Without a doubt, Anna Hazare’s fast-unto-death protest is now a full-fledged citizens movement, with Bollywood and political parties thrown in for good measure. Something good will come out of it. The pressure on the government is coming from all quarters because of one and only one reason – the consequences of not meeting Hazare’s demands are just too drastic.

Meanwhile another fast-unto-death protest has gone largely unnoticed for the past 11 years. In the year 2000 a young 28-year old woman declared her protest to not eat food or drink water. She did so because security forces brutally gunned down 10 civilians standing at a bus stop in Manipur. The security forces were operating under the rights granted them by the 1958 Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA), a draconian act that gives them the powers to:

• “Fire upon or otherwise use force, even to the causing of death, against any person who is acting in contravention of any law” against “assembly of five or more persons” or possession of deadly weapons.
• To arrest without a warrant and with the use of “necessary” force anyone who has committed certain offenses or is suspected of having done so
• To enter and search any premise in order to make such arrests.

Irom Chanu Sharmila is now 39 years old. She is being force fed through a nasal tube at a Government hospital. In the 11 years since her protest began she gets in the news for two reasons, an arrest and/or winning an award for her determination.

Hers is a protest that never garnered the support that Hazare’s movement is getting. Corruption is an evil that must be rooted out of India. Irom Chanu Sharmila’s protest fights for an as- if not more important and fundamental human right – that no citizen of a democratic country should have to die at the hands of its government who is there to protect and serve them.

Irom Chand Sharmila - social and political activist on fast for 11 years in India.