Irom Sharmila Chanu

Irom Sharmila Chanu has been out of news of late. This doesn’t mean her resolve has changed or her will weakened. As most of us know, she has been on hunger strike since 2000 and has been kept alive by being force-fed through a pipe in her nose. This is, as pointed out by various observers, the longest political protest ever. Her demand is the removal of the controversial Armed Forces Special Powers Act (1958), which gives unlimited power to the army in the state. Sharmila began her fast after soldiers of the Assam Rifles killed ten Manipuri men in Malom, a district in Manipur, which took place on 2 November, 2000.
For all those who are unfamiliar with the State of Manipur, it has been reeling under the control of the Indian army since 1980. While the government justifies the armies presence as necessary to maintain and restore normalcy in a state racked by Underground separatist movements, the people of the land are fed up and disillusioned with the unending human rights violations by the army.

The government has now partially withdrawn the law from certain areas of Manipur. But Sharmila is determined to continue with her fast until the law is withdrawn from the entire state.

As she says, “I will withdraw the fast as and when the government withdraws the Armed Forces Special Powers Act unconditionally.”

Today, Sharmila has become an iconic figure for the Manipuri people. She has recently been awarded the 2007 Gwangju Prize for Human Rights Selection Committee along with a co-recipient, Lenin Raghuvanshi, in recognition of their struggles to improve the human rights condition in India.

The Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which is operational in the Northeastern states of India and Jammu and Kashmir, has been in force in Manipur since 1980.

According to the AFSPA (1958) even a non-commissioned officer is granted the right to shoot to kill based on mere suspicion and this power is defended on the ground that it is necessary to do so in order to ‘maintain public order. The imposition of this act is defended all in the name of ‘aiding civil power’. Within the Northeast, the Act was first applied to Manipur and Assam but was later amended to cover all the seven states of the Northeast, which include Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Nagaland, Meghalaya and Tripura. The Armed Forces Special Powers Act as pointed out by many contravenes both Indian and International law standards.

A committee formed by the Indian Government (Report of the Jeevan Reddy Committee) has suggested the removal of the Act, but its report has been grossly neglected.