The Gandhi-King Community
2024-03-29T08:40:15Z
Gondo Mohamed Stéphane
https://gandhiking.ning.com/profile/GondoMohamedStephane
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Gandhi:The movie
tag:gandhiking.ning.com,2016-08-16:2043530:Topic:83690
2016-08-16T12:33:45.347Z
Gondo Mohamed Stéphane
https://gandhiking.ning.com/profile/GondoMohamedStephane
<p><em>Yesterday,I saw Richard Attenborough"s movie,"Gandhi" on our national television.Excellent !!It was released in 1982.Had many Academey awards.Bens Kingsley portrayed Gandhi with great passion.</em></p>
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<p><em>Yesterday,I saw Richard Attenborough"s movie,"Gandhi" on our national television.Excellent !!It was released in 1982.Had many Academey awards.Bens Kingsley portrayed Gandhi with great passion.</em></p>
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Irom Sharmila ENDS her 16 year FAST in just a few hours
tag:gandhiking.ning.com,2016-08-09:2043530:Topic:83823
2016-08-09T00:51:55.256Z
Gondo Mohamed Stéphane
https://gandhiking.ning.com/profile/GondoMohamedStephane
<p align="center" style="text-align: left;">The Fast is a profound weapon in the arsenal of nonviolent action and protest. It was used by Gandhi for two purposes: firstly, deep communion with the indwelling reality within him and all around him, what he called God, and secondly:</p>
<p align="center">“<i><b>I Fasted to reform those who loved me. You cannot Fast against a tyrant.”... The word 'tyrant' and 'lover have also a general application. The one who does an injustice is styled 'tyrant'.…</b></i></p>
<p align="center" style="text-align: left;">The Fast is a profound weapon in the arsenal of nonviolent action and protest. It was used by Gandhi for two purposes: firstly, deep communion with the indwelling reality within him and all around him, what he called God, and secondly:</p>
<p align="center">“<i><b>I Fasted to reform those who loved me. You cannot Fast against a tyrant.”... The word 'tyrant' and 'lover have also a general application. The one who does an injustice is styled 'tyrant'. ... The one who is in sympathy with you is the 'lover'.”</b></i> (Young India, 1.5.1924.)</p>
<p>In just a few short hours, less than a day, perhaps by the time you read this, the iconic champion of human rights in Manipur ends her epic, monumental and resoundingly successful <b>16 year long protest</b> against the senseless violence in Manipur caused by the Armed Forces Special Powers Act of 1958. Her protest took the form of an unending fast, which she described for many years as her 'bounden duty'. She has been charge-sheeted annually for 16 years with attempted suicide and force fed some sort of gruel through a tube in her nose, since November 5<sup>th</sup>, 2000.</p>
<p>She has repeatedly maintained that she was following the footsteps of Gandhi, Father of the Nation, and saw no other recourse given the circumstances she and the people of Manipur are faced with. In a 2007 video interview with Kavita Joshi, she declared, “God helps me.”</p>
<p>Throughout her Fast she has called for a people's response to arise, knowing that her solitary and silenced voice was not enough. One of those people, for the people, she appealed again and again, every moment of every day, through muted suffering, for unified participation in freeing Manipur from violence. She knew the fear and apathy. As her effort garnered international attention and support, Sharmila's fast reached millions of lovers, across the planet.</p>
<p>Truth cuts away our ignorance, and is likened to a razor. Love removes the false perception of distance we hold between us, to feel ourselves for what we really are: members of one planetary life. Love creates an instantaneous and deep concern. It burns in us like fire. Sharmila's protest for many years did both for those who came to know of her.</p>
<p>All Manipuri people know who Irom Sharmila is, and she has the deep respect of almost all of them. Groups of people arose united in response to feeling that call; seemingly powerless people, without title and money. They became lovers who felt they knew her calling. As the years and almost generations wore on, seeing her determination did not wane, feeling it was not possible for a mere human to be so determined, some hailed her their Goddess of Emancipation and Purity. For them, she became the ideal in human flesh. It was a position of idolization that Gandhi also detested, along with the title 'Mahatma'.</p>
<p>Throughout those long years, Sharmila was hauled in front of a local magistrate in Imphal every 2 weeks, literally hundreds of times, to ascertain if she would give up her protest or not. Legally, as an 'attempted suicide' the state can only imprison or hospitalize her for one years duration. Once a year, she was 'free' for a few hours or even days before being re-arrested on suicide charges. Up until July 16<sup>th</sup>, 2016, Sharmila refused to renounce her chosen path.</p>
