Far and away from Manipur, Irom Sharmila says: ‘I get the political system now… It’s corrupt’

Five years have passed since, and as another election ended in Manipur on Saturday, far away in her apartment on the outskirts of Bengaluru, Sharmila said she has made sense of the loss.

“I felt bad… but it is not the fault of the people. They are only scapegoats,” says the soft-spoken 49-year-old, over the phone from the Bengaluru home she now shares with her husband and twin daughters. “I understand the political system now… in India, in Manipur… It is corrupt.”

The 2017 loss, when she got barely a hundred votes, was a huge shock for Sharmila’s supporters. Having become the face of Manipur’s (even the Northeast’s) protest against the draconian AFSPA, with a hunger strike that lasted 16 years, she was expected to at least make a mark – even if no one gave a chance to the party she founded, People’s Resurgence and Justice Alliance (PRJA), fielding three candidates.

But, if those invested in her protest objected to her decision to call it off and choose love and family instead, those backing her saw her political fight as too impractical.

Now, Sharmila stays away from the limelight that once never left her, her tale told and retold at home and abroad. She and her husband, Goan-born British national Desmond Coutinho, whom she married months after the 2017 elections, now are happy with their daughters Nix Sakhi and Autumn Tara, 3, living a quiet life in a one-bedroom apartment on the outskirts of Bengaluru.

Sharmila says the outside world barely disturbs her now, barring a few inquiring calls, especially ahead of the 2022 elections. “They ask me about my political plans, if I am contesting, about the PRJA,” says Sharmila. “I feel a bit bored of these questions… I don’t want to indulge in them.”

She pauses, speaking slowly, and adds: “The past is the past. That was one stage of my life, this is the next… like a river that flows, I do not want to look back.”

While the PRJA still exists, it did not contest the elections this time.

However, the hurt does remain. For 16 years of her fast, Sharmila was lodged as an undertrial at Imphal’s JNIMS hospital, force-fed by a Ryles tube. In 2016, when she joined politics, it was as a candidate against then Manipur Chief Minister and Congress heavyweight Okram Ibobi Singh, vowing to repeal AFSPA if she won.

Talking about getting 90-odd votes, Sharmila says while she expected the results, they upset her, prompting her to leave Imphal soon after and not return since. “I realised what was happening during my campaign itself… Every day I was cycling 20 km from Imphal to Thoubal (where she contested from). During that journey, I would see hundreds of vehicles at big rallies, people enjoying, shouting, a lot of money spent… having fun. I knew I was by myself.”

On why her AFSPA campaign did not work, Sharmila says: “Manipur is really poor and right now dependent on outside for livelihood. That is why there is so much corruption during elections.”

However, she adds, her opposition to AFSPA remains. “Everyone wants to get rid of it. But it requires people to be united, have one voice. In the name of anti-terrorism, they put AFSPA, but there is no terrorist in Manipur,” she says.

She is not in touch with the people who were part of PRJA, Sharmila says, but off and on, her struggle does keep catching up with her. “Sometimes we travel when organisations 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 once, to Arunachal Pradesh.

Her husband is a heart patient, and running a household with two little girls is not easy, Sharmila adds. “But yes, I am doing well.”