The Iron Lady of Manipur

Abstract

Anniversaries are always special. They hold great significance in one's life. For scribes like us, it is crucial to remember anniversaries, but we remember occurrence of events of a different kind. For example, we revisit the anniversary of IC 814 hijack or Gujarat riots or 26/11 attacks in order to ingeminate stories of the victims and help them get justice.Of late, a section of the media has added another date to this list, which is November 4. Twelve years back, on this day, Manipur's Irom Sharmila Chanu sat on an indefinite hunger strike demanding the repeal of the draconian Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA)-the law in force in the northeast and Kashmir that gives sweeping powers to the army, including the right to shoot on suspicion. In 2010, Sharmila's silent protest completed a decade. Curious to know what makes the Iron Lady of Manipur, as she is popularly known, this resilient, I had sought an appointment with her. Permission, however, was not easily granted. The request moved from one sarkari office to the other for nearly two months. Finally, I was allowed to meet her on 20 December 2010. Knowing well that even celebrated writer and activist Mahasweta Devi had been denied permission, I considered myself lucky.Before I met her, I had sketched an image about Sharmila in my mind by reading various newspaper reports that featured her struggle, her pain and her plight. They had made her look gloomy and exhausted. But my perception changed the moment I got the first glimpse of her, when I lifted the green curtains of the ward for under-trials needing medical attention at Imphal's Jawaharlal Nehru Hospital. She looked frail but cheerful and welcomed me with a wide smile as I walked into the room. Her freshly washed hair smelled of a familiar brand of shampoo. The shiny wet curls of her hair were carelessly playing on her forehead. She

Disrobed and dissenting bodies of the Meira Paibi: Postcolonial counterpublic activism

“…While Sultana (2013) shows ambivalence about the impact of the protest, others have identified the agency-building characteristics embedded in the act of displaying the body. Sarkar (2013) identifies their actions as political motherhood, while Lacy (2014) perceives the Meira Paibi protesters as seeking out justice for human rights abuses against women. Gaikwad (2009) examines feminist agency by urging that the protest is not explainable by rationality but as a sense of “haunting” and “madness.”…”