Sharmila breaks fast, says I want to become Manipur CM
IMPHAL: Activist Irom Sharmila ended the world’s longest hunger strike on Tuesday with a drop of honey and cried. And she said she wants to become Manipur’s chief minister to repeal an army law she blames for rights abuses by security personnel.
“I got nothing out of fasting for 16 years. I want to contest election and become chief minister because I need power for a big change in society and system,” Sharmila said shortly after she was granted bail by a local court.
Speaking to reporters without the nasal pipe, through which she was force fed and had become part of her persona, Sharmila said ending her fast did not mean ending the movement against the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA).
“I want to try a different method of agitation,” said the 44-yearold known as the ‘Iron Lady of Manipur’ who spent most of the last 16 years in judicial custody as attempted suicide is an offence in India. Assembly elections in the state are due early next year.
She also had an appeal for PM Narendra Modi, who spoke on Kashmir during the day in an attempt to reach out to the people of the valley where too the AFSPA is blamed for rampant human rights violation by security forces.
“Rule the country with fatherly affection, not with draconian laws. And stop violence in this age of globalisation and credo of development for all,” said Sharmila who has won several awards for her battle against rights violation.
The AFPSA, which is force in some northeastern states and Kashmir, gives security forces the right to shoot to kill suspected rebels and to arrest suspected militants without warrants. It also gives police wide-ranging powers of search and seizure. The act prohibits soldiers from being prosecuted for alleged rights violations except with express permission from the government. Such prosecutions are rare.
I got nothing out of fasting for 16 years. I want to contest election and become chief minister because I need power for a big change in society and system. IROM SHARMILA, Activist
Amnesty International, which had once described her as a “prisoner of conscience”, said her decision to end the fast was an opportunity for the Indian government to scrap the law.
While doctors want Sharmila to stay for a month at the hospital ward, where she was held, for her body to get used to solid food after phases of liquid and semi-liquid diet, police feel she needs security after her “brave decision”.
Authorities said police would maintain an escort for Sharmila because radical groups and rebels were angry with her and had threatened her for ending the strike, seeing it as weakening the fight against the military law.
Sharmila said she would decide on Wednesday where to go – her mother’s place, as tradition demands of an unmarried daughter, or somewhere else.
On her long-distance romance with Desmond Coutinho, a British citizen of Indian origin, she said it was right to choose. “It is my personal life and it is natural.”
The legal hassles for Sharmila are not over though.
The court has fixed August 23 for her reappearance to examine whether or not she is guilty of attempt to commit suicide under section 309 of Indian Penal Code.