13-year-long hunger striker pins hopes on Modi

E-Paper | June 07, 2026

NEW DELHI: An Indian activist who has been on hunger strike for over 13 years said on Wednesday she was pinning her hopes of finally leading a normal life on new Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Irom Sharmila, 42, who is force-fed by a drip through her nose, said she wanted to meet Modi in hopes of ending the military’s alleged human rights abuses in her northeastern home state of Manipur.

Escorted by more than a dozen police officers, Sharmila appeared in a court in New Delhi in connection with long-running charges against her of attempting to commit suicide, a crime in India.

Sharmila told a judge that she wanted a “settled life as others do” but would not break her fast until a controversial law that covers large parts of restive northeastern India and Kashmir was repealed.—AFP

Published in Dawn, May 29th, 2014

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Ayesha

May 30, 2014 01:19am

Poor woman she is keeping hopes with heartless people

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Ajay vikram Singh

May 30, 2014 12:35pm

@Ayesha - We are not heartless. TO keep our nation together we have paid a huge cost. When we started as an independent nation, we inherited an almost tribal society divided on the lines of race, culture, religion, regionalism, languages ..and what not. To keep the national spirit alive, we have paid tremendous sacrifices. Sacrifices with the strength of our character, determination, patience and lives. We have asked upper caste Hindus to make way for lower castes people, in terms of massive reservations in higher education, job and social security. We changed the laws. protected minorities and in short tried everything to keep everyone together. There have been narrow minded regional, racial and religious biases...and they took our test. We tried to coax them with love, support and at times with stern orders. The goal was positive and good. North east, took its own time to become part of the mainstream India but what other options these people had? These regional identities always thought that they can become a nation in themselves and survive. Now they are all thankful to us. Still..in the process of keeping them together and bringing them back to national spirit...if we committed some mistakes, we are sorry for that. India does not want to hurt Indians. Whole world never gave us a chance that we could do it. Everyone around us was jealous and wanted us to disintegrate. But see ...we have achieved it. My thoughts and best wishes go for this woman and all her kinds. May god give us all the strength to be better human beings. May we all be kind and patient with each other.

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Ahmed

May 30, 2014 10:02pm

@Ayesha When you say heartless, I remember Bangladesh 1971.

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Kamal

May 30, 2014 11:49pm

@Ajay vikram Singh LOL...protecting minorities.... how can you change the caste system thing which is in your religion...i find that quite strange

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Karma Yogi

May 31, 2014 01:40am

@Ayesha My comment is not a defense to your's statement. Perhaps our government is heartless and wouldn't be too sure to say "people". But one needs to understand that there was no notion of India it's a British term, we were and always have been multiple princely states. It was the British who united us and said you shall be called as India. And as Ajay said we indeed have paid tremendous sacrifices to keep this notion of union of India alive.

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Raja Farhat Abbas

May 31, 2014 06:45am

@Ahmed Always pointing a finger even when you are wrong typical.

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