<p>She was a woman, without title or wealth, without connections to people who would use their title and wealth to support her cause. Manipur knew, but most of the 'outside world' and 'wider India' did not. For so many hard, unbearably hard years, she suffered. We cannot imagine, we are not called, are perhaps not true enough to ourselves, and would not do it. Hence, we idolize.</p>
<p>Yet love is a fire. In 2006, in an historic attempt to draw government leadership attention to her simple demand, as a truly fair-minded and trusting daughter of India, we saw her fly to Delhi on her yearly 'suicide charge reprieve' continuing her Fast at a tomb that holds Gandhi's ashes. The concern showered upon her by people, drew the press, and Shirin Ebadi who happened to be in Delhi. Ebadi fearlessly charged the government with responsibility for Sharmila's death, if her appeal as a person (and prisoner) of conscience was neglected.</p>
<p>Who is Ebadi? A 2003 Nobel Peace Prize recipient from Iran, honoured for her deep and practically expressed concern for the rights of all people, especially women, children, refugees. She was Sharmila's first connection to a person of title and wealth who threw their support behind her. Ebadi's support galvanized international attention to Sharmila's effort, and mushroomed awareness of her around the planet. The United Nations, Amnesty International, and numerous human rights and peace groups have called upon the Indian government to heed her voice. To release her from the jail hospital.</p>
<p>That call for Sharmila's freedom from the hospital ward at the jail in Imphal, was a two edged sword. If she was unconditionally freed, she would, as she had always done, continue her fast. Her lovers wanted her freedom, and at the same time, we needed to know that more food would be going down that tube, that obnoxious tube that has distorts the muscles of her beautiful face, so that she would be fed, she would receive the imprisoned sustenance to keep her silent voice with us all some more time. More time, until something could change. Something.</p>
<p>When I first learned of Irom Sharmila, I was living in an ashram/community in South India. I somehow came across news of her, perhaps it was a newspaper brief on her bi-monthly magistrate appearance. Her use of the Fast, her sincere and prayerful effort to effect change by emulating Mahatma Gandhi immediately drew my attention.</p>
<p>Seeing the tremendous apathy of the press, the sheer inability of governments not only India but the entire world, to acknowledge her (and 16 years is a long time, its been every shade of political party in between, world wide), to feel the frustration of her situation; all who learn about Sharmila are enjoined in that voiceless, choking misery.</p>
<p>Around 2012, as I carefully studied every available photo of her from her visits to court, I noticed she was becoming noticeably frailer. By 2013, I was becoming alarmed. I tried contacting her legal representative in India, and the National Human Rights Commission in India. I spoke of her at talks and held events to further awareness of her in Europe. I felt like a candle in the wind of a cold, cruel indifference, and numbing apathy.</p>
<p>There were times I wished she would just stop. Stop letting them torture her, not give them their mind-drugging satisfaction. When one of us, who is truly true to all of us suffers on our behalf, we feel it.</p>
<p>Some reports have described Sharmila as going for walks, reading and writing, as though she is on a holiday in the hospital ward section of that jail in Manipur. Getting permission to visit her, even to be guaranteed that written communication would reach her, was impossible for many. Only the most 'whos-who-ey' got in. There were no open doors to her and never have been all this time. I wrote, and sent messages to her through several channels. I was incredibly happy to receive a long letter from her, to 'read-hear' her voice, in her own hand. I held it for a long time to my heart. My other messages and packages received no response, I do not know if they reached her.</p>
<p>What does 16 years of near constant isolation do to a person, a person who loves truth, justice, a person who feels for her country people as for her own self, and would willingly take on suffering for their benefit? It does something, we can't pretend it doesn't. Who amongst us cares enough?</p>
<p>Meanwhile Sharmila was also given many awards, some with significant financial attachments. The money allowed the set up of a group to promote her ideas for peace and unity in Manipur society.</p>
<p>Sharmila found the group wasn't working as she wanted and needed. She asked for the group to stop accepting awards in her name. They didn't. She asked for the money to be given entirely to the needy in Manipur and the group closed down. It wasn't.</p>
<p>Enter Desmond Coutinho, 2009. Correspondence between Sharmila and Coutinho began and somehow, their letters and communications got through to each other. That he was allowed to communicate with her when others were not, is itself a question to many. Coutinho boldly declared that he was her chosen spokesperson. He was thrashed. Yet my letter from Sharmila verified many statements he made. Sharmila, living openly and honestly, announced that she had a fiancée. This was met with great perturbation. The group suggested publicly that her mind was not normal.</p>
