TODAY -
Ill & frail, and yet going strong
Deccan Herald | Anjulika Thingnam | 7 Jan. 2012 1:08 PM IST
Conflict has taken a heavy toll on the health of people, especially women, in Manipur. However, its peace builders and human rights activists continue to be indomitable, writes Anjulika Thingnam
According to Dr M Akshayakumar Singh, head of the Department of Clinical Psychology at the Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), in the state capital Imphal, social tensions and violence related to the ongoing armed conflict are affecting the average person both mentally and physically. “Fear, anxiety, tension, stress and depression are the most prominent effects seen, manifested physiologically as palpitations, ulcers, colitis, irregular bowel movements, dizziness, headache, backache and many other social diseases such as diabetes,” he says.
Phanjoubam Sakhi, one of the pioneering leaders of the Meira Paibis, has worked tirelessly for almost as long as armed conflict had raged in her state, even though she is 75. Recalls Sakhi, “I must have been around 40 when I first started involving myself in the movement. My youngest child was around 13 years then.” The Meira Paibi movement originally began as a “nishabandi”, or prohibition, movement during the 1970s.
Their campaigns were by no means easy. Some senior Meira Paibi women even formed a group in support of the Sharmila Kanba Lup (SAKAL), which takes turns in staying overnight in a small lean-to, walled by bamboo mats, on the side of Porompat road in Imphal East district, a few metres away from the state-run JN Hospital where Irom Sharmila is kept under judicial custody and force-fed.
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* This Post is uploaded on January 07, 2012
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