This allowed officials to force-feed her. But except for some reporters, there is nobody to meet her when she goes to the court every 15 days.
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“The Iron Lady of Manipur” continued to be force-fed until Tuesday afternoon, when a judge granted her release and – tube removed – she licked honey from her hand.
Though Sharmila has broken her fast, doctors said she would be given solid food immediately.
She will contest the 2017 assembly elections from Khurai Assembly constituency as an independent, she said.
For a section of her supporters and family, the end of the long fast is a big, disconcerting change. She has been living at the J.N. Institute of Medical Sciences for the last 16 years where she was being fed through a nasal tube. “I want to try a different agitation now”, Sharmila told the media outside the courtroom today.
Now she plans to run for office in Manipur and push for the repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act.
“I am being the real embodiment of revolution”, Irom Sharmila told reporters as she ended her hunger strike. She will remain an icon for what she did for the past 16 years.
She was released from custody on Tuesday after she promised a court she would end her fast and submitted bail of Rs10,000 ($150).
Authorities said police would maintain an escort for Sharmila because radical groups and rebels had threatened her for ending the strike, seeing it as weakening the fight against the military law.
Sharmila started the hunger strike in November 2000 after the Malom massacre in a small village on the outskirts of Imphal, in which 10 people were reportedly killed by a government-controlled paramilitary force, the Assam Rifles. Her “sacrifice”, Singh said, could “never be wiped away”. The 44-year-old is called the “Iron Lady”, and her means of peaceful protest has led her to be compared to Nelson Mandela.
It is thought that the decision to end her strike was influenced by a British-Indian boyfriend, Desmond Coutinho.
Critics of the law say it is used to cover up massive human rights abuses in Manipur, which has suffered a decades-long armed insurgency fighting for independence from India.
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However, she also faced angry protesters – mostly women -for allegedly diluting her battle against the Afspa.