<p>She asserted publicly that those around her wanted to control her, use the award monies for their own enhancements, in her name, and that people refused to see that she was an ordinary human, like all of us.</p>
<p>Some may see Coutinho as an eccentric mad-cap, a spy sent to derail Sharmila's efforts, but let's be real. Where were those efforts going? How much longer can a human live like this? To what end? A unity in death? or would it be just a sigh?</p>
<p>On July 16, 2016 Sharmila announced she would definitely cease her fast and would now address the issue through electoral processes. By the time you read this, the Goddess of Manipur will have insistently (like Gandhi) stepped down from the throne. Her concern for the people, the suffering lovers still remains.</p>
<p>For us lovers, the torture will be over. She will live! To taste food, see people, share her love, speak to us, laugh with us! She will gather us together in her great heart for a better outcome than seeing her dry up and shrivel unto death before our eyes. Her lovers will be relieved and happy. Those who are disappointed about her decision, will appear to be tyrants.</p>
<p>May all her lovers, all her admirers and well wishers, if they be that, offer her their unconditional support in the new directions she sees for herself in her noble intention, to ease the suffering in Manipur, to help the Manipuri people.</p>
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<p><i>P.K. Willey, Ph.D., University of Connecticut, USA, is the author of several books on Gandhi's Earth ethics, and the role that ethics play in our lives.</i></p>
Dismissing Sharmila in Two Jails: State & People's Goddess Mindset
tag:gandhiking.ning.com,2013-11-11:2043530:Topic:74994
2013-11-11T20:41:43.602Z
Gondo Mohamed Stéphane
https://gandhiking.ning.com/profile/GondoMohamedStephane
<div class="discussion"><div class="description"><div class="xg_user_generated"><p><span>Truth seekers everywhere can only applaud Sharmila's conduct in these recent days. Sharmila is literally a prisoner of two jails: the state which has unjustly criminalized her for standing up against violence perpetrated in its name, and the prison of social concepts and norms of what is appropriate or not, in the minds of supporters around her, who have deified her, against her will.…</span></p>
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<div class="discussion"><div class="description"><div class="xg_user_generated"><p><span>Truth seekers everywhere can only applaud Sharmila's conduct in these recent days. Sharmila is literally a prisoner of two jails: the state which has unjustly criminalized her for standing up against violence perpetrated in its name, and the prison of social concepts and norms of what is appropriate or not, in the minds of supporters around her, who have deified her, against her will.</span></p>
<p><font color="#222222"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Deification of people who use pure and noble means, is a natural tendency in the human breast. There is a universal inner recognition that the truth such people adhere to, is eternal, alone is real, and if need be, worth dying for. In Gandhi's time, world wide, he became identified with the universal ideals that he was wielding in an effort to transform himself and Indian society. Author Pearl S. Buck said of him:</font></font></p>
<blockquote><p><font color="#222222"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font>``The name of Gandhi, even in his lifetime, has passed beyond the meaning of an individual to the meaning of a way of living in our troubled modern world. In the midst of unrestrained and evil force, what for me has been of the greatest significance is the reaffirmation of this way of living. I am glad to be able to say here, upon this page, that Mr. Gandhi’s steady persistence in his chosen way has given me, among millions of others, courage to resist, by that greatest of all resistances, unconquerable, unwavering personal determination, the growth of tyranny in the world.”<a rel="nofollow" class="sdendnoteanc" name="sdendnote1anc" href="http://www.gandhitopia.org/forum/topics/dismissing-sharmila-in-two-jails-state-people-s-goddess-mindset?xg_source=activity#sdendnote1sym" id="sdendnote1anc"><sup>i</sup></a></font></font></font></p>
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<p><font color="#222222"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Gandhi strove mightily to resist the deification that the world put upon him. He was able to keep his personal liberty sharp-edged, for its best purpose – his search for truth. Again and again he rejected the title of Mahatma, and the God-like status which was ascribed to him, by people who superimposed upon him, their own imagination of the pure ideals he followed and confused him with actually being them. Ten days before his death, he again said,</font></font></p>
