Disgracing Irom Sharmila
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: May 30, 2014 -

Well, this is not about the resentment of Irom Chanu Sharmila over preventing her from meeting the waiting media persons while she was being brought to appear before the Patiala Court, New Delhi on May 28 for hearing of a case pending against her in connection with her fast unto death stir launched at Jantar Mantar some 8 years back, for we all know very well how the Government authorities at the National capital as well as back home, always tried to keep the issue of excesses committed by the security forces with impunity under Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958 and the crusade of Sharmila against such unwarranted excesses away, far away from media glaze.

This is also not about the sugar-coated assurances given to Sharmila by some politicians to help in fulfilling her desire of meeting the newly elected Prime Minister Narendra Modi personally to press the demand for revoking the Act only to disillusion her further on the conduct of the political class as a whole, for we all know very well as well to what level politicians can stoop if they felt that they could gain some political mileage out of anything.

Nor, is this about the ambiguity of the political parties, both those in the ruling and the opposition, which say one thing during election time and another thing after the election when it comes to the public demand for repealing an Act denounced by even the International community as ‘draconian’.

Well, Sharmila has been disgraced and her cause for ensuring the people of Manipur to live life with dignity belittled by no other than the incident of bomb blast that took place at Singjamei Chingmakhong in the evening of May 29 leaving two non-local labourers death and 19 other people, including one woman wounded.

Ironically, the deadly attack on the innocent people has come even as Sharmila, who, instead of being disheartened by her ‘disillusioned visit’ to New Delhi, has just written an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi pleading for liberating the souls of the people affected by AFSPA from their bodies that enjoy no right to life by repealing the Armed Forces Special Powers Act.

Sharmila’s open letter which was handed over through the president of Manipur Pradesh BJP Th Chaoba, may or may not have reached the hands of the Prime Minister or found time for perusing her humble appeal for freeing innocent people numbering around 4 crores from the injustice meted out by the Parliament of India by passing such black law that discriminates its own people, but the killing of two innocent people and inflicting injuries to 19 others by triggering a powerful bomb in a market place frequented by innocent people (regardless of whether they are local or non locals) who come there in search of their daily livelihood, has only given yet another strong justification for continuation of AFSPA and suffering of the people under it.

As they say, the right timing is important for everything, the perpetrators surely know where to strike to disgrace Sharmila and her cause.