Irom Sharmila Chanu

"Menghaobi" Irom Sharmila Chanu (born March 14, 1972), also known as the Iron Lady of Manipur.

Irom Sharmila's eyes still sparkle. She comes from the North-east Indian state of Manipur, where a decades-long insurgency, combined with a draconian response from the state has created a place where violence is common-place. Over the years, more than 40 insurgent groups, many of them little more than criminal gangs, have demanded autonomy from India. The authorities have responded by dispatching thousands of troops, creating a state that is almost as heavily militarised as Kashmir.

Her fight is against the draconian Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, , a piece of legislation that gives police and military effective immunity from prosecution.

She has not met her mother once these 10 years: her pact with her unlettered mother is that they will see each other only after she achieves her political goal. Her body organs have begun to degenerate irreversibly; her menstrual periods have halted. The tube through which she is forcefully fed is continuously painful.

When Sharmila began her fast on 3 November 2000, police arrested her and charged her with attempted suicide. Such a charge allows detention in jail for just 364 days. As a result, Sharmila has never been brought to trial and is annually released and rearrested.

Sharmila is force-fed a mixture of liquified carbohydrates and proteins by a nasal tube three times a day.

Activism ...........

On November 1, 2000, in Malom, a town in the Imphal Valley of Manipur, ten people waiting for their buses at a bus station were allegedly gunned down by the Assam Rifles,
one of the Indian Paramilitary forces operating in the state. Insurgents had attempted to bomb the paramilitary convoy, and the Assam Rifles claimed that the civilians died in cross-firing.
 Eyewitness accounts of the local people however contradicted this claim. The incident, which later came to be known as the Malom Massacre. The next day's local newspapers published brutal pictures
of the dead bodies, including one of a 62-year old woman, Leisangbam Ibetomi, and 18-year old Sinam Chandramani, a 1988 National Child Bravery Award winner.
The lack of government response convinced Irom Sharmila Chanu, then 28, to act. On the evening of November 4, after taking blessings from her mother, she launched her hunger strike against
the wider problems of the AFSPA.In due course, she extended the scope of her demand to all regions of India's north east where AFSPA's been imposed.
On 6 November 2000, three days after she launched the strike, she was arrested by the police and charged with an "attempt to commit suicide", which is
unlawful under section 309 of the Indian Penal Code, and was later transferred to judicial custody. With her determination not to take food nor water,
her health deteriorated tremendously; the police then forcibly had to use nasogastric intubation in order to keep her alive while under arrest.
Since then Irom Sharmila has been under a ritual of release and arrest every year since under IPC section 309, a person who "attempt to commit suicide" is
punishable "with simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to one year".

Conflict in Manipur and Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958

Many people in Manipur and elsewhere attribute the present conflict in Manipur to the state of India's militaristic policies in the state, especially AFSPA.
Though this cannot be determined, the outcome and the consequences of the Act has more than proven this belief. In the three decades since AFSPA was enacted in Manipur in 1980,
and more than five decades since it was legislated to combat the Naga movement in 1958, violence and insurgency have grown manifold in Manipur.
It has only contributed to the rise of more and more insurgent outfits in the region. But more importantly, it has almost destroyed the lives of a generation of Manipuri people
by snatching away their freedom and creativity, taking away prosperity and growth of their society. Manipur now lives in shambles, in all aspects


The Manipuri Conflict
Along with insurgency, internal divisions amongst constituent indigenous populations have surfaced as main causes of strife in the state; the Jeevan Reddy Commission stated that
The current situation in Manipur is a complex amalgam of factors. There are longstanding animosities among ethnic, tribal, plains and hill groups. The Meitei people who constitute
the majority in the State have a deeply felt historical perspective of Manipuri territorial and cultural unity.
The nexus between crime and politics on one hand, and foreign involvement through funds, arms, and sanctuaries on the other, make for a highly volatile security situation. Over the years,
 the nature of insurgency has - as elsewhere in the North East - shifted to acts of terrorism, extortion, coercion of the population giving rise to a situation of internal disorder.
With an approximate population of 2.5 million the state is inhabited by various ethnic groups; the main ones being the Meities, Pangals (Meitei Muslims), Nagas and Kukis. Manipur, as most civilians believe[who?],

is being ruled by three governments: the state government, the insurgent government and the army of the state, and the common people are sandwiched in between

Positions

Positions

1. Nobel Committee failed to give it to Mahatma Gandhi, Irom Sharmila is the best candidate since then for the most non-violent form of protest
2. 10 years during which she has been force-fed nutrients through a tube. But nobody's listening…
3. The police arrest her every year and charge her with the crime of attempting suicide, for which the maximum penalty is imprisonment for one year.
4. Each year when she completes her solitary incarceration, she is released and immediately re-arrested.
5. Her act of political resistance through non-violent self-suffering is unparalleled anywhere in the world.