PRJA is the first regional party in Manipur which has resorted to crowdfunding to finance the poll expenses in the state.

According to PRJA sources, online crowdfunding with a slogan “Ten For a Change” is an idea in order to involve more people, bring in transparency in election funding and reach out to the masses.

The PRJA so far has collected Rs 4.5 lakh through crowdfunding.

“The online crowdfunding is in line with the party s call for accountable governance. When we started the party there was a lot of need for funds. Online funds are transparent and normally political parties face a backlash because they don’t have transparency in their funds,” PRJA’s convener, Erendro Leichonbam told PTI.

“We want to play a positive part in the politics of India, that s why we launched the crowd funding. From the beginning itself every single rupee is accounted for and we know who has donated it unlike others who don t disclose majority of their fund sources,” he added.

Irom Sharmila, while briefing about the idea of online crowdfunding, said, “Online crowd-fund is also aimed at ending muscle and money power in elections. Our aim is to change the system for a better Manipur.”

Erendo says, the iconic stature and acceptance of Irom across the country has helped the party in organising this programme.

PRJA is contesting in three seats in the 60 member assembly. Sharmila herself is fighting against Manipur Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh in Thoubal constituency.

In terms of poll campaign too, PRJA is trying to bring in a new trend in reaching out to the people by cycling through the streets of the constituencies.

Even as candidates of BJP and Congress have chosen going on foot or car as a primary mode of campaign, Sharmila is using cycle to campaign in various constituencies including Thoubal constituency where she is fighting the polls.

The party candidates are also using cycle as the mode of campaign in the districts.

According to PRJA leaders, Sharmila’s passion for cycling has also shown her a way to get close to the people of her state and spread her vision and seek support for her party.

“It also helps to stay healthy and saves a lot of money,” said a PRJA leader.

According to Erendo, apart from cycling in the constituency and personally talking to the people, PRJA is holding small personal meetings in each and every household of the three constituencies.

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One can find Irom on at least twelve walls of JNU. She is part of the iconic graffiti. On October 2. the activist was here in the campus addressing the students in person. The usually secluded area of Shipra lawn saw a thousand students huddled together, who had started pouring in as early as seven in the evening to hear Irom Chanu Sharmila speak.

It was an emotional moment for hundreds of activists who admire her as a symbol of resistance against state repression, for scores of artivists who have tried to portray her indomitable willpower on the red sandstone walls of the campus. And for innumerable students, both within and outside the campus; who have known her as the one to have steadfastly opposed the state imposed AFSPA through non-violent means making even powerful leaders take note of her and her cause.

Pushpika Bara, SIS Councillor welcomed the speakers and spoke about Irom’s hunger strike that lasted some sixteen years. She said students of JNU salute her iconic struggle and welcome her decision to end her hunger strike and fight through electoral means. Irom Sharmila had declared on 9 August 2016 after ending her hunger strike that she will contest Manipur Assembly Elections 2017. After which Pushpika added that JNU condemns the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 or AFSPA that grants security forces the power to search properties or arrest people without a warrant; to use deadly force against individuals if there is “reasonable suspicion” that a person is acting against the state; calling it “draconian” and “fascist.”  It is shameful for the government to use violence against its own citizens she said. The state of Jammu and Kashmir has been reeling under the same draconian law. Vrinda Grover, the human rights lawyer was also present.

Papori Bora, professor at Centre for Women and Gender Studies JNU, reminded students about the extraordinariness of her strike, stressing on the fact that it’s a lone democratic voice amidst tens of thousands of armed struggles in the Northeast. She expressed her disappointment with the state that has “failed to acknowledge Irom’s struggle;” and questioned the disparity that lies between India and the so-called “Indian” Northeast.

“Coexistence of AFSPA within representative democracy in Manipur is ironical. The Indian Union tries to ‘protect’ [Irom] under Section 309 of Indian Penal Code, thus including her as a citizen when at the same time excludes her by denying to acknowledge her struggle and fast. All her attempts to engage in a dialogue with the state have failed. This exclusion within an inclusion has forced her into a non-space…. Irom truly personifies the Northeast,” she said.

