Anna Hazare is inspiring India's somnolent people: Irom Sharmila
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COMMENTS 
2,500 km away from the Ramlila grounds where Anna Hazare’s fast has the government in jitters, Irom Sharmila in Manipur continues unheard into the 11th year of her fast protesting human rights abuses under the AFSPA. Thingnam Anjulika Samom asks this prisoner of conscience what makes her continue to uphold democratic ideals with her only weapon – her body
Around 2,500 km away from the Ramlila grounds where 74-year-old Gandhian Anna Hazare has been on a week-long fast seeking to root out corruption, 30-year-old Khundrakpam Bidhan has no illusions about life in his homeland – the northeastern state of Manipur situated on the Indo-Myanmar border.
His father, who works in a garage as a mechanic, will not be able to pay for a government job for him. In Manipur, a government job can cost anything from Rs 2-15 lakh, and even higher. There are very few job opportunities in the private sector too, making unemployment one of the main problems of the state.
What however tops the problem list in this state of 27 lakh population and more than 33 ethnic communities is the Right to Life. This right which has been enshrined in the Indian Constitution as one of the fundamental rights of the people of the country, has been denied and transgressed in Manipur for more than five decades now.
Annexed into the British Indian Empire in 1891 and merged with the Indian union in 1949, the former independent kingdom of Manipur is today in complete chaos. Around 40 underground outfits have been waging an armed struggle for various demands including political autonomy and restoration of lost sovereignty for five decades now. The ensuing counter-insurgency operations of the government came with a rider – its security forces are empowered by the controversial Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) 1958 which enables them to arrest, search, and destroy property without warrant as well as shoot, and even kill any person, on mere suspicion.
Bidhan’s own brother Boyai is a victim of this Act. Faced with the inability to find adequate earning avenues in Imphal, the capital city, he had gone to Jiribam – a satellite town on the Assam border -- to trade in bananas and areca nuts. He had been there for about a year when in September 1998, he was picked up along with a friend during their morning walk by personnel of 317 Field Regiment.
The AFSPA clearly states that the army authority is duty-bound to quickly hand over anyone they arrest under the Act to the officer-in-charge of the nearest police station. However, while his friend was released the next day, Boyai was never seen again.
“We tried to trace him but drew a blank at every turn. So we filed a case against the army personnel. It was only in June 2006 that we won the case and were given Rs 3.5 lakh in compensation. But what use is the money? They got away without any punishment. We don’t even know where and how he died or whether he died at all,” Bidhan narrates.
“My brother was made to disappear involuntarily under the shadow of AFSPA. The Act has caused the death of so many people, made widows of so many women,” he adds. Fake encounters, bombings, kidnappings and extortion are routine affairs for the 27 lakh population to grimace and bear. According to media reports as many as 235 people were killed in the Manipur conflict between January and April 2009, while 75 were killed in 2010. Many of them were alleged to be "fake encounters".
The Act enforced on Manipur since 1980, is also in force in the northeastern Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura, as well as Jammu & Kashmir.
Bidhan is not the only person in Manipur who believes that the AFSPA 1958 is the root cause of the cycle of violence and widespread human rights violations in the state. The state has risen against it time and again. But the most relentless crusader against this Act is 38-year-old Irom Sharmila Chanu who is in the 11th year of her indefinite fast urging the repeal of the Act not only from Manipur but from the whole country. Thousands of women vigilante members locally known as Meira Paibi have also been on a relay hunger strike since December 10, 2008 in support of Sharmila.
Sharmila started her campaign two days after 10 civilians, waiting for a bus in Malom village, around 8 km from Imphal, were gunned down by personnel of the Assam Rifles on November 2, 2000. Members of an insurgent outfit had earlier ambushed the Assam Rifles convoy and they had shot the civilians in apparent retaliation. The Assam Rifles, raised as Cachar Levy in 1835, is the oldest central paramilitary force in India.
Within days of initiating her fast, Sharmila was arrested by the police and sentenced under Section 309 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) on charges of attempting suicide to a year in judicial custody, the maximum punishment awardable for this crime. Every year she would be released in early-March but as she refuses to discontinue her fast, she is promptly rearrested the next day to be force-fed through a nasal tube. She is also produced before the court every 15 days.
Meeting Sharmila inside her hospital prison requires permission from the state home department which is headed by none other than the chief minister of Manipur, after which the Inspector General Prisons is alerted. The whole process takes around 10 to 15 days, sometimes even longer than that.
Speaking to this writer recently during one of her fortnightly dates with the court, on how she has been able to sustain such a long campaign, Irom Sharmila said, “I am a prisoner of conscience. I just see the goal and induce myself to have positive thoughts.”
“I never thought about any other method of protest. My mind is very strong; once I set my mind on something I pursue it single-mindedly. For me there are many who are seeking refuge in the shade of my demand,” she said.
“How could this be possible? Is this (AFSPA) really an Act? How could one human oppress another in this manner, how could you call this justice through law? Even if I am expended, I would be the reason to save hundreds and thousands like me – this obsession made me strong enough to take the decision to start my campaign,” she said.
Commenting on the fasts by Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev, she said, “Their inspiration to the sleeping ones is a good thing.”
Human rights activist and Executive Director of Human Rights Alert (HRA) Babloo Loitongbam explains, “AFSPA says that if you are not a good Indian, you do not deserve to live. Sharmila says – the law is there to protect my life, but this very law is threatening my life. So, my life has no meaning if AFSPA is there. She has been challenging this paradox with her campaign.”
“If you think about it, both Anna’s campaign and that of Sharmila are for similar causes. Anna says that all, even the prime minister, should be equal under the law. Anna says even the prime minister must be punished for corruption. He is therefore calling for accountability and transparency in governance. Sharmila also wants that the government and its army should function under the framework of the rule of law. AFSPA is against accountability and transparency in governance, and so it should be repealed,” says human rights activist Babloo Loitongbam who has been solidly backing Sharmila’s decade-old campaign.
“After four days of Anna’s fast, the country’s parliament was shaken, but the government still continues to neglect the 10-year-old fast of Sharmila. Despite international criticism why is the government not doing anything about AFSPA?” he asks.
Says Bidhan, “I support Sharmila’s fast. This is something that we are not able to do. I have so many grievances, but I am not able to show my strength outright, mainly due to my family. They have already lost a son.”
“But I also pity Sharmila. She is a woman, but her struggle is unique and requires so much strength from her. She has sacrificed her whole life for people like me and my brother. Yet she continues to be ignored. A slap in Delhi is deemed more valuable than a kick in Manipur,” he adds.
Until the rest of India, and especially the government, becomes more sensitive to the sentiments and struggles of the Northeast, including Manipur, this frail woman may have to continue challenging the world’s largest democracy to live up to its democratic ideals with the only weapon she has – her body. And if the past decade of her protest is anything to go by, this may actually take some more time.
(Thingnam Anjulika Samom is a Manipur-based journalist. She was awarded the Infochange Media Fellowship in 2010)
Infochange News & Features, August, 2011