josh-e-kavita

Sunday, October 02, 2011

Support Irom Sharmila, Show Your Solidarity

This post is for those young people who watch Tales from the Margins and ask what they can do to support Irom Sharmila:

In November 2011, Irom Sharmila Chanu’s epic fast demanding the repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) will complete 11 years.

In these 11 years, the government has done everything in its power to isolate Irom Sharmila. It has kept her under arrest by claiming that her fast is an attempt to commit suicide, and therefore punishable by law. Though she is an under-trial and therefore entitled to visitors as per law, under the guise of her own security the authorities make this process very difficult. Special permission has to be sought from the state to meet Sharmila, and it comes after a wait of many days, if at all. Activists, eminent citizens and people close to her are often not given permission to meet her. All this, in an attempt to break her indomitable spirit.

When I had met Sharmila for the first time, she'd told me that one thing she missed was people - human contact. Show Irom Sharmila your solidarity - write to her. Let her know that you stand with her in this struggle for justice. Each letter is also a sign to the government that people across this country are against AFSPA. Send your letters, cards and messages of solidarity to:
      Irom Sharmila Chanu
      c/o Security Ward
      Jawaharlal Nehru Hospital
      Porompat, Imphal – 795001
      Manipur

Or you can also send your messages by email to:
writetosharmila@gmail.com
or writetosharmila@hotmail.com

A compilation of the emails is periodically printed and delivered to Sharmila as a book, by the Pan Manipur group.

NOTE: There is a more that each of us can do to support Sharmila and the campaign against AFSPA. Watch this space, we will be updating this with more info. You can also watch My Body My Weapon, a short film on Irom Sharmila and the AFSPA available on this blog. The film is free to view, share on FB and embed on your webpages.

Friday, September 30, 2011

IROM SHARMILA: Interview by Kavita Joshi

UPDATE: This article was published in 2006. Irom Sharmila's hunger fast against the AFSPA has now continued over ten years.

IROM's IRON IN THE SOUL
Young, stoic and dogged, Irom Sharmila has been on a fast-unto-death since November, 2000. She wants the repressive Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act repealed. The Act gives draconian powers to the security forces and has repeatedly been used with brazen brutality in the Northeast. For five years, she has been imprisoned and force-fed by the State for her ‘crime’. Filmmaker Kavita Joshi spoke to her in the hospital room in Imphal, her prison

An eye: piercing, intent. A nose, covered by a swatch of medical tape, as a yellow tube forces its way in. Lips, stretched tight as if in pain. A woman sits against a bare wall, huddled under a blanket, tightly hugging herself. This is my first impression of Irom Sharmila as I walk to her hospital bed. She is incarcerated at the security ward of JN Hospital in Imphal, Manipur, in custody of the Central Jail, Sajiwa. It takes her immense effort to speak, but she tries her best. “How can I explain? This is not a punishment. It is my bounden duty at my best level.”

Irom Sharmila has not eaten for over five years now. For this, she has been locked up in jail by the government under very dubious charges and is being forcibly nose fed. Since November 2000, Sharmila has been on a fast-unto-death, demanding the removal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act 1958 (AFSPA).

Read the rest of the article and interview on Tehelka here

FIND ALL ARTICLES ON IROM SHARMILA POSTED ON THIS BLOG, HERE

Monday, September 26, 2011

IROM SHARMILA: The Unlikely Outlaw

The immensity of Irom Sharmila Chanu's now six-year-old protest is matched only by the paralysing indifference of the State and the national media, says Shoma ChaudhuryAn ordinary November evening in Delhi. A slow halting voice breaks into your consciousness. “How shall I explain? It is not a punishment, but my bounden duty…” A haunting phrase in a haunting voice, made slow with pain yet magnetic in its moral force. “My bounden duty.” What can be bounden duty in an India bursting with the excitements of its economic boom?

You are tempted to walk away. You are busy and the voice is not violent in its beckoning. But then an image starts to take shape. A frail, fair woman on a hospital bed. A tousled head of jet black curls. A plastic tube thrust into the nose. Slim, clean hands. Intent, almond eyes. And the halting, haunting voice. Speaking of bounden duty.

That’s when the enormous story of Irom Sharmila begins to seep in. You are in the presence of something historic. Something unparalleled in the history of political protest anywhere in the world ever. Yet you have been oblivious of it. A hundred TV channels. An unprecedented age of media. Yet you are oblivious of it.

Irom Sharmila, 34, has not eaten anything, or drunk a single drop of water for six years. Six years. She has been forcibly kept alive by a drip thrust down her nose by the Indian State. For six years, nothing solid has entered her body. Not a drop of water has touched her lips. She has not combed her hair. She cleans her teeth with dry cotton and her lips with dry spirit so she will not sully her fast. Her body is wasted inside. Her menstrual cycles have stopped. Yet she is resolute. Whenever she can, she removes the tube from her nose. It is her bounden duty, she says, to make her voice heard in “the most reasonable and peaceful way”.

Yet we have remained oblivious to it. The Indian State has remained oblivious to it.

read the rest on the TEHELKA website: page 1 and page 2

Thursday, September 01, 2011

The Fake Encounter of Chongkham Sanjit, Manipur

MURDER IN PLAIN SIGHT
In Manipur, death comes easy. In this damning sequence of photos, a local photographer captures the death of a young man, killed in a false encounter by the police in broad daylight, 500 metres from the state assembly. How can a State justify such a war against its own people, asks TERESA REHMAN, here:

http://www.tehelka.com/story_main42.asp?filename=Ne080809murder_in.asp

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Workshop Films: Screenings and Honours

Films made by our participants have been doing well in the festival and the student film circuit. Here are some films of note:

PRICELESS (2010, short fiction)

A street child’s blind date with high society.

Invited to the:

Antalya Lemon Short Film Days, Turkey 2011

Cinema of Resistance: Patna Film Festival 2011

Guwahati International Short Film Festival 2011

MERI PEHCHAAN (2010, short docu)

Explores the hopes, pain and longings of people of the transgender and MSM (men who have sex with men) community.

Screened at the International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala 2011

In 2011, a curated set of 10 films from our workshops were shown in Mumbai at the Cinema Satsang, a film festival organised by Katha and the India Foundation for Arts (IFA). Read more here.

KAASH: (2010, short fiction)

A boy wants an ice-cream but cannot have it, until a chance opportunity presents itself. Will he take it?

In competition at the Short and Documentary Film Festival of Hyderabad 2010.

Screened at the 6th ViBGYOR Intl. Film Festival Thrissur 2011,

RASIYA (short fiction, 2009)

Rasiya looks at 3 minutes from the life of a sex worker, her relationship with her "lovers", and her relationship with money.

Critical Acclaim award at Contre Jour 2010, SSCBS Delhi University.

Cinemela, Jawaharlal Nehru University, September 2009