Irom Sharmila Chanu, also known as the ‘Iron Lady of Manipur’ is a civil rights activist, political activist and poet from the Indian state of Manipur. On 2 November 2000, she began a hunger strike which is still ongoing. Having refused food and water for more than 500 weeks, she undergoes the world’s longest hunger striker. She is currently on trial for attempted suicide.
On 2 November 2000, in Malom, a town in the Imphal Valley of Manipur, ten civilians were shot and killed while waiting at a bus stop. The incident, known as the ‘Malom Massacre’, was allegedly committed by the Assam Rifles, one of the Indian Paramilitary forces operating in the state. The victims included Leisangbam Ibetomi, a 62-year old woman, and 18-year old Sinam Chandramani, a 1988 National Child Bravery Award winner.
Sharmila, who was 28 at the time, began to fast in protest of the killings, taking neither food nor water. She has been regularly released and re-arrested every year since her hunger strike began under IPC Section 309. The law declares that a person who ‘attempts to commit suicide shall be punished with simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to one year (or with fine, or with both)’.
Her primary demand to the Indian government is the complete repeal of the AFSPA (Armed Forces Special Powers Act) - a law with just six sections granting special powers to the armed forces in what the act terms as ‘disturbed areas’. The Act has been at the heart of concerns about human rights violations in the regions of its enforcement (mostly in the North East parts of India including Manipur), where arbitrary killings, torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and enforced disappearances have happened.
