Email
Print
ShareOf the seven sister states of north-eastern India, the one most in the news has been Manipur. Though the excesses under the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, AFSPA have taken place in all these states, the people's resistance to these excesses has been most marked in Manipur.
A determined face that emerges like a strong yet silent symbol in Manipur's firmament of struggle is that of Irom Sharmila, popularly known as the Iron Lady of Manipur, who has been on a continuous hunger strike since November 2000 (this month marks the 10th anniversary of her fast). And Burning Bright is an important book, considering that Sharmila's agitation has not received the kind of national attention it deserves.
The youngest of nine children, Irom Sharmila was born in 1972, the year Manipur was granted statehood by the Indian government. After deciding that pursuing degrees was futile, Sharmila made attempts to find her calling in life and joined different vocational courses.
While doing a course in journalism she decided to pursue her childhood interest in writing, particularly poetry. She also did a course in nature cure and trained herself in yoga. And the last stint was in September 2000, when she took up a one-month internship with Human Rights Alert. All three disciplines were to stand her in good stead when she was to launch her historic agitation just two months later at the age of 28.
On November 2, 2000, Assam Rifles personnel shot and killed 10 civilians waiting at the Malom bus stop in Imphal. There were angry protests throughout the state. Fearful of the never-ending spiral of violence, Irom Sharmila took her life's decisive plunge for a peaceful solution. She first took her mother Shakhi Devi's blessings and those of her brothers without telling them just what she was setting out to do. Then on November 5, she launched her own brand of civil disobedience at the site of the Malom massacre.She has been on a permanent hunger strike since that day.
It is while eulogising her path that Mehrotra's book becomes most problematic. On the one hand, she describes those who take up arms as a form of dissent as "cornered rats attacking in defence, using sharp claws and killer teeth". The preface to the books lauds those like Irom Sharmila, for they "refuse to adopt the ways of the oppressor. They chose non-violence".
But what Mehrotra misses is that Sharmila's hunger strike was for a solitary demand: repeal of AFSPA. There are no alternate, more negotiable demands, nor are there neutral demands, in vogue amongst social analysts these days, who like calling for an "end to violence from both sides". It is the singularity of her demand that forcefully hits one: Sharmila will end her fast only if the government repeals AFSPA.
The irony is that the government has not entered into dialogue with her or even announced its willingness to consider her demands even though she has no "arms" to lay down. Instead, its first response was to use its laws to criminalise her action. The police clamped section 309 of the IPC (attempt to commit suicide) and committed its first act of violence on the peacefully fasting Sharmila. The next was to attempt to force-feed her and to thereby to break her resolve. The third was to put her behind bars for being a threat to peace.
In Mehrotra's own words "(t)hus began an unending saga marked by a maze of paperwork, arrests, cases, appeals, releases and re-arrests," which has continued till now.
Mehrotra's is more a personalised account than historical study. For me the enigma of Irom Sharmila is best epitomised in these lines from William Blake's 'Tiger' poem (which also supplies the title for this book): "Did He smile His work to see? / Did He who made the lamb make thee?"
The 'He' could well represent the Indian state, which has the insurgents symbolised in the tiger pitted against it, and so is the lamb-like Irom Sharmila. It's time the state realised that there is 'fearful symmetry' between both.
Susan Abraham is a lawyer and human rights activist.