Irom, for some is also Mengoubi or the fair one, as she is popularly known.
One could sense the excitement in the air; students who had occupied front rows early demanding late comers trying to squeeze in to move to backseats. There were North-East students who had come from outside to have a glimpse of her. Frequently some section would break into loud cries of ‘laal salaams.’ While the recent recruits of DSF (the organizer for the event) shuffled around the place with tambourines, to make sure their voice rang the loudest during the naarebazi sessions, the older activists on the other hand in vain tried to keep things (read: people) in order.She then got up, stepped ahead and continued:

“For sixteen long years I followed Gandhian principles and requested governments to repeal AFSPA so that we are given the right to live. My protest has fallen on deaf ears. Now I wish to convey that I want to change my tactic, I will fight in a new way. I will take this to [the] ballot. My fight is not mine alone. It is for Manipur. We live on the same brown planet. When there is a volcano, typhoon, flood: it affects us all. When there is an unjust system, it affects us all… The people’s power can defeat the most unjust forces.”

Twice she oaused asked if she should speak more, and “yes!” bellowed the crowd.She paused, and then she continued:

“It is my belief that the students are the mirror of the society. It is said that when spring comes, it is full of hope and promise. When a bud blooms, it is full of hope and promise. It is my hope, a deep conviction that there is spring in the unity of the youth. If the youth is united, then we can defeat all the evils of the society.”

She conveyed such conviction and faith in the promise of a better future through her presence and gestures that one could sense her ideas taking shape among the audience across linguistic barriers. And when she started in English, slow and broken, those beliefs were further affirmed:

“I appeal to you all, the mirror of the world. Such kind of a unity [that is here in JNU] is not in my native land, full of problems, without any solution, without any guide. When those who are meant to serve us [do not do so], I have to step into the dangerous position and awaken the minds of people…ahead of my announcing the break of my fast, a BJP leader told me that if I have to stand in elections from their party I would need an average of 36 crores. In such dirty system, people are blindly indulged in traps… I hope the whole system of politics need[s] to be modified now.”

She ended, “I wish you all come to Manipur one day,” and then joked, “just ahead of the next elections.”

A wave of slogans in support of Irom’s struggle filled the night air.

“Irom ke sangharsh ko Jai Bheem Laal Salaam.”  

The azaadi ones followed too.

“Irom waali azaadi, Manipur me bhi azaadi, AFSPA se lenge azaadi.”
 
 

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Image: Times of India

कुछ कुछ तस्वीरें ताउम्र आप के मनमस्तिष्क पर अंकित हो जाती हैं।
 

‘इस बात से कोई फरक नहीं पड़ता कि पीड़ित आम व्यक्ति था या मिलिटेण्ट था या आतंकवादी था, और न ही इस बात से फरक पड़ता है कि आक्रांता आम व्यक्ति था या राज्य था। कानून दोनों ही मामलों में समान रूप से चलना चाहिए.. यही जनतंत्र की जरूरत है और कानून का राज तथा व्यक्तिगत आज़ादियो की रक्षा की आवश्यकता है।’

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The woman with a nasal tube has announced that she will end her 16-year fast on Tuesday.

 
When people in Manipur talk about Irom Sharmila, they often show a frustrated pride. Frustration at the fact that India has learnt to live with a woman who hasn’t chewed on anything for close to 16 years, and pride at the quiet strength and fortitude she has shown in her quest to force the government to repeal the draconian Armed Forces Special Powers Act.

There’s also frustration that the “Iron lady of Manipur” is no one’s particular problem. There is no national guilt when it comes to her, no breathless media keeping the momentum alive, no resolutions, dialogue or engagement.

Sharmila’s peaceful protest is a like an echo chamber, reverberating the same sound in an enclosed space, while the State outside remains totally deaf.

