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The Eighth sister fighting for the rights of the Seven sisters
2,370 days without food: Repeal AFSPA
Dear Sister Irom Chanu Sharmila:
Greetings and salutation to your grit, integrity and commitment.
Nischay kar apni jeet karo….ensure
your victory through the sheer power of your truthful
determination. This exhortation by the tenth Sikh master, Guru
Gobind Singh has been proved true by you.
I
write to you in admiration of your relentless struggle for the
fundamental rights of the Manipuri people To be on fast unto death
for seven long years and to bear the
 agony of being force-fed
through the nose, by a senseless government which has dubbed your
fast as attempted suicide is a remarkable achievement. Your
fortitude places you in the category of freedom-loving giants like Aung Sang Suu Kyi, Nelson Mandela, Jose Ramos Horta, Bhai Randhir
Singh and Baba Maharaj Singh. Your tenacity is comparable to the
Sikh prisoners sent by the British authorities to the Andaman and
Nicobar Islands, popularly known as Kala-pani.
Your continuous incarceration in the security ward of the Jawaharlal
Nehru Hospital in Imphal is a disgrace to the person in whose memory
the hospital has been built.
It
may sound clichéd to us all but the Indian state chooses to address
all political problems, particularly those related to fundamental
freedoms as law and order issues. Fortunately you are alive, or
else instead of tolerating your thorny attitude and personality, the
Indian armed forces -against which you are protesting, would have
preferred you dead.
I
agree with you that the world needs to know that the Armed Forces
Special Powers Act, 1958, is nothing but a carte blanche to the army
to kill with impunity all people demanding the right to
self-determination. The army was used in Punjab and it continues to
be used in the north-east and Kashmir. As they say in the English
language, “call the dog mad, and shoot him”. So does the India
state. “Call an area “disturbed”, kill all and sundry who do not
fall in line” seems to be the Indian state’s message to the Indian
army. As you know more than me, what is worse, the provisions of the
Armed Forces Act make judicial review almost impossible. Moreover
the actions of the world’s largest army -the Indian army are almost
beyond the purview of courts and even that of the National Human
Rights Commission. Even tin-pot little African countries do not
function as brazenly as India does.
I
am diabetic and after about 5 hours, at the sight of a morsel of
food, I pounce on it. I just cannot bear to be hungry. For seven
long years, you have not eaten. I have read about various instances
of fasting by Indian sadhus and yogis, but to my mind what you have
are doing has no parallel. Despite deteriorating health and
physical condition, you continue on fast undeterred of the
consequences.
In the heartless world that we live in, your only chance of
 achieving
what you are fighting for is heavenly intervention. India is
supposed to be a welfare state, but humaneness is limited only
to some caring individuals. Interests of state override all feelings
and emotions. Perhaps some people in the corridors of power
may admire you, but they cannot “sacrifice national interest” at the
behest of a frail, young woman in some godforsaken unseen distant
part of the country.
When I read the comments of your mother who said that she has not
seen you for the last five years for fear of weakening your
determination, I was convinced about the martial qualities of your
race, otherwise, today our mothers today start showing concern at
the sight of the first scratch on a child’s body inflicted even
while playing.
Recently, when I wrote to Daw Aung Sang Suu Kyi, on her 62nd
birthday, I wondered whether such a non-violent struggle was at all
productive and effective. I am tempted to repeat the same in your
case. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is the proclaimed “father of the
nation”, whose “religion” was “ahimsa...non-violence”. If it
is truly so, then why should the state torture people like you who
follow non-violence? Can his memory be perpetuated by feigned
Gandhigiri in films like Lagey Raho Munnabhai alone
and the real and substantive creed of the Gandhian approach is to be
relegated to become the most obscure part of our political activity
and media reporting? The growing middle-class is happy at such
films as they are not reminded of unsavoury cases like yours.
Last year, in an interview to the BBC, talking about your fast unto
death, the Manipur state director general of police, AK Parashar
said, “A young citizen of the country cannot be allowed to die. We
have an obligation to see that she doesn’t die an unnatural
death.” Does it not sound like the devil reading the scriptures?
In the same interview, the Indian defence minister, Mr. Pranab
Mukherjee said, “The AFSPA is to stay. It is difficult for the
armed forces to function without it.” He is so right, isn’t it?
Recently, the present Defence Minister, Mr. A. K. Antony said, “the
time has not come for the total repeal of the Act. However, if
there is scope for amendments to make it more humane, we are not
against amending it.” Has not the minister clearly accepted that
heretofore numerous acts under this Act have not been humane?
