About life and right to live with dignity : More than a marathon fast
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: March 14, 2013 -

Irom Sharmila released and protesting for repeal of AFSPA at JNIMS Hospital, Porompat, Imphal on 12 March 2013
Pix - Ibomcha Yumnam

It is not about record. It is not about a podium finish at the Olympics or at any of the biggest spectacle in the world.

It is much more than this. It is about life, the right to lead a life of dignity.

It is about raising a voice against an Act as draconian as the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. Sharmila's fast is about resilience, it is about championing a cause in the most peaceful manner and it is about respect for life.

On the other hand, one cannot over look the fact that the young lady has been living for more than 12 years without tasting a morsel of food.

Think about the last time that one had a cold and could not get the taste of the morsel of food that one consumes nor smell the aroma of the food wafting in the air and one can only appreciate the mission that the 40 year old lady has taken upon herself.

Sharmila was certainly not born into greatness and down the years it has become evident that greatness has not been thrust upon her.

She has achieved greatness. Period.

And to think that the lady has been waging a non-violent protest or raising a non-violent demand for more than 12 years in a place where guns, grenades, bandhs, blockades and mob justice come cheaper than the PDS items and the struggle of Irom Sharmila Chanu becomes all that more significant.

Top this off with the solitary confinement at the security ward of the Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences and Sharmila may have just given a cutting edge definition to the term, resilience and commitment to one's cause.

Significant and unsurprising too is the stoic refusal of Delhi to repeal the Armed Forces Special Powers Act.

Clearly the mental and physical divide that spawns the understanding of the political term, North East, cannot be more acute than this.

Down the years it has become clear that the North East region is not only about Geography or location, but is also about the political understanding of a region.

The more than 12 years fast by Sharmila has only gone on to underline this point better.

All the more reason to address the politics of continuing with the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. It is about a law, albeit an Army Act, which is fit to be imposed only in certain parts of the country.

Clearly, Delhi has given a new definition and understanding to the term Apartheid.

AFSPA comes closer to the premise of a type of Apartheid, where a people can be subjected to a condition, wherein anyone can be shot to death even on mere suspicion.

It is about militarising a region which ironically has its own elected representatives. Democracy on one hand and military Act on the other hand.

The international community may have been fooled earlier, but no longer so, if the recent observations from independent human rights organisations are anything to go by.

Irom Sharmila Chanu is central to the observations passed by the independent human rights watchdogs. There is nothing to suggest that Delhi will budge from its stand to stick with the said Act and there is also nothing to suggest that Sharmila will back down and break her fast.

Important to note the difference. While AFSPA is about empowering the military to open fire even on mere suspicion, Sharmila's stand is about protecting human lives.

It should be an open and shut case. But then this is where the politics of continuing with the Army Act becomes relevant.

A more than enough indication that to Delhi and its mandarins, it is not the people who matter at all, but the region, which is important in the context of the security of the country, otherwise known as the 'mainland'.

Says something profound about the largest democracy in the world refusing to remove the militaristic approach to a region.