A mind of her own

The frustration then deepens in some sections when they realise that an independent, strong-willed woman lives at the other end of a nasal feeding tube.

Sharmila may be a frail, incarcerated being, but she will not conform to behaviour others consider to be appropriate. She has the audacity to fall in love and protest at the same time. She is brave, hopeful, and perhaps tired enough to come to a pragmatic decision that if a decade and a half of peaceful protest built on Gandhian principles of non-violence has not resulted in much, then perhaps something needed to turn.

There is no denying that Sharmila has taken a courageous decision, and a welcome one, in returning to life with all its pleasures.

It has not been easy. The initial shock at her July 26 announcement that she was ending her fast has given way to a muted welcome. There is a sense of disbelief. Security has been stepped up around her ward at the Jawaharlal Nehru hospital, and she hasn’t been allowed any visitors since she made the announcement. The list of those wanting to meet her has grown manifold in the past 10 days.

Her force-feeding has continued, and everyone is waiting for August 9, the day she is expected to break her fast.

There are fissures within her family about what needs to be done, and immense pressure on them to get Sharmila to reverse her decision.

Two insurgent groups, Kangleipak Yawol Kunna Lup and the Kangleipak Communist Party have already sent Sharmila a warning and reminded her of what happened to “former revolutionary leaders [who] were assassinated” because they forgot the cause they were fighting for.
Sharmila herself has been tense, say those around her.

“She was visibly excited, relieved that day [the day she announced she would end her fast],” said a hospital staff member who did not want to be identified. “She had mentioned that she was going to do this to some of us a few days ago. She had been preparing the statement she read to the media that day, for weeks…Since then she has been very quiet, very stressed.”

On occasions, Sharmila has mentioned to those around her that after Tuesday, she will go and live with nuns.

The futility of non-violence?

Sharmila’s decision to give up her fast and join the electoral process needs to be supported. Yet it forces us to face a harsh reality too. Why did a non-violent movement like hers not succeed? Why was sustaining collective action so difficult? And why did the Indian State not bother to engage with her in a coherent fashion?

Nelson Mandela, whose books are scattered in Sharmila’s hospital room in Imphal, once said: “For me, nonviolence was not a moral principle but a strategy; there is no moral goodness in using an ineffective weapon.”

I am unable to confirm whether Sharmila has read or heard of this quote, but it’s clear that over the last four years, the ineffectiveness of her non-violent protest was becoming clear to her.

Barring a few, protests these days are violent more often than not. If violent actors are the only ones that get 24×7 attention and dominate the news cycle, they become the touchstones of a political life. In the face of this, a non-violent movement does not even look like a viable option. It becomes invisible, as if it never happened, more so if it takes place in the periphery of the country where the media’s interest is anyway piecemeal.

In Sharmila’s case the 16-year-long fast may have well begun yesterday. The repeal of the Act – which gives unbridled powers to the armed forces, practically giving them a “right to kill” – was something that she did not even get close to. Recommendations of three high-powered panels, the Justice Jeevan Reddy Commission, second Administrative Reforms Commission and the Justice JS Verma Committee that discussed the Act in the context of sexual violence against women in conflict areas changed nothing.

If we go back further, the setting up of the Jeevan Reddy Commission itself came in the aftermath of a peaceful but brutally stark protest by 11 Manipuri women who bared themselves in front of the Kangla Fort after the rape and murder of Thangjam Manorama.

An unyielding state

Manipur is like a jigsaw puzzle piece wedged between Nagaland, Mizoram and Assam on one side and Myanmar on the other. There are sporadic explosions of violence, and concurrent running bandhs called by opposing sides. Small bombs and killings can be used to settle scores. And there are deep lurking tensions, ethnic and more, which come out noisily in the open before returning to a simmer.

The last decade-and-a-half provided the State a vast length of opportunity to talk, engage, show its compassion, and use Sharmila’s moral force to change things on the ground, it did nothing of the sort.