You
know more than me. It is the same Indian army which conducted
Operation Woodroose in Punjab after storming the Golden Temple in
June 1984. It is the same army which registered sedition cases
against columnists like Brahma Chellaney and attempted to imprison
civil liberties experts like Aurobindo Ghose, V. M. Tarkunde and
others when they published reports of army atrocities in the
countryside of Punjab in 1984-85.
 I
am also aware that some Sikh army personnel, either on their own or
under orders from their superiors have indulged in gross human
rights violations in various parts of the north-east. These
personnel are recognizable as Sikhs, but they have lost their traits
of truthfulness, compassion and respect for human life and dignity.
I appeal to you to pass on this message to all your fellow brethren
that these Sikh army personnel are not representatives of the Sikh
nation and that their deeds are in no way a reflection on the Sikh
nation’s views about the right to self-determination of various
nationalities of the South East Himalayan
region, which the Indian government prefers to call India’s “North
East”.
Though not large, a cross-section of the Sikh people is committed to
achieve the right to self-determination for every one, whomsoever so
desires. I respect your right to freedom and am consciously aware
of the manner in which various regions of the north-east were
annexed to India. Your people lost their independence after defeat
in the Anglo-Manipuri War of 1891 and the Sikhs lost theirs in the
Anglo-Sikh War of 1849. Both nations share a legacy of bravery and
treachery. Both nations are still reeling under brown imperialism
but our yearning for freedom continues to flicker with some glimmer
of hope.
You
belong to a separate race of people and have no similarity with the
majority of people from the Aryan race. The Sikhs have a common
brotherhood with the people of the Indo-Gangetic plain, but their
theo-political status is separate and unique. As the British
parliament a few decades back opined, “The Sikhs are almost a race,
almost a nation”. Like your people, the Sikhs too are fighting an
ongoing battle against cultural and socio-political assimilation
against India’s Hindi-speaking majority.
Almost a decade back, I was invited to Gauhati, by Parag Das, human
rights activist and the then Editor of Assamese newspaper, Assomiya
Pratidin to address a conference on human rights violations in Assam
and the north-east. A large number of women participated in the
conference, unlike their thin presence in the political conferences
in Panjab. All the women virtually spent the whole day on an empty
stomach, satisfied with some grams and water provided by the
organizers. Your fast has often reminded me of their resilience. At
every call that I gave for strengthening the self-determination
movement across the Indian sub-continent, their applause was
overwhelming. Tragically, sometime later, my friend Parag Das was
gunned down by police vigilantes who were uncomfortable with his
Assamese nationalist work.
According to statistics provided by the Chief Minister of Manipur,
Mr. Lbobi Singh, since 1980, when Manipur was declared a disturbed
area, over 12,000 insurgents have been killed. Obviously most of
them have been killed extrajudicially.
The
Indian state is quiet shameless when it comes to the rights of
people. The Armed Forces Special Powers Act was enacted in 1958 for
one year as an emergency measure. 49 years have passed but those
twelve months have still not been completed. In a scathing
rebuttal to
 the Indian army, women activists stripped before the
headquarters of the Assam Rifles at Kangla Fort on 15 July 2004, to
protest at the use of rape as a weapon of war by the Indian army.
Sadly, it did not bestir the political masters to take notice. There
is no gainsaying the fact that virtually all provisions of this Act
violate the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights and India’s obligation to uphold the same in its
own legal system and practice, because India’s ruthlessness knows no
empathy.
Your decision to continue your fast till the Armed Forces Special
Powers Act is repealed is praiseworthy. I wish you well. We should
all live up to celebrate that day, sooner than later, when you eat
your first morsel in many years and I think you should take it from
the hands of your ageing mother, who continues to suffer with you.
Your steadfastness will surely bear fruit. It is indeed courageous
of you and inspiring for others to say that, “Life and death is in
the hands of God. But my position is clear. I will not back out.
Truth will triumph, no matter whether the struggle is long or
short.”
It
will not be wrong to call your present state, ‘a near-death
experience’. How you are living, only you can tell. I can only
imagine. I can only guess with awe and respect. I can only pray
that through the sheer force of your determination, you will win…nischay
kar apni jeet karo. While the Indian government charts out a
roadmap to kill and maim people with impunity, sometimes replacing
this programme with the grandiose plan of peace and development in
Manipur and other areas of the north-east, we need to setout a
concerted movement for the right to self-determination for all
ethnic peoples and nationalities.
Rab Rakha….May God look
after you.
Jagmohan Singh
Jagmohan Singh is a social, political, health and human rights
activist. He may be contacted at
jsbigideas@gmail.com
11 July, 2007
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