The Sweet Honey for the Iron Lady: Irom Chanu Sharmila

For one woman, 16 years of her life were notable not for what she did, but for what she did not do: eat. In 2016, journalists from all across the world watched with anticipation. Irom Sharmila looked at the smear of honey in her hand. Her was strained with misery as she wept. Then, with a brief gaze to the sky, she placed a finger of honey on her tongue. That is how it ended.

It started as a protest against India’s Armed Forces Special Powers Act. The law empowers Indian soldiers deployed in ‘disturbed areas’ to operate with virtual impunity. They shot, killed and occupied civilian homes at will.

Indian soldiers shot 10 civilians standing at a bus stop in Manipur, Sharmila’s home state, on November 10^th, 2000. The act, dubbed the ‘Malom Massacre’ by outraged locals, forced Sharmila into action. She went on a hunger strike. And swore to continue until the AFSPA was removed.

The AFSPA has its roots in India’s colonial history. Created by British colonial powers in response to Mahatma Gandhi’s nonviolent Quit India movement. It aimed to drive the British out of India.

Ethnic and anti-Indian insurgency plagued Manipur. It was one of only a few Indian states subject to AFSPA. But as human rights lawyer campaigner Babloo Loitongbam said:

“It has created a new category of Indian citizens who are killable people, rape-able women. We have concrete evidence of at least 1,528 extrajudicial executions of civilians over the course of 33 years.”

But it was only the tip of the iceberg. For people like Irom Sharmila, she felt as though she had no choice. She had to take a stand.

The Malom Massacre and the Hunger It Sparked

By 28, Sharmila was working as an intern for Loitongbam’s human rights organisation. She documented alleged mistreatment by Indian soldiers by interviewing women who had survived group rapes as well as the parents and children of dead civilians.

Sharmila’s family was poor and she had struggled to complete high school. But she had what she labelled a ‘gift from God’. A strong feeling of duty drove her to find a means to combat injustice. She learnt about the Malom Massacre the day after the incident when photographs of the victims appeared on the front pages of newspapers.

“Seeing that, I felt the futility and uselessness of holding another rally, just shouting. That was how I decided. I thought people would follow me like Gandhi’s independence struggle. I just felt I wouldn’t die.”

Sharmila was, at the time, tiny and pale, with untidy dark hair. She ate her last meal on November 4^th, 2000. That afternoon, she settled beside a pond in a meadow of banyan and bamboo, with two packages of pastries “filling my stomach to my heart’s content”, as she put it.

On November 5^th, Sharmila sat under a shelter near the site of the Malom Massacre killings and held a poster proclaiming that she would fast until AFSPA was repealed. A crowd rapidly gathered around her. As she recalled:

“Before sunset, people were sitting with me. But a little later, they all, one after another, excused themselves and left me behind.”

Shortly after she began her protest, she was detained and imprisoned under an Indian statute that deems attempted suicide a criminal offence. She was force-fed and given medicine through her nose. She lost her right to vote while incarcerated and was confined to a hospital room for the next 16 years.

Seemingly, there was no end in sight.

The Protest

Sharmila became the face of the campaign against AFSPA during her 16-year hunger strike, demanding the law be repealed. Loitongbam was taken aback when he learned that one of his interns had stopped eating.

“Honestly, my first suggestion to her was, no, don’t do this. It’s too big an issue for you to handle. Repealing AFSPA is very big. Let’s choose something more strategic. But she said, ‘No, I’ve got my mother’s blessing’ – and she jumped into it.”

Even at that point, Sharmila admits, doubts crept into her mind. She recalls witnessing the gathering in Malom during the first few days of the fast.

“It was like a street show or a circus. They gathered on the road in the thousands – gossiping, laughing, criticising. I felt like the people were due to awaken. I would just tolerate until then.”

For the next 16 years, a mixture of nutrients and water pumped through a three-foot tube between her nose and stomach kept Sharmila alive. Though the prison manual called for force-feeding through the mouth, she persuaded the doctor to use a nasal tube instead. If she was force-fed through her nose, she reasoned, she would keep her commitment not to eat.

She hoped that her strike would inspire Manipuris to organise, overcome their differences, and persuade the government to repeal AFSPA. Then she could move on with a normal life. But that was easier said than done.

The Struggle

Sharmila felt that as she became more famous, her goal of repealing AFSPA became more distant. “People just started praising my glory without listening to what I wanted from them,” she said. “That prolonged sense of responsibility and commitment was left to me alone. It needed to be a collective cause, a mass cause. I was isolated and idolised, living on a pedestal, without voice, without feeling.”

At the height of her fame, Sharmila was sought after by Nobel laureates and diplomats. She was known as the Iron Lady of Manipur. Amnesty International declared her a prisoner of conscience. Yet she was miserable. She wanted none of this. But things soon turned sour.

Sharmila became an outcast in her own state. The same campaigners who once lauded her as a ‘goddess’ now refer to her as a prostitute, she claims. She has accused them of ‘acting like the Taliban’.

