“Why aren’t you writing about Irom Sharmila?†demanded Shirin Ebadi, the Nobel Peace Laureate and Iranian human rights lawyer, in a media meet in Delhi in 2006. Sharmila had been fasting for six years protesting army atrocities in Manipur under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). Ebadi’s vehement support had given a fillip to Sharmila’s protest. But the Government was unmoved.
This week, Sharmila completed ten years of her hunger strike. On 2 November 2000, Assam Rifles troops had arbitrarily shot dead 10 civilians waiting at a bus stop at Malom, Manipur. Sharmila, then a poet and human rights worker of 28, demanded a repeal of the inhuman Act and went on her fast unto death.