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For 16 long years, Manipur’s ‘Iron Lady’ has survived on oral hydrating fluids, baby food supplements and perhaps the least glamorous “liquid diet”.
In the last two decades, she hasn’t eaten a bite of solid food, visited the cinema or done anything that many leading a normal life take for granted. She had vowed to meet her mother only when AFSPA in Manipur had been repealed.
Since 2000, Sharmila has met her mother only once in 2009, when she was admitted in the same hospital as her.
Many of her own brothers and sisters have willingly forfeited contact with her. Sharmila’s 5,757 days of struggle have come at great personal cost.
On Tuesday, she wept as she licked honey out of her palm, breaking the world’s longest fast. She announced that she would now contest elections in Manipur.
Ironically, after leaving the JN Institute of Medical Sciences, where she had been fed through a nasal tube for the last 16 years, Sharmila had nowhere to go.
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When asked by reporters where she will stay now, Sharmila said she will stay in an ashram.
Her mother Sakhi has refused to meet her while her elder brother I Shinghajit, in an open letter, made an impassioned appeal to her to continue the fast.
Sharmila and Desmond Coutinho, a British citizen of Indian origin, have been exchanging letters since 2009. Sharmila has said he loves her and has announced plans to marry.
Her mother, brother Shinghajit and others have not welcomed her in their homes.
Activist Thiyam Suresh then took Sharmila to his home at Keishampat in Imphal so that she could stay there till alternative arrangements are made.
However, local residents came out and asked Suresh not to keep her there.
The ambulance then took her near the elephant statue in the heart of Imphal city. Significantly, there was no supporter there except for police personnel and reporters. From there she was whisked away to an undisclosed place.
In the evening, Sharmila was reportedly taken back to the hospital as authorities became concerned about her health.
Doctors are not allowing her to eat normal solid food immediately. One doctor said: “As she has been staying away from normal solid food for over 16 years, we have to take a step by step approach. It will take some days for her to resume normal food.”
Sharmila began her hunger strike in November 2000 following the killing of 10 civilians by security forces.
She was arrested by the Manipur government the same year on charges of attempting to commit suicide.
She has always denied the charge, saying she is using the fast as a weapon.
As the prosecution failed to prove that she was trying to kill herself, the Chief Judicial Magistrate had ordered on 29 February 2016 that she be freed.
In her 16-year-long fast, none of the Prime Ministers met Sharmila, despite her expressed request.
(With inputs from IANS)
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