The Irom resistance

When Gene Sharp, the godfather of the field devoted to studying civil resistance, devised his list of “198 methods of nonviolent action”, he divided the tactics into three categories.

The first had methods of “protest and persuasion”, including public assemblies, processions, displays of banners. The second was confrontational measures that included economic boycotts and workplace strikes. The last was a refusal to participate in political or economic structures, but also intent to actively interrupt normal daily activity. Such interventions, Sharp wrote, posed a direct, immediate challenge, “the disruptive effects harder to withstand for a considerable period of time”.

It’s clear Sharmila did not follow Sharp. Neither did her campaign, which remained centred on her sacrifice and her retching force-feeding procedure. Access to her remained patchy and cumbersome, and she managed single-digit press conferences in 16 years.

As the years passed, the frenzy to mark her release after a one-year term [the maximum sentence for an attempt to commit suicide] was much diminished. In most years, in the short 48-hour period during which she was free, about 50-75 people would come to see her or stay with her.

Activity at the temporary shed, about 100 meters from the hospital, where she stayed every year upon her release, was modest, fuelled mostly by the presence of security. It would fall to a trickle as night fell, and was empty in the days after her arrest when she returned to her hospital bed to begin a fresh year in custody under the same charge of attempting to commit suicide.

Emma Goldman, an anarchist known for her political activism once said: “If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal."

Sharmila’s decision to join politics cannot be faulted in any way. Her faith in democracy has been unwavering. This, in a state where multiple insurgent groups challenge the sovereignty of the Indian State every day and are kept engaged with guns, stipends and peace talks. The contrast is shameful. India preferred a nasal rubber tube to become the enduring symbol of its engagement with a 44-year-old, non-violent protestor.

Anubha Bhonsle is the author of a book about Manipur titled Mother, Where’s My Country?

Courtesy: Scroll.in

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Let Us Work Together To Create New Strategies Of Struggle Against Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA)
 

We wholeheartedly support the decision of Irom Sharmila to withdraw, her fast of nearly 16 years for the revocation of AFSPA, we salute Irom Sharmila for her undying spirit, heroic struggle and undeterred determination in struggle against AFSPA.

 

It is our responsibility to take the struggle further and also support Irom Sharmila in her continuing struggle against AFSPA.

 

The history of post-Independence India is also the history of subjugation of the citizens of the North-eastern region. There has been a systematic crushing by the Indian state of their aspirations, and a consistent betrayal of promises made. The Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) was enacted as long ago as 1958, in order to suppress the genuine protests of the region’s inhabitants.

 

What is essentially a political issue has been treated simplistically as a law and order problem. AFSPA gives unbridled powers to the army and airforce. (Mizoram is the only part of India where the air force has actually bombed its own people.) The original Act allowed state governments to declare an area to be ‘disturbed’ and to call in the army. A 1972 amendment further allowed the central government to override state governments in order to do the same in any area.

 

AFSPA gives army officers the power to arrest without warrant, to shoot and kill on mere suspicion, to destroy property, and many other such draconian powers. The armed forces are required to act “in aid of” civilian authorities, but that caveat exists only on paper. In reality the army has virtually taken over large areas for decades together now, becoming a force unto itself, answerable to none. No army personnel may be prosecuted without permission from the central government – a permission hardly ever granted. Even bodies like the National and State Human Rights Commissions have little jurisdiction when it comes to human rights violations in the context of AFSPA.

 

What might have served at best as a short-term measure has become a permanent feature in Manipur and most of the North East (except Tripura where AFSPA was withdrawn in May 2015) and some parts of Kashmir. Yet the AFSPA is in violation of various international instruments that India has ratified, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the Convention Against Torture, the UN Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials, the UN Body of Principles for Protection of All Persons Under Any Form of Detention, and the UN Principles on Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-Legal and Summary Executions.  It is patently unconstitutional, which makes it all the more unfortunate that the Indian Supreme Court got carried away by security concerns and upheld the constitutional validity of the Act.

