Dragging off Irom Sharmila: When iron-fisted becomes ham-handed

Irom Sharmila never wanted to end her life. She wanted to end the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in her part of the world. But by deeming her suicidal, the government could ignore her political demand and focus on her physical condition instead. It allowed them to hold her in custody and force-feed her by a nasal tube for fourteen long years. The Manipur East Sessions court stripped away that fig leaf of a pretence. It said the government had “failed miserably” to establish her intent to commit suicide by fasting unto death which would have been punishable under Section 309 of the IPC. [caption id=“attachment_1677035” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] AFP[/caption] And thus it left the government nakedly exposed. The judge left open the possibility of nasal feeding for “her health and safety” if needed but if she is not suicidal and mentally competent how do you force her to be fed by that tube? Apparently by sending a posse of policewomen to drag her kicking and screaming and pleading. This is called “taking care of someone” government-style. The government claims it tried all manner of persuasion but Irom Sharmila refused to budge. That might well be true. But in dragging her into their “care”, they reinforced every image of a government that is simultaneously iron-fisted and ham-handed. The government is undeniably in a fix. It is an unenviable quandary. But while its options are limited they are not non-existent. Faced with a stubborn dissident who is not breaking the law per se, a government can choose to negotiate with her. They can do it in good faith or just to buy time and keep up appearances. But they can talk. Gandhi undertook some seventeen political fasts in the course of his life sometimes targeting the government, sometimes taking the Congress to task. Each had its own trajectory. The British government sometimes gave in to his demands at least half-way. Political and religious leaders agreed to a joint plan to restore communal harmony in the aftermath of Partition. Once he was just released unconditionally from prison on the grounds of health. Gandhi had his eyes on the prize but was canny enough to know there were other milestones along the way. A government can also choose to be tough. There is no reason any government is obliged to negotiate with every protester on her terms and open a Pandora’s Box. There is a political fallout from that but a government has to willing to stomach it. Margaret Thatcher’s government faced international opprobrium for refusing to blink when Bobby Sands, a member of the Irish Republican Army went on hunger strike in yhe Maze prison in 1981. He died after 66 days at the age of 27. There were protests around the world from Tehran to the United States. But Thatcher just gritted her teeth and said “Mr. Sands was a convicted criminal. He chose to take his own life. It was a choice that his organization did not allow to many of its victims.” Irom Sharmila does not belong to an armed resistance group like the IRA. Nor is she a convicted criminal. So the government cannot claim that sliver of a principled higher ground Mrs Thatcher tried to cling to. But a government can say it is Irom Sharmila’s decision to not take food and they cannot decide on matters of national security via emotional blackmail and she has to be aware of the consequences of her action on herself. It’s a tough stance and it will have a fallout but it is stance that can be defended. “There is something deeply coercive about fasting unto death,” wrote Pratap Bhanu Mehta in the Indian Express during the Anna Hazare fast at Jantar Mantar. He called it “blackmail.” It’s not like the government rushes to the bedside of every hunger-striker with soothing noises and a glass of orange juice. Swami Nigamanand went on a fast against illegal mining polluting the Ganga. But he did it in Haridwar not Jantar Mantar and he was not a VIP hungerstriker. He died after 73 days, relatively unheralded and unsung. In that same hospital around the same time Baba Ramdev broke his nine-day fast after a stream of politicians and ministers pleaded with him. A fast is also a piece of political theater and like all theatre it needs an audience to be successful. In fact it was the national hysterical media attention on Anna Hazare at Jantar Mantar in 2011 that really forced a shame-faced acknowledgment that Irom Sharmila had already been languishing for eleven years in quiet protest in far away Imphal. Now Irom Sharmila is a media phenomenon and the government does not know how to deal with her. Even if you are not sympathetic to Irom Sharmila’s cause, it’s hard to be unmoved by the horrific spectacle of the might of the state dragging away this frail woman who was not even standing in the way of the rising waters of a dam or a hugging a tree that was about to be felled. She was refusing to eat – one of the most personal and private decisions any of us can make. The problem for the government is it wants it both ways. It does not want to give way on AFSPA. Neither does it want Irom Sharmila to die on its watch. But sometimes it just cannot have it both ways. It has to choose. “We’re taking care of her life,” said the Manipur deputy chief minister as his government forcibly took Irom Sharmila for her medical check-up. He might have wanted to project his government as a nanny state. But it has ended up looking like a police state.