[Ms.
Sharmila, 44, began her hunger strike in November 2000, after soldiers killed 10
people in the village of Malom India India
By Nida Najar and Hari Kumar
The
activist, Irom Chanu Sharmila, was held for years in judicial custody, refusing
to eat in protest of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act of 1958, a law that
shields members of the military from prosecution in conflict-ridden parts of India
A
judge granted her bail on Tuesday after she said she intended to end her strike,
releasing her from the hospital where she had been force-fed through a tube in
her nose to keep her alive.
“Politics
is so dirty and everybody knows it,” she told reporters at a news conference in
Imphal, the state capital.
For
a woman whose fast largely spoke for her for more than 15 years, she
articulated extraordinary ambition on Tuesday, announcing a run for chief
minister of the conflict-scarred and corruption-ridden state of Manipur, which
borders Myanmar
“I
know nothing about politics and nothing about academia. My education is very, very
low,” she said. But she called herself the “real embodiment of revolution,”
offering herself as a rare honest political voice in the state.
Ms.
Sharmila, 44, began her hunger strike in November 2000, after soldiers killed 10
people in the village of Malom India India
Hunger
strikes as a tool of nonviolent political activism are common in India India
Ms.
Sharmila’s strike raised the profile of the campaign to oppose the law, and
Amnesty International has called her a prisoner of conscience, but the
government has not budged on repealing the legislation.
Babloo
Loitongbam, a human-rights activist and an associate of Ms. Sharmila, said that
Ms. Sharmila’s decision to end the strike was an attempt to bring her fight to
a new arena.
Dr.
Lokeshwar Singh, an associate professor at Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of
Medical Sciences in Imphal, the hospital where Ms. Sharmila was held, said that
because she had been fed through a nasal tube, her body could tolerate only
light solid food at first before working up to full meals.
Though
Ms. Sharmila is considered by many the embodiment of Manipur’s conscience, some
wondered if she could handle the rough-and-tumble nature of India
“Politics
is altogether a different game,” said Pradip Phanjoubam, the editor of The
Imphal Free Press. “She is not prepared. She is inexperienced in politics. Politics
in India
At
Tuesday’s news conference, one reporter called her the “goddess of Manipur,” a
nickname she rejected.
“I
don’t like that very identification,” she said. “I am a human being, and why
should they remain keeping me in their own version? As a human being I feel
everything. Why should they remain trying to isolate me?”
Ms.
Sharmila said that she did not know where she would live now that she has been
released, but that that she might like to go to an ashram. She said she would
file the necessary paperwork to run in the Manipuri assembly elections, expected
to take place next year. Her next court hearing is on Aug. 23.
In
addition to protesting the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, Ms. Sharmila also
called for the right to self-determination in Kashmir , the site of a longtime separatist movement.
And she had a message for Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“Oh,
Mr. Prime Minister, you remain indulged in violence,” she said. “Without this
draconian law you can connect with us, you can govern us with fatherly
affection, without discrimination.”