 

In Manipur there has been widespread unhappiness, with the continuing abuse of human rights by the armed forces under cover of AFSPA causing bitter grievances to surface. Protests against these abuses are a constant feature. In one unique protest in 2004, angered by the custodial rape, torture and killing of 32-year-old Manorama who was picked up from her home on “suspicion”, a number of women paraded naked in front of an army base in protest against the army’s atrocities against women. The other unique and non-violent protest has been that of Irom Sharmila, poet and activist from Manipur. In what has possibly been the longest fast-unto-death anywhere, she has spent more than fifteen years now refusing food and demanding the repeal of AFSPA. For these fifteen years she has lived under arrest and been kept alive through intravenous force-feeding by the authorities.

 

 

We admire Irom Sharmila’s iron will and absolute dedication. We wholly respect and support her demand for the immediate repeal of AFSPA. We are also with her and agree with decision to withdraw her hunger strike.

 

Protests against AFSPA and the highlighting of abuses by the armed forces must not only continue, they need to become more widespread. Meanwhile, we must keep in mind that the demand for AFSPA’s repeal is not just a legal demand, but a political one. Decisions to invoke AFSPA are political decisions, and in any political struggle the battle lines and strategies need to be redrawn from time to time. We could take a pointer from what happened after Bobby Sands and others of the Irish Republican Army went on hunger strike in 1981 for better prison facilities. The British Government led by Margaret Thatcher allowed Sands to die after 67 days of fasting, and allowed other activists who were on hunger strike to die as well. The remaining protestors finally withdrew their fast, not because they were defeated but because they realised that other modes of struggle might be more strategically appropriate. 

 

As a strategy, the hunger strike has worked well, as perhaps nothing else might have done – a lone woman in a hospital bed with a tube up her nose has made the  Indian State sit up and take notice, if only to keep self-consciously playing its own relentless role in the excruciating cyclical drama of Irom’s release and re-arrest. And of keeping her alive in between. Her fast has played a vital role in bringing the issue to national and international attention. It is time now to recognise that her keeping up the fast indefinitely will not force the government to withdraw AFSPA

 

Irom’s struggle has been long and heroic; but we are anxious about Irom. She deserves a chance to lead a more ‘normal’ life, as far as possible, after such a long fast.

 

There is need now for other strategies. The movement needs an active and mobile Irom Sharmila for this purpose. We feel she is too important an activist to be forced to lie in a hospital bed, for decades on end, letting her health deteriorate, when she could be using her articulation and commitment to mobilise larger numbers and to build stronger public opinion against AFSPA and for the defence of human rights.

 

 

Irom Sharmila we agree with you that you should end your hunger strike and that we should work together to take the struggle against AFSPA forward.

 

We promise to stand by your side as you try to find that new path to freedom from Army rule for your people.

 

FORUM AGAINST OPPRESSION OF WOMEN, Bombay

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It is my view that the army must be deployed in the rarest of rare cases ­not as a knee-jerk reaction of governments at the Central and state levels. The army and security forces have, despite obvious shortcomings as are documented and well-known, tried to do their best and upheld their country's honour and integrity: Sanjoy Hazarika
 
The Committee that submitted its report in May-June 2005 recommended the repeal of the draconian law but replacement of certain provisions of the Unlawful Prevention of Atrocities Act (1967) Act with certain amendments. The UPA Act itself has been thereafter been amended in 2008 and 2012. The entire report can be read here. It is now eleven years since this recommendation, 58 years since its application to the states of the north-east, and the writ of the AFSPA continues, except in Tripura.
 
While recommending its removal from the statute books, the Committee said, “The Act is too sketchy, too bald and quite inadequate in several particulars. It is true that the Hon'ble Supreme Court has upheld its constitutional validity but that circumstance is not an endorsement of the desirability or advisability of the Act….besides.. the Act, for whatever reason, has become a symbol of oppression, an object of hate and an instrument of discrimination and high-handedness”. 

