She was rearrested on the same charge as she continued the fast.
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She also had a message for Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“I have to change my strategy”. Some people are seeing me as a unusual woman because I want to join politics. “People say politics is dirty but so is society”. Desmond Coutinho, a Goa-based British citizen, began writing to Sharmila years ago and even met her. Sharmila has said that she wants to marry him.
She was earlier released on personal bond (for her fast which is against law and she was fed forcibly), but a release order eluded her with a court deferring the next hearing to August 23. She has since then regularly been arrested and released.
Speaking to Sky News back in 2013, Ms Irom said she did not want to commit suicide and that her protest was about “justice and peace”.
Sharmila said she would not meet her octogenarian mother, Sakhi Devi, till she achieved her goal.
“Irom Sharmila’s decision to break her hunger strike gives India another chance to start a dialogue and recognize how the AFSPA has alienated Manipur for over 35 years”. In the north east, the law was introduced in 1958. Drug abuse is rife. This was on November 5.
She began her fast days after 10 civilians were killed by paramilitary soldiers in Manipur, which has always been plagued by uprisings by ethnic separatist militants and violent government crackdowns.
The night before, she ate a final meal with her mother.
But there has not been any discernible reaction, favourable to or against, her decision that would definitely give a new dimension to the protest against continuous imposition AFSPA in the state. On the verge of leaving the court complex, she told them briefly that she wants to bring about a positive change as Chief Minister of the state.
Sharmila has spent most of her detention in the hospital, where doctors made sure her condition was stable.
Her determination to stick by her protest was remarkable.
Refusing food and water for all that time, authorities have kept her alive by force feeding her through a tube in her nose. She refused to drink, and brushed her teeth only with a piece of dry cotton.
The 44-year-old rights activist said she would join politics as she no longer believes her fast would lead to the repeal of the “draconian” Act. “My struggle is a very simple matter, it depends on spirit, sufferance”. If the cause is strong enough, it will continue on its own steam, with or without Irom Sharmila’s fast. “I am a human being”, she said.
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After coming out from the courtroom Sharmila came to address the media in another room but due to the heavy rush there and chaotic situation, the activist was whisked away by police to her jail ward in hospital. In civilization, we need non-violence.
