After the March 2017 elections, when all eyes were on the high-stakes political drama thrown by a hung assembly, Irom Sharmila quietly pulled out of Manipur after her. troubled by electoral defeat,
Subscribe Now: Get Express Premium to Access the Best Election Reporting and Analytics
Five years have passed, and after another election ended in Manipur on Saturday, at her apartment on the outskirts of Bengaluru, Sharmila said she made a sense of loss.
“I felt bad… but it’s not the people’s fault. They’re just scapegoats,” says the 49-year-old soft-spoken over the phone from the Bengaluru home she now shares with her husband and twin daughters. Now I understand the political system… in India, in Manipur… it is corrupt.”
The 2017 defeat, when she barely got a hundred votes, was a major blow to Sharmila’s supporters. Having become the face of Manipur’s (even the Northeast’s) protests against the harsh AFSPA, with a hunger strike lasting 16 years, he was expected to leave at least one impression – even if no one tried to do so by him. The People’s Resurgence and Justice Alliance (PRJA) has fielded three candidates, not giving a chance to the established party.
But, if those opposed to him objected to his decision to call it off and choose love and family instead, those who supported him considered his political fight too impractical.
Now, Sharmila stays away from the limelight which never left her, her story is narrated and narrated across the country and abroad. She and her husband, Goa-born British national Desmond Coutinho, whom she married months after the 2017 elections, are now happy with their daughters Nix Sakhi and 3-year-old Autumn Tara, who live in a quiet one-bedroom apartment on the outskirts. living life. Bangalore.
Sharmila says that the outside world barely bothers her anymore, except for a few questioning calls, especially before the 2022 elections. Sharmila says, “They ask me about my political plans, if I am contesting, then about PRJA.” “I’m a little bored with these questions… I don’t want to get into them.”
She pauses, speaks softly, and continues: “The past is the past. That was a stage in my life, this is the next stage… Like a river flowing, I don’t want to look back.
While the PRJA still exists, it did not contest this time.
However, the injury persists. For her 16 years of fasting, Sharmila was kept as an undertrial prisoner at Imphal’s JNIMS Hospital, being force-fed by Royals tube. In 2016, when she joined politics, she was as a candidate against the then Chief Minister of Manipur and Congress veteran Okram Ibobi Singh, vowing to repeal the AFSPA if she won.
Talking about the 90 votes, Sharmila says that when she expected the result, it upset her, prompting her to leave Imphal and not return after that. “I realized what was happening only during my campaign… I was cycling 20 km every day from Imphal to Thoubal (from where he contested). During that visit, I saw hundreds of vehicles in big rallies, people enjoying, shouting, spending lots of money… having fun. I knew I was on my own.”
When asked why her AFSPA campaign did not work, Sharmila says: “Manipur is really poor and is still dependent on outside for livelihood. That’s why there is so much corruption during elections.”
However, she says, her opposition to AFSPA remains. “Everyone wants to get rid of it. But it requires people to be one, one voice. In the name of anti-terrorism, they imposed AFSPA, but there are no terrorists in Manipur,” she says.
Sharmila says that she is not in touch with those who were a part of PRJA, but their struggles hold her back again and again. “Sometimes we travel when organizations invite me because they believe my long struggle is a source of inspiration,” she says, adding that she had been to Kashmir three times and Arunachal Pradesh once.
Sharmila says that her husband is a heart patient and it is not easy to run a household with two young girls. “But yes, I’m doing well.”