11- Year Hunger Strike in India Wages On

Political activism is common in America; participate in rallies, sign petitions, lobby, make our voices heard within the media, etc., but in India it takes a whole new step. Poet and activist, Irom Chanu Sharmila, has been on a hunger strike for the past 11 years. Her hunger strike is based a massacre in November of 2000 within the village of Malom. A surprise explosion along one of the main roads sent soldiers running to the site, where they proceeded to shoot and kill 10 people. The soldiers claimed that they had been fired upon first, but a judiciary inquiry found no evidence that they had. Two days after the shooting, Sharmila began her hunger strike: getting India to remove laws that shield the countries army forces from prosecution from the central government. In India, soldiers are protected by the Armed Forces Special Powers Act of 1958. It states that military personnel can arrest people without a warrant, shoot and injure/kill on suspicion, and use deadly weapons to break up gatherings of 5 or more people. They can only be prosecuted by explicit permission from the central government, which in almost all cases never comes. Sharmila was almost immediately arrested because of the Indian penal code that says committing suicide is a crime. The longest they can hold her is 1 year. Every year for the past decade the government has released Sharmila, only to imprison her again when she refuses to eat. The courage of Sharmila and the brutality of government in India are shocking.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/world/asia/11manipur.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=india