"Generations to come, it may well be, will scarce believe that such a man as this one ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth,
“Once I was on my bicycle coming back from a friend’s house. At the corner of a bridge, there were three rickshaw pullers, one of them barely a child. His face was half covered with a dirty cloth “
An army vehicle drove by. And, suddenly, without rhyme or reason, one of the army guys took his baton and started hitting the boy from inside the vehicle. They just took off after that. I was so shocked. I have never forgotten that,’’
“I thought what is the point of working for peace unless we do something drastic. I was so upset that I didn’t eat. At first, I thought, ‘Let me keep lying in bed’. I didn’t even tell my mother that I was still fasting,"
Image Source: Independent
“Everyone was in the paddy fields. Sharmila had stopped talking to everyone, so disturbed she was about Malom. She came and asked me for my blessings. I didn’t know of her intentions, so I blessed her. If I had known, I would never have let her start it,’’
Even as a child, she was stubborn. If she decided to do something, she would do it. So, once I realised what her cause was, I decided to support her."
“She refuses to drink water. So when we have to give her tablets or vitamins, they are crushed with her food,’
. "Medically, you can be fed through the Ryles tube for months even, as we do with patients with strokes. But for 14 years? That’s unimaginable,
Representational image. Source: Reuters
'Any commissioned officer, warrant officer, non-commissioned officer or any other person of equivalent rank in the armed forces may, in a disturbed area, if he is of opinion that it is necessary so to do for the maintenance of public order, after giving such due warning as he may consider necessary, fire upon or otherwise use force; even to the causing of death, against any person who is acting in contravention of any law or order for the time being in force in the disturbed area prohibiting the assembly of five or more persons or the carrying of weapons or of things capable of being used as weapons or of firearms, ammunition or explosive substances.'
"A large number of armed personnel entered into the houses of villagers and at gunpoint they gang-raped 23 ladies, without any consideration of their age, married, unmarried, pregnancy etc.,"
A protest lead by Manipuri Women after killing of Manorama Image Source: YKA
The Act continues to be in force despite several judicial recommendations to repeal it. A five-member committee by the erstwhile UPA Government in 2004 had recommended that AFSPA be repealed, stating that the Act was ‘too sketchy, too bald and quite inadequate in several particulars’. The report in its entirety has been rejected by the present government. The Justice Verma Report which came out in the wake of the gruesome Delhi gang rape, pulled up AFSPA, stating the following, ‘Due to the number of reports of sexual offences committed by the armed forces in India's conflict areas such as Kashmir and the North East, the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) - a controversial law that gives sweeping powers to and often confers immunity on security forces - must be reviewed. Security forces must be brought under the purview of ordinary criminal law rather than under army law.’ The earlier Supreme Court appointed committee had bemoaned the inequality of power the act offered, declaring, 'Though the Act gives sweeping powers to security forces even to the extent of killing a suspect with protection against prosecution, it does not provide any protection to the citizens against its possible misuse' with even a committee to study status of women in the country by the government wanting the act repealed.
An Example of the backlash Irom faced after her statement
"The man I love is waiting for me impatiently. He came here to meet me but my supporters refused that idea,”
I don't want people to keep me on a pedestal. I don't want to be treated like a goddess. I want to live an ordinary life, experiencing common emotions. People here, my own people, can't absorb the fact that I can also fall in love. They have put my fiancé in jail,"
India's forgotten conscience
An AFSPA protest in Pune Image Source: Kangla Online
“We can’t move forward because there is no consensus. The present and former army chiefs have taken a strong position that the act should not be amended (and) do not want the government notification … to be taken back. How does the government … make the AFSPA a more humanitarian law
The government fears that repealing AFSPA will result in losing Jammu and Kashmir to Pakistan as well. I would like to ask the government: why don’t you try and connect to the hearts of the discontented people?”
