2000: Irom Sharmila begins fast for repeal of AFSPA

Published : Aug 15, 2022 06:00 IST On November 5, 2000, a frail young woman from Manipur quietly sat on a hunger strike at Malom, near the site where three days earlier 10 civilians were shot dead while waiting at a bus stand by Indian paramilitary forces. From a normal, life-loving, gentle young woman, Irom Sharmila became the “Iron Lady of Manipur”; she was also “Mengoubi”, or the “Fair One”. They could “fire upon or otherwise use force, even to the causing of death”, after giving due warning, against any “person who is acting in contravention of any law or order in the disturbed” area; to arrest without warrant any person who has “committed a cognizable offence or against whom a reasonable suspicion exists that he has committed or is about to commit a cognizable offence”; to enter and search without warrant etc. Four years after Sharmila began her fast, another powerful and one of the most disturbing images of protest seen by Indians jolted the nation: a group of middle-aged women stood naked in front of the gates of Kangla Fort in Imphal, holding up banners saying “Indian Army, rape us” and “Rape us the way you did Manorama”. At the time of Sharmila’s hunger strike, AFSPA gave armed forces operating in “disturbed” areas legal immunity.