continuing her year-old fast from a small makeshift shelter outside the government-run Jawahar Lal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences and Hospital in Imphal. Sharmila, a former journalist and social activist, had launched her fast unto death on November after Assam Rifles killed 10 innocent persons.
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