Her battle for life and love

On 26 July, Manipur Iron Lady Irom Chanu Sharmila dropped a bombshell by announcing that on 9 August she would end her nearly 16-year-old fast demanding repeal of the draconian Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act and contest the assembly elections due early next year. This has apparently shocked many of her ardent followers at home and abroad.

When Sharmila started her marathon fast in November 2000, I was then a member of the State Human Rights Commission. One evening, I received a call from Dr Soram Somokanti, then medical superintendent of Jawaharlal Nehru Medical Hospital where Sharmila had been confined by the police. The next morning, over a cup of tea, he told me tersely, “I can keep Sharmila alive till tomorrow, but the day after she will die.”

As tersely, I asked him, “Doctor, isn’t it your duty to keep patients admitted to your hospital alive?” Apparently, the hospital authorities were afraid to tend to her because of the sensitive nature of her hunger-strike. Receiving no reply, I told the hapless doctor to force-feed her — but not through the mouth, as she did not want to eat, but by way of a nasal drip. I also suggested that he and the matron, a doctor herself, be present when this was being done. I didn’t hesitate to drive the point home thus, “If Sharmila dies now, Manipur will burn and the first to be torched would perhaps be you.”

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The doctor rose, heaved a sigh of relief and before leaving said, “Thank you.” That was some time in the second week of November 2000.

On 2 November that year, a column headed by a major of the 8-Assam Rifles was moving from its headquarters at the Imphal Airport complex when an improvised explosive device exploded as they neared Malom. No personnel were injured, but the soldiers spread out under the major&’s orders and began firing indiscriminately at anything that moved. By the time the smoke had cleared and the staccato of automatic fire had ceased, 10 civilians lay dead. The Army&’s message was clear: “Dare attempt to touch us and we will massacre you like how we did today.”

I then filed a complaint with the National Human Rights Commission but eventually it got back saying that the Manipur government had decided to grant ex gratia of Rs 1 lakh to each of the next of kin of the deceased and, hence, the case was being closed.  

I pleaded with the state government to institute a judicial inquiry but then chief minister W Nipamacha Singh decided to start a magisterial inquiry instead. When I informed a minister in his cabinet about this, he said, “Let us see whether the Indian Army respects the Indian Constitution or not.”

That was wishful thinking given an Army that prides itself as being above the Constitution, at least in Manipur in partiucular, the North-east in general and Jammu and Kashmir, and which never even had the courtesy of acknowledging receipt of the summons it was issued. 

But all these happenings triggered an emotional chord in Sharmila. Working alongside Babloo Loitoingbam of Human Rights Alert, she sought her mother&’s blessings and began her fast-unto-death demanding repeal of the AF(SP) Act, which, incidentally, has thrown 75 per cent of life in the region into turmoil since 1958. On 5 November 2000, Sharmila began her long and often lonesome epic marathon fast, not seen anywhere else in the world.

The next time I met Sharmila was in the security ward of Jawaharlal Nehru Hospital, Imphal, where she was kept in judicial custody, charged with attempting to commit suicide. Our meeting was brief but she remembered our earlier encounter at the Commission and all that I told her was, “Live for Manipur, don’t die for it.” Soon enough, various civil society organisations and some non-state actors began supporting her cause. And Sharmila&’s story went on to cross the nine hill ranges that surround and confine Manipur.

She received South Korea&’s Gwangzu Human Rights Award and other national awards followed, but her quantum leap came when, during one of her periodical releases, she was smuggled out of the state by Babloo Loitingbam and taken to Delhi, where she resumed her fast at Mahatma Gandhi&’s Samadhi at Raj Ghat and, thereafter, at Jantar Mantar. The national and international media were quick to swoop on her and hogged headlines for a brief period till she was arrested by Delhi Police and once again charged with attempted suicide. She was brought back to her “home” — the one-room cell at Jawaharlal Nehru Hospital, Imphal.

While independent observers had welcomed Sharmila&’s tactical move to Delhi, many began to question her motives for going to "India" to air her grievances. Loitingbam also came in for heavy flak and his integrity and commitment to the cause of repealing the AF(SP) Act was questioned. He was almost accused of selling out the movement and for some time lived in the shadows of uncertain but sudden death. This, then, the price of seeking justice for the people!

Away from the public glare, Sharmila had another battle front opening up and this time it had nothing to do with the AF(SP)A, the Army or the Manipuri people. She had been fasting for more than a decade for the people&’s right to live but now also began expressing her personal right to love and be loved, as any normal young woman would. Unknown to her many supporters, one Desmond Coutinho began sending letters to her in custody and soon they fell in love. Loitingbam and I spent an entire evening in Goa trying to trace the mysterious Coutinho and it became clear that he was of Goan origin, born in Madagascar, and his parents had emigrated to England where his father died and he was currently living off the pension of his mother who had retired as a schoolteacher there. And Coutinho began to make public his love for Sharmila by joining her in one of her fasts outside her cell.

The first to object were the Meira Paibis, or the women vigilante groups of Manipur. They accused Coutinho of being an “Indian agent” with the ulterior motive of weaning Sharmila away from her fight against the AF(SP)A. The last straw came when they manhandled him in front of Sharmila in the court premises when the police arrested him and hauled him to jail on charges of public misconduct. The fire inside Sharmila was soon stoked and this was made very clear when, on a chilly November 2014 evening, while on one of her periodic releases, she chose to ignore her predesignated place of fasting outside her cell near the hospital and went directly to the heart of the city and squatted beneath the statue of Maharaja Bhagyachandra taming the rogue elephant in Assam, popularly known as Hathi Chowk.

Though it had been some 10 years since my tenure with the Human Rights Commission had ended, I landed up by her side and pleaded with her to move to a place near the main market. She refused and soon spew venom at those who had stood between her and Coutinho. My only worry was that, considering her frail condition, she might die of hypothermia. I then induced IK Muivah, IPS, DIG Range-1 of the Manipur Police, to get a canopy erected over her and arranged for charcoal burners to be kept besides her throughout the night.

The next day came as a personal shock. I had expected at least 500 of the 3,000-odd women who run the adjoining three markets to show their solidarity by sitting with Sharmila — but there was none. Even Sharmila was shocked.

The decision to end her fast must have come as welcome relief for chief minister Ibobi Singh. Her angst against the civil society organisations and her many other wellwishers were spelt out in her decision to contest the 2017 assembly elections as an Independent candidate. The question is, will she get married and then contest the elections or will it be otherwise.

Elections are a strange business in Manipur as there is no question of a wave or public or social issue that can be put to stake. The last time a political party tried to make the AF(SP)A an election issue was way back in 1974, and all the seven candidates who stood for it lost. In this sense, it will come as no surprise if a section of Sharmila&’s supporters demand Rs 500/1,000 apiece for their votes, because she will be just another candidate in the fray. Alas, this is the truth of the tragedy that Manipur is.

The writer is The Statesman’s Imphal-based special correspondent.

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