Centrum Stosunków Międzynarodowych - 09 August 2016: Indian activist, Irom Chanu Sharmila, decides to end her hunger strike and announces that she wants to join politics

Irom Chanu Sharmila decided to end her hunger strike that lasted for the past 16 years. Sharmila also expressed her will to join Indian politics. She is being compared to such resistance figures as Nelson Mandela and Aung San Suu Kyi. To some she is also known as the Indian Iron lady. Sharmila has been forced fed through a nasal tube since 2000. This was after a bloody attack, where 10 were killed, in a conflict-torn region of India –the Malom massacre, outside Imphal –by government controlled paramilitary forces.

Sharmila’s struggle is,however, one that touches upon a much bigger issue. India, although a democratic state, allows the army to undertake special emergency powers in conflicted areas, which include searching and entering property as well as shooting on the sight, in order to put down a possible insurgency. The aim of Sharmila’s hunger strike was therefore to force the Indian government to stop using the Armed Forces Special Powers act. Sicteen years later Indian authorities have done no changes to the controversial law. Thus to some Sharmila’s decision comes as a shock or at least as a surprise. Nevertheless, most of her supporters backed her decision. Despite threats from the Indian radical party, Alliance for Social Unity, Sharmila announced that she would like to contest in Manipur elections next year.