Kept in the cold storage for too long

Samarjit Kambam *

Irom Sharmila Chanu produced before CJM Court Imphal East, Lamphel :: 4th January 2014 :: Pix - Deepak Oinam

Someone told me long ago
There's a calm before the storm
-John Fogerty, CCR

The civil rights activist and anti-AFSPA campaigner Irom Chanu Sharmila has been carrying out her struggle for removal of this draconian law from the state of Manipur since November 2000 after the Malom massacre where ten civilians were shot and killed by Assam Rifles, one of the Indian paramilitary forces operating in the state. Since then she has been carrying out her "fast" paced protest for removal of the Armed Forces Special Forces Act 1958 by closely embracing Indian democratic ideals and principles in a purely Gandhian way, a peaceful struggle against the system.

She has been confined behind bars, nose-fed without even allowing her to meet any of her friends and peers, even meeting her family members and relatives is an exception. The four corners of the room and the walls where she is being kept are her friends all these years. Honestly speaking, a person like me would have gone insane a long time ago if I were in place of her. But she is a super human. Simply possessing extraordinary physical strength doesn't define a super human.

A super human is someone who can carry out deeds where others find it impossible and tread the path where others dare not to. Irom Sharmila though frail and weakening with each passing day has been doing what others can't with her extraordinary deeds, her 'never say die' attitude, indomitable spirit and her 'no retreat, no surrender' stance attaining a figure amongst the likes of super humans viz Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Swami Vivekananda etc. She has been writing poems and books and breaking the monotony of loneliness, the deafening sound of silence and breaking the boredom barrier of being kept in isolation tantamount to the treatment meted out to a leper.

In a state like ours where we can be killed just for mere suspicion, squashed like a mosquito, swatted like a fly or beaten to pulp by the security forces anytime, anywhere because of the power vested to them by this draconian law called AFSPA, that also in one of the largest democracy in the world, a democracy fiercer than a dictatorship or martial law behind the veil, Irom Sharmila wants her message to reach out to everyone loud and clear for repeal of AFSPA.

She even donated books written by herself to the State Central Library, books on how the delicate social fabric and peaceful existence of the region has been shattered to pieces by this very law and the way the Indian government has turned a deaf ear and blind eye towards her cause. She has grabbed the international attention and has been acclaimed, praised and conferred with many prizes such as the 2007 Gwangju Prize for Human Rights, which is given to "an outstanding person or group, active in the promotion and advocacy of Peace, Democracy and Human Rights".

In 2009, she was awarded the first Mayilamma Award of the Mayilamma Foundation for achievement of her non-violent struggle in Manipur. In 2010, she won a lifetime achievement award from the Asian Human Rights Commission. Later that year, she won the Rabindranath Tagore Peace Prize, and the Sarva Gunah Sampannah Award for Peace and Harmony from the Signature Training Centre. Amnesty International one of the apex human rights organisation of the world nomenclatured her as the "Prisoner of Conscience". Now she has become the prisoner of our collective conscience. In fact, her name is synonymous to Nobel Peace Prize.

Politics is the last thing that comes to Irom Sharmila's mind because she hate politics and hate politicians even more which is evident from the fact that when she was offered candidature to contest in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls in the Inner Parliamentary Constituency by Aam Aadmi Party and Indian National Congress she declined both requests describing herself as a protester but not a politician.

It is very unfortunate that she was denied to cast her vote in the recently conducted 2014 Lok Sabha polls under Section 62 (5) of the Representation of the People's Act, 1951 even though she submitted an application expressing her desire to cast her vote while India has a tainted history where politicians with criminal background were allowed to emerge as people's representatives from jail. How bizarre the Indian democracy is.

Is Sharmila not a citizen of India? She is in no way a criminal nor a person with criminal background. She is only a civil rights activist, a struggler for peace using only peaceful methods of protest. Many questions arise about the virtuousness of the Indian democratic judicial system.

Recently, her donation of Rs. 3 lacs to the Indian Red Cross Society, Manipur State Branch reflects the kind of person she really is. Her selflessness, philanthropist at heart and her strong desire to help others, simple living high thinking are her inherent and inseparable characteristics. Nobody can deny her firm stance, immovable like a mountain, a Mother Teresa like figure, a gem of a person, a true human being amongst others like us who only look like human beings, a stoic person who face harsh odds with exemplary calmness.

The qualities as mentioned above are the invaluable lessons we can learn from her. She has been ridiculed, mocked, taunted, jeered at by the very people of her birthplace, some giving sarcastic remarks and falsely propagating that her quest for peace is to win fame and reputation. The authority on the other hand has been putting up court case against her that she has been trying to commit suicide under IPC Section 309.

What an irony. Everybody knows her action has no suicidal tendency. She has only been trying to grab the centre's attention with non-violence as her only weapon. She herself had expressed that she could have killed herself a long time ago if she so desired, that it won't take more than 13 years to commit a suicide.

It may not be wrong to mention that Sharmila's youthful years has been wasted, deprived of all the privileges of a normal life just for us, for our betterment, for our secure future. It is in fact a mockery to democracy that her peaceful struggle has been kept in the cold storage by the Indian government for too long.

As a strong believer in democratic ideals and principles I earnestly appeal to the incumbent who is going to hold the reign of Prime Ministership to acknowledge the Iron Lady's campaign for repeal of AFSPA more sincerely and whole-heartedly for the issue is not her private one but for the whole people of Manipur. If ignored for too long, the situation may go out of hand due to a radical altercation and result into a social metamorphosis. The leader of the nation should not forget that there is a calm before a storm.