Irom Chanu Sharmila and the Movement Against Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA)

Aparajita Sharma

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2403555

Abstract

This paper, through the narratives of activists and Meira Paibis reiterates the slogan — repeal the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), which is draconian and anti-people in spirit. The atrocity,which has been meted out on the people of Manipur because of this Act, is a profound violation of human rights. Rape, mindless killings, kidnapping, fake encounters have been normalised by virtue of this Act. The youths have been badly affected due to the conflict emerging out of this Act which treats people in Manipur as 'objects' against the imagined boundaries of the Indian nation-state for security from the neighbouring nations. In this process, the lived experiences of the people have been pushed to the periphery against the massive motive of the state to protect borders and the imagined nation, which is a direct offshoot of the legacy of colonialism in India. The paper has tried to capture the history of Manipur on a capsule to concretise the struggle of Irom Sharmila and the 'hopes' she gives to the people of Manipur for 'peace' and 'justice'. Alongside, it makes a humble attempt to describe the ‘life’ of Irom Sharmila. In addition, it describes the rage of Manipuris, which have given rise to insurgency asking for 'freedom' through various platforms.

Highlights

This paper, through the narratives of activists and Meira Paibis reiterates the slogan—repeal the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), which is draconian and anti-people in spirit
Malom massacre took place in a small place called Malom where nine civilians were killed by the Army in broad daylight aftermath of a bomb attack on an AR convoy at Malom Makha Leikai (Manipuronline, 2014)
Giroux (1997: 84) in his Pedagogy and Politics of Hope states: Understanding the contemporary stages of capitalist development according to what they represented was a crucial step for both writers to avoid a sense of fatalism and keep alive the quest for working to attain a better world is driven by an anticipatory utopia prefigured by critique of the present but by an alternative pedagogical/cultural politics

Summary

Methodology

Drawing from the struggles of people in Manipur and further locating ‘hope’ for peace and people-centred development was an interesting journey for me. I was told that he himself has a dream of writing a biography on Iron Lady but his dream continues to be so because of the regimented nature of state policies imposed on her movement and mobility This did not diminish my curiosity and I contacted another comrade and activist working with Irom Sharmila. Meira Paiba is a collective of women in Manipur, which has been proactive in the process of transforming the culture of violence and silence. They mostly work at the grassroots level and act as signifiers for peace and pluralism. My association with the Campaign for Peace and Democracy made me write this paper with theoretical convictions and with the reaffirmation of certain convictions on the basis of the field inquiry and engagements with people who are engaged with Sharmila’s fight, and constantly problematizing and concretising their concerns for peace which is the beginning of peoplecentred development in Manipur

Concretising the Forms of Struggle in Manipur

An Individual Protest for the Massive Collective Cause