In March 2015, the Left Front Government of Tripura, after a thorough review of the law and order situation of the State came to the conclusion that peace has been restored and that the situation is under control and has repealed the act and its writ in the state. See https://sabrangindia.in/interview/tripura-our-cadre-are-living-contact-people-and-their-problems-manik-sarkar-chief-minister
 

Annexure IV to the report is a Note to the Jeevan Reddy Committee Report authored by senior journalist Sanjoy Hazarika. We reproduce this here
 
At the end of a long night, there is a dawn…

Sanjoy Hazarika

When introducing the Armed Forces Special Powers Bill (1958) in the Lok Sabha, the then Home Minister Shri Govind Ballabh Pant declared that "certain misguided sections" of the Nagas were involved in "arson, murder, loot, dacoity etc." He added, "So it has become necessary to adopt effective measures for the protection of the people in those areas. In order to enable the armed forces to handle the situation effectively whenever such problem arises hereafter, it has been considered necessary to introduce this bill."

Some members of Parliament, especially from Manipur, and elsewhere opposed the Act; one of them, L. Achaw Singh of Manipur, described the proposal as "unnecessary … an anti-democratic measure … a lawless law."

AFSPA in the North-East has continued for 47 years. The Committee's essential recommendation, as laid out in both its conclusions and the proposed changes to the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, (as amended in 2004), is that AFSPA must be repealed forthwith; the gains of the law are extremely moot, its negative impacts have been overwhelming.

Many of the security problems of the region can be tackled by local police and commando forces, with the assistance of the armed forces where essential. But the dependence of the states on the army must be reduced to the minimum and armed forces should be deployed only as a last resort.

Numerous representations from the public as well as from the army, paramilitary and police have informed the Committee that political problems must be addressed politically and not militarily. These must include the processes of development of participative planning, involving local traditional groups in the role of self-governance, instead of sheltering behind the army and other forces. As we have noted earlier, there has been a sustained and systematic failure of governance; without the restoration of governance and the faith of the public in the ability of governments to rule justly and provide security to their citizens, the problems may become more acute.

This is a long and difficult task and the pressures are enormous. The Committee does not underestimate the scale of the challenges. But there is no option for the Indian State or the states of the Union. Faltering and even failing, at times, the states of the Union, and especially the North-east, must strengthen their own systems of governance, restoring the confidence of the people and providing the basics of governance.

AFSPA in the North-East has continued for 47 years. The Committee's essential recommendation, as laid out in both its conclusions and the proposed changes to the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, (as amended in 2004), is that AFSPA must be repealed forthwith

What started as a political demand and insurgency in the Naga Hills, now Nagaland, has developed into a number of militant armed uprisings in not less than five other states – Manipur, Tripura, Meghalaya, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. These have international connections with various armed groups and forces inimical to India and democratic forces. In addition, there are the problems of illegal migration into the region, especially Assam. The intensity of the challenges are immense: these range from ethnic standoffs and struggles for land and space as well as political rights.

In the past half century, another major change has affected the violence: on both sides of the "barrier", the lethality of weapons and their easier availability has transformed the power and quality of the fighting. RDX, AK-56s, machine guns and sniper rifles are used extensively. The immediacy of communications has also effectively changed the profile of these organizations as well of fighting: people can see, hear and even communicate with them by email!

A consequence of such long-drawn out conflicts has been the collapse of governance in a number of the states; the security of the citizens is at extreme risk, from security forces and the militants. During this period, there have been some positive gains – awareness of human rights has increased in India and the world, the media is stronger as are non-government organizations and civil society groups. Violations of human rights by state forces and by non-state armed groups cannot, in these days of instant information, be hidden any longer.

