Irom Sharmila's Walk to Freedom

Irom Sharmila broke her fast after 16 years  People often supported her cause in a token manner Politicians, other high profile people have rarely supported her cause  She has been a lone fighter against AFSPA even in a crowd of her supporters

Who am I?

What am I doing?

Where am I located?

Who is making me sit here?

Until when?

What is it that they want me to do?

What is my vision?

Irom Sharmila (as she read out her poem to the author in 2010)

Tuesday, August 9, 2016, will now belong to Irom Sharmila. Actually, every day since she sat on her fast from November 2000, belongs to her. She has the moral claim to every moment she has silently suffered for a nation that has betrayed her, failed her in every way. Her resistance mocked at all of us who paid a token acknowledgement just once a year lighting a candle, writing few words or discussing her ‘epic’ struggle. Her story can never be told. She defied every attempt to define her. In the end, she took all of us by surprise. She set herself free.

Perhaps the most tragic moment of all was after this unprecedented solitary confinement; she had no home to go even though her house was just a walk away. Her mother Irom Sakhi Devi said she will meet her only after Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) (the act against which Sharmila was protesting) is repealed. Her brother Shingajit is apparently not happy either.

Five years ago her mother had told me, “Every night I sit and cry. Every night. Just for five days, let the government repeal the Act so that I can see my daughter before I die.”

Five years ago her mother had told me, “Every night I sit and cry. Every night. Just for five days, let the government repeal the Act so that I can see my daughter before I die.”

Today Sakhi Devi did not even come to see her daughter. 

Sharmila’s walk to freedom was longer than the longest. She was alone, the day she took a bus from home to Malom Bazar (the place she sat on a fast is no longer a market) to mourn the ten people killed by the soldiers of Assam Rifles and vowing not to touch food or water till the AFSPA is repealed. No cameras followed her nobody paid any attention. Some even ridiculed. On Tuesday when she decided to free herself, the world watched her with awe and disbelief. As the court was going through the bail proceeding, she stood up several times asking the magistrate to speed it up. Finally, her patience was running out. She licked honey to break the fast wincing at the taste of food after 16 years, breaking down but renewing her resolve to fight against the Act. Despite the crowd around her, she was still alone. By now she was used to the loneliness of the long distance runner.

Read more on Irom Sharmila's struggle: Irom Sharmila's fast changed narratives of human rights

No political leader visited her. Prime Minister Narendra Modi must have forgotten to tweet about her! No celebrities wanted to share the stage. But the people she has fighting for were around her. She would always say that she is a normal person with normal desires and never wanted to be a poster girl or a Goddess. What she does now is her choice. What she did was pay the most moving tribute to the hundreds of voiceless dead so that “the silence that consumed the millions does not also consume the survivors”.

We call it a grain of sand,

but it calls itself neither grain nor sand.

It does just fine without a name,

whether general, particular, permanent, passing,

incorrect, or apt.

(From View With a Grain of Sand by Wislawa Szymborska) 

Kishalay Bhattacharjee is a senior journalist and author. His most recent book is Blood on my Hands: Confessions of Staged Encounters (Harper Collins 2015). The views expressed here are his own.