Known as the Iron Lady of Manipur, Sharmila has spent most of the last 16 years hospitalized and force-fed under judicial custody.
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“I have to change my strategy”, Sharmila said, according to the BBC.
She will contest the 2017 assembly elections from Khurai Assembly constituency as an independent, she said.
Bombarded with questions about her plans, Irom had, haltingly but defiantly said: “This is my life”.
She has not responded yet.
On November 5, 2000, when she took a vow to start an indefinite hunger strike till the government repeals AFSPA, which gives armed forces immunity against prosecution for their actions, her protest had multiple dimensions which went beyond not taking food and water.
It gives Indian forces sweeping powers to search, enter property and shoot on sight, and has been criticised as a cover for human rights abuses. “I want equality. I am called the Iron Lady of Manipur and I want to live up to it”.
However, she rejected the allegations that she ever tried to commit suicide, saying she was on a hunger strike demanding AFSPA withdrawal.
Sharmila said she will run in the state elections scheduled to be held next year.
A judge granted her bail on Tuesday.
It is not clear whether she will return to the family home – she has said she would like to marry her fiancé, a British national of Indian origin who she met after starting her fast.
“She is getting the healthiest and most balanced of diets that even the richest Indian probably is not getting”, one of the doctors who attended to her in Imphal’s Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences (JNIMS) told HT earlier on Tuesday.
The world’s longest hunger strike has ended after 16 years.
Thrice a day, she was given supplements with adequate amounts of calcium, fats, carbohydrate and vitamins.
It was officially announced that Sharmila will stay in hospital for the next three days under medical supervision.
During the time, she will be administered solid food gradually and her health closely monitored.
Speaking to reporters without the nasal pipe, through which she was force fed and had become part of her persona, Sharmila said ending her fast did not mean ending the movement against the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (Afspa).
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“Sharmila feared death and so she managed to sneak into her mother’s ward in the same hospital at midnight”. Describing Sharmila as someone exceptionally close to nature, the book says she used to experiment continually with her body through Yoga and walking.