The upsurge in Manipur after the death of Ms. Manorama Devi last June in the custody of the Assam Rifles is a demonstration of this awareness, although there are official views that the agitation was also orchestrated by the underground groups. The latter are not the concern of this Committee, which was appointed last November, as a democratic response by the Central Government to a democratic demand by the people of the state for the repeal of the Act. After a detailed process of hearings in Manipur, Nagaland, Assam, Meghalaya as well as New Delhi and interactions in Arunachal Pradesh and extensive internal deliberations, the Committee has reached a conclusion which is detailed in this report.

It is my view that the army must be deployed in the rarest of rare cases ­not as a knee-jerk reaction of governments at the Central and state levels. The army and security forces have, despite obvious shortcomings as are documented and well-known, tried to do their best and upheld their country's honour and integrity

We have been encouraged by the openness with which people approached the committee and spoke their views without fear or favour, despite many pressures. We also are encouraged by the fact that many of the armed groups in the North-east are in the process of negotiation or seeking conversations which can bring armed confrontations to an end and restore dignity to civil society and the rule of justice and law.
 
The United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said in March 2003 that "respect for human rights, fundamental freedoms and the rule of law are essential tools in the effort to combat terrorism – not privileges to be sacrificed at a time of tension."
 
We hope that the report of the Committee will help in the process of reconciliation and democratisation in the North-east, create a space for dialogue and discussion, reducing conflicts and helping the region write a new chapter of peace, change and happiness in its troubled history. We also hope that it strengthens the county's unity, integrity and security and creates an atmosphere for people to live in dignity, honour and peace.

At the end of every dark night, there is a dawn, however delayed. And for every day, there is a dawn, whether we see it or not.

(Sanjoy Hazarika, New Delhi, May 30, 2005)

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Irom Sharmila on a hunger fast for the past 15 years, and released from detention by a court in Imphal, Manipur on Monday, February 29,  has appealed to the women of India for support to her cause.

Irom Sharmila had started her hunger strike on November 4, 2000 demanding a repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), 1958. In an open appeal issued on March 1, she has addressed Indian women activists on two issues. One, she wants active support for repeal of AFSPA and second, she wants an open discussion on whether her fast should continue. The existence of AFSPA on the statute books has ensured impunity for India's armed forces for repeated human rights violations against Manipuri people, especially women.

A court in Imphal on February 29, 2016 released Irom Sharmila, who has been on a 15-year-long hunger strike to press for the repeal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, from custody. On her release Sharmila Irom is quoted by the media to have said,  “I shall continue the fast at the footsteps of the Shahid Minar in Imphal town. I will not eat anything till my goal is achieved,” she said while coming out of the court room. She also expressed regret over the declining support to her cause, particularly from women activists.

“I am sorry that women activists and civil society organisations have distanced themselves from me and my cause. If they had extended support to my campaign, perhaps by now the AFSPA, which gives carte blanche to the security forces, might have been repealed,” she said. She further said, “I am not discouraged by the lack of support since I know that victory will be there at last.”

“Sharmila was charged with attempting to commit suicide under Section 309 of IPC. However the court found no evidence to establish that she is trying to commit suicide and accordingly ordered her release,” C. Momon, Sharmila’s advocate, told reporters in Imphal. Local media has reported that given Sharmila’s condition and her resolve to continue her fast unto death, she may be re-arrested soon, a police officer is quoted to have said.

She has been arrested, tried and released several times on the charge of trying to take her own life. Sharmila is also undergoing trial in the Patiala House court in Delhi on the same charge.

Until her release in Imphal on February 29, Sharmila was lodged in a security ward of Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences in Imphal. She is guarded round-the-clock by jail, police and hospital staff. The government is spending about Rs.70,000 a month on her medication and feeding her through the nose.

Appeal for:

– A collective statement by women and other activists to the President, Prime Minister and other authorities.
– Launching a  'Save Sharmila' campaign  among students.
– All ex-army men  writing a joint representation to the authorities.
– A day-long fast in solidarity and a message to Sharmila Irom.
 
 

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