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Pic: Wire.in |
As a
new bunch of young followers lend hashtag support and start a social media
campaign in her name, the process of moving on, of forgetting begins.
But
she needs to remember, for in that memory alone is lodged her identity.
Irom
Sharmila Chanu, known to the world as “the longest hunger striker in the world”
and a prisoner of conscience, broke her 16-year-long fast with a drop of honey.
Soon enough media commentary that had earlier given her a pedestal warmed to
the altered position and began to humanise her, quite forgetting that it was her
inherent humaneness that made her take such an extreme and committed step to
fight the Armed Forces Special Powers Act in the North Eastern state of
Manipur. AFSPA allows the army to shoot at sight, arrest without warrant, use
any ruse to spot “contravention of the law”.
On
November 5, 2000, anguished upon seeing pictures of blood-soaked corpses of ten
civilians shot dead by the Assam Rifles, she gave up food. As she said
some years ago, “I was so upset that I didn’t eat. My colleagues told me to
take my fasting from outside the bedroom and into the public sphere…”
She
became the face of the movement.
Attempting
suicide is a crime in India, so she was put under house arrest. A room in the
Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences in Imphal served as home, where
she remained incarcerated with a nose tube force-feeding her. The state spent
Rs. 10,000 a month on her liquid diet of vitamins and protein. $150 does not
seem like a huge sum, but Manipur ranks second highest in the below poverty
line index. Around 40 people, including doctors and cops, kept vigil.
As
simple as the beginning of the hunger strike was, her decision to end it
without getting anywhere close to the goal is wrapped in mystery.
There
are no visible shackles now. Is it the undertrial who has been liberated from
prison, or the activist from lobbies, or the woman from her nurturer of the
cause role or the wannabe politician from martyrdom?
Sharmila
did not tell anybody about her decision. Her mother Irom Sakhi who had blessed
her, her brother who was her supporter, her close associates, nobody knew.
Would they have coerced her to remain the totem?
On
August 9, not only did she end her fast, she also announced that she would get
married and contest the state elections. But the man she wanted
to marry was nowhere in sight and she has no identity card to even prove she is
a citizen of India. A friend said, “It is unimaginable for anyone without a
voter ID to be a people’s representative.”
For
16 years without any tangible evidence of her status she fought as one who
belonged, who felt the pain. Nobody asked her for documents of proof; the
supporters accepted her as their symbol of struggle and hope. For 16 years she was the people’s
representative.
***
She
says she wants a normal life. In many ways by fighting for a people’s right to
life she challenged life itself by denial and self-destruction. She may not have
wanted to become an icon but her act, tenacious and brave, was iconic.
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Pic: BBC |
Such
was her position in the state that it was said there could be riots were she to
die. As late as 2013 Human Rights Alert director Babloo Loitongbam reiterated
it: “Then there would be incalculable damage to this country.”
Sharmila
did not think she could have a national impact. She had no hopes from politics at
the time: “Could Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have afforded to ignore me for
10 years if I belonged to a state in mainland India?”
What
changed her perception overnight? Manipur remains on the fringes; the army has
killed and raped many in the years she was tied to the hospital prison.
Politicians did nothing.
Yet,
only the government can change the status quo and repeal a law. However,
unaccustomed to the territory and with new admirers, she will have to continue
in the civil society mode. The system is usually quite relaxed about it, for
while the protests get teeth they are in no hurry to bite. For the
trouble-makers there can always be trumped-up charges.
Loitongbam,
a close associate, believes, “If after 16 long years, her fasting has had
little impact on the government and there has been no progress in the move to
repeal AFSPA, then what is the guarantee it will happen if she fasts for
another 16?”
There
is no guarantee that contesting elections will bring any result. Proponents of
the new strategy ignore the fact that in politics fighting as an independent
candidate does not amount to remaining independent. The major parties have
welcomed her decision. Those who sponsor strikes on civilians – which her
battle was against – want to woo her now that her status reads ‘single’. Her
rebel resume will add edginess to their drab portfolio.
Politics
is not the best strategy for the idealist.
Soni
Sori, tribal leader imprisoned and abused for being a Maoist, is now a
card-holding party politician. She continues to be beaten up, her face
blackened. Worse, diversted of dissidence, the opposition accuses her of using
the victim card for petty politicking. Sharmila is more ambitious. She wants to
be chief minister – to bring about positive change.
These
are genuine emotions, but in their utterance they seem to negate all that has
transpired before, whether it is decrying that she did not receive the kind of
mass support that the Anna Hazare movement did or of being isolated.
It
is indeed possible that had she conducted her hunger strike in a public square
many more would have joined in, but it would not have sustained itself the way
it did. Her strike is important precisely because it was not coopted by the
leadership or big corporate houses. Only a Mahatma Gandhi could get away and
remain a saint with such populism.
***
A
teenager was one of the victims of the November strike that inspired Sharmila’s
fast. His father Tokpam Somorendra is disappointed
today: “By choosing a political path, she has come down from the highest
Himalayan peak to a hillock.”
She
has every right to choose her life but she had chosen a public form of protest
for a public cause. Her decision would affect both. Those closely associated
with her and the movement against AFSPA feel let down. The Sharmila Kanba Lup (Save
Sharmila Campaign) that carried her name has been dissolved. From a fight for
the common good it has transformed into a love gone sour.
Her
supporters are being criticised for questioning her ostensibly impromptu decision
to give up the fast and enter politics. The media needs a vulnerable hero even
if all it wants to do is pay lip service to the cause. For one who said her
supporters considered her public property, she will now be crowd-funded with
every rupee contributor claiming her. But she is enjoying
what she sees as a fresh wind blowing: “I have been deprived of this for the
past nearly 16 years and it is overwhelming to be a part of this change that we
all yearn for. The distance between me and society is now clearing.”
While
she has reiterated her commitment towards it, she might no more remain the
light of the movement.
***
Desmond
Coutinho, even in absence, looms like a shadow in the Irom Sharmila story. It was a role he was prepared for. He had
written once, “I am like Yoko Ono. Or Gandhiji’s wife. I will enable her to do
her thing, which is give witness to the oppressed. I am marrying a mahatma and
I have a rough idea that it’s not going to be an easy-going life.”
Normality
is seen as antithetical to activism. As goddess Irom Sharmila could be canonised,
but the woman preserving gifts from a man she barely knew was viewed as brimming
with illicit promise.
It
was after reading a book on her that Desmond wrote to her. All they’ve shared
is a short meeting, and waiting. He has been demonised, and those doing so have
their reasons. He claimed to be Sharmila’s spokesperson; he was said to
influence her, despite having access to her only through letters; he was an
outsider, a Goan Indian UK citizen. Perhaps the biggest threat he posed was that
he made her desire life.
Her
confessions about Desmond may have fractured opinion, but he anticipated it
quite some time ago when he said, “I am grateful to our opponents for putting
so many obstacles in our way that it has forged in her mind that I am some kind
of picaresque romantic warrior monk…” He would not have anticipated that her feet
would stand on shifting sand. Within a week of declaration of intent he has
become conditional
to her public acceptance: “I've imposed one condition on entering my personal
life. If the masses ignore my new strategy and abandon or insult me, I'll begin
a new chapter of my life.”
What
sort of ordinariness and normal life is Irom Sharmila seeking? How well does
she know her new supporters? If she sticks by her resolve to contest as an
independent she will remain isolated; if she goes along with a political party,
she will have to toe their line.
--
Published in CounterPunch
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