In early 2007, Desmond Coutinho, a British-Indian, arrived in the country. His mother had recently died of cancer, and the west Londoner was reconsidering his life. A friend advised him to travel to India.

He eventually landed in Bengaluru, south India, when one morning came across a newspaper item about a woman on hunger strike in Manipur. So he began sending her letters, along with two books. Three months later, Sharmila responded. “It was a bit of a stroppy letter,” he says. Sharmila was more interested in investigating the sins of colonial Britain than flirting.

They continued to exchange letters over the next few months. Desmond loved Sharmila. Yet he knew the challenge before him: how to say to a woman he had never met – a woman on the world’s longest hunger strike, no less – that he wanted to establish a relationship.

Sharmila eventually made the first move.

But all this disturbed the anti-AFSPA movement. A group of activist mothers that had surrounded Sharmila strongly opposed the alliance. Her own family members did as well. AFSPA was a remnant of colonial India. And here was Sharmila entering into a relationship with a British-Indian man.

But her uncertainties grew, so she begged for guidance. Loitongbam said:

“She has created a big joke out of herself, which not only destroyed her as a persona, but destroyed our movement, and it has taken us a long time to recover.”

Sharmila said:

“Always I was complaining to God: ‘Are you not finished experimenting with me? Is it not enough yet?’”

The struggle was real.

The End of the Hunger

In 2016, Sharmila decided to end her 16-year hunger strike. Journalists from all across the world watched with anticipation. Sharmila looked at the smear of honey in her hand. Her face was ruined with sorrow. She wept. Then, with a look toward the sky, she placed a finger of honey on her tongue.

And that’s how it ended. The world’s longest hunger strike ended on a gloomy morning in 2016 in Imphal, the capital of Manipur. Sharmila ate for the first time in 16 years. With a sip of honey that day, she abandoned her sainthood to return to the normal life she sought. She was sick of people adoring her. She stopped believing in fasting. And worst of all, she fell in love with a man many believed she should not have fallen in love with. She said:

“Nothing had changed in people’s mindsets after 16 years. I really wanted to change myself, the environment, the tactics, everything.”

Instead, Sharmila married Desmond and continued her campaign by running for Manipur’s parliament. Loitongbam said the plan was utterly foolish. Democracy in India can be shady; most residents still vote on caste or religious grounds, and votes are openly exchanged for money or gifts. There is no place for saints, according to Loitongbam.

Sharmila’s decision incensed the activist mothers surrounding her. “In their imaginations I had already been sacrificed,” Sharmila says. “They said I wanted to leave to get married, get a husband; that I was a whore.”

One Manipuri militant group issued a statement warning Sharmila that ‘some former revolutionary leaders were assassinated’ after deviating from a ‘radical path’. Nobody wanted to help her, so she spent her first weeks of freedom on the same hospital ward where she was imprisoned for 16 years.

The March 2017 election was a fiasco. Sharmila competed against the state’s most prominent politician. She won 90 votes. Two days following the announcement, she left Manipur. She currently resides in an apartment on the outskirts of Bengaluru.

She has never returned to Manipur. She is unsure if they would welcome her. But she believes she is at last at peace. She says:

“No more bondage, controlling by others all the time. That sense of freedom, my own view, reaching out to the farthest point.”

As for Loitongbam, he says:

“Our mistake was that we eulogised her so much. She didn’t want to be a god. She wanted to be a human.”

So what do we make of Sharmila?

The Sweet Honey for the Iron Lady

Irom Chanu Sharmila was a martyr who returned to life after her 16-year hunger strike to repeal AFSPA.

Her hunger strike became the world’s longest hunger strike.

How the Indian authorities treated Sharmila as well as the perpetuation of AFSPA sparked international condemnation. In response to the end of her hunger strike, Amnesty International campaigner Abhirr VP said:

“The government has arrested her, confined her to a hospital room, and force-fed her for 16 years, seemingly to break her will.”

Her own people had no right to turn on her for falling in love. Love is love, after all. But centuries of tradition stood in the way and, when the people she fought for turned against her, Sharmila lost the will to fight. She felt as though the cause to end AFSPA would take more than her. And she felt as though she failed in her mission to inspire others.

It is incredible to think that this treatment of others still goes on in the 21^st century. But we cannot deny how amazing Sharmila is. Her hunger strike is inspiring. And what she fought for is nothing if not admirable. Although she did not succeed in having AFSPA repealed, she remains the Iron Lady of Manipur and commands respect. Her resolve remains unbreakable. She said recently:

“This is my right. I have the right to be seen as a human being.”

Sharmila went from being a normal, larger-than-life, kind, happy young woman to the Iron Lady. Her 16-year hunger strike transformed her into a symbol opposed to state aggression. She’s still with us at just 51, her struggle not forgotten.

She highlighted an injustice that still exists today. Her story must be told. And continue to be told until AFSPA is abolished.

“Without AFSPA, there will be no fear and life will be more normal and better. We started opposing the law in Manipur because our women were being assaulted.”

– Irom Chanu Sharmila.

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