IROM SHARMILA CHANU:The Iron Lady Of Manipur

Irom Sharmila Chanu (born March 14, 1972), also known as the "Iron Lady of Manipur" or "Menghaobi" ("the fair one") is a civil rights activist, political activist, and poet from the Indian state of Manipur. Since 2 November 2000, she has been on hunger strike to demand that the Indian government repeal the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act,1958 (AFSPA), which she blames for violence in Manipur and other parts of India's northeast. Having refused food and water for more than ten years, she has been called "the world's longest hunger striker"

She was brought to the jail ward of Jawaharlal Nehru Hospital at the age of 27. Now ten years have passed in solitary confinement.

In the year 2000, she had pledged a fast-unto-death against the imposition of AFSPA in Manipur. She was arrested and since then kept in custody - force fed with a tube.

Irom Sharmila Chanu has not eaten anything, or drunk a single drop of water since November, 2000. She has been forcibly kept alive by nasogastric tubation. She has not combed her hair, nor looked at the mirror and uses a dry cotton to clean her teeth. Her body is wasted inside, her menstrual cycles have stopped. She removes the nasogastric tube at the slightest opportunity available. BBC (Tuesday, 19 September 2006, 09:46 GMT) had carried a report on this marathon fast wherein it had mentioned the deteriorating condition of her health : “Doctors say her fasting is now having a direct impact on her body’s normal functioning – her bones have become brittle and she has developed other medical problems too. “ “It is not a punishment, but my bounden duty,” says Sharmila (Tehelka, 2006). Bounded duty towards the people of Manipur, the people of North-East, the people who are not considered to belong to the ‘mainland’ India.

Sharmila does not seem to be edging anywhere close to her demand, but she surely has lost much in the interim. Keeping aside the health issues, it has been reported that her brother lost a government job because he chose to remain on her side, the family had to go bankrupt. Sharmila was nominated for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize by a Guwahati-based woman’s organization and Science and Rationalists’ Association of India and Humanist Association demanded that Irom Sharmila Chanu again be nominated for 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. When she was awarded the Gwangju prize for Human Rights, 2007, she said “My struggle is not for the sake of fame or award.” (Wiki). Her resolution has also grabbed Amnesty’s attention and they have requested the Indian Government to repeal AFSPA.

a report in Tehelka, 2006 states – ‘Menghaobi, the people of Manipur call her, The Fair One. Youngest daughter of an illiterate Grade 1V worker in a veterinary hospital in Imphal, Irom was always a solitary child, the backbencher, the listener. Eight siblings had come before her. By the time she was born, her mother Irom Shakhi, 44, was dry.’ Her mother could not breast-feed her. Her brother would take her to “other mothers”, any mother he could find to suckle her. “Maybe this her service to all her mothers”, says Singhajit.