<blockquote><p><font color="#222222">“<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font>I am not yet a Mahatma. If people call me a Mahatma, what is it to me? I am only an ordinary man.”<a rel="nofollow" class="sdendnoteanc" name="sdendnote2anc" href="http://www.gandhitopia.org/forum/topics/dismissing-sharmila-in-two-jails-state-people-s-goddess-mindset?xg_source=activity#sdendnote2sym" id="sdendnote2anc"><sup>ii</sup></a></font></font></font></p>
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<p><font color="#222222"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">As an independent human being, Sharmila undertook her Fast, in obedience to her conscience. As the days turned into weeks, then months, then years, and now almost 1.5 decades, her personal reason – obedience to the truth within her – has been ursurped by family, supporters, and society, to the point where, she is expected to continue the Fast, no matter what.</font></font></p>
<p><font color="#222222"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">When Sharmila began this effort, she was an unmarried woman, 28 years old. As time wore on, the public imagination began to deify her. She became idealized. Virginal, pure, self-sacrificing. No longer fully human – ½ god, for many. As rumours, fired with imagination, and concepts of ideals grew, watching her effort, she was depicted as a Goddess who has manifested as Sharmila, to save the Manipuri people. IRON IROM!</font></font></p>
<p><font color="#222222"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Now, thats really imaginative! No one saw her like this originally, when she single-mindedly began her effort. Many of her family members permanently deserted her, due to social status reasons then. But her continued unending effort, her inner strength, made this type of imaginative distortion, deification, superimposed upon her, seem justified.</font></font></p>
<p><font color="#222222"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Recently, her brother, Singhajit, seemed to reaffirm his belief that Sharmila's decision to Fast, is no longer hers, but that she is now a symbol of the finest aspirations of the people, which she must serve, saying to her:</font></font></p>
<blockquote><p><font color="#222222">“<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font>The sanctity of the cause that you have taken up, the honour of the land and the prestige of the people are far superior to the interest of the family."<a rel="nofollow" class="sdendnoteanc" name="sdendnote3anc" href="http://www.gandhitopia.org/forum/topics/dismissing-sharmila-in-two-jails-state-people-s-goddess-mindset?xg_source=activity#sdendnote3sym" id="sdendnote3anc"><sup>iii</sup></a></font></font></font></p>
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<p><font color="#222222"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Meanwhile, Sharmila has said again and again, that while she will not give up her effort, she is like all of us. And like all of us, she longs to live a simple normal life, without being punished and criminalized by the state for standing up for love as being the way human beings are supposed to relate to each other. She wants to marry, and enjoy the simple things of life that we all take for granted. Freedom of association, freedom of speech, freedom of movement, being some of the most basic.</font></font></p>
<p><font color="#222222"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Gandhi was able to insistently keep his personal liberty to think and do as he chose. This included experiments with his brahmacharya at one phase in his quest for truth, and testing his own purity. Love wasn't even the issue. Fortunately, no one was hurt or exploited. Later he recognized his folly. But no one mentioned anything about `honor killing' of Gandhi for those acts.</font></font></p>
<p><font color="#222222"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">But for Sharmila?</font></font></p>
<p><font color="#222222"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Our beloved world sister is facing innumerable obstacles. Last month, upon the orders of the Indian Supreme Court, the National Human Rights Commission of India finally went to Manipur and met with Irom Sharmila, other people, and groups. They concluded that Irom Sharmila's basic human rights were being denied, that she was being held and treated as a criminal, when she was not that, but a person in obedience to conscience. They recommended that she be given free access to visitors. The very least that can be done under such circumstances.</font></font></p>
<p><font color="#222222"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">One would hope that such august recommendations would be immediately acted upon. But that is all that has happened so far. Meanwhile, November 5, 2013, Sharmila's 14th year of Fast has begun.</font></font></p>
<p><font color="#222222"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Somewhere around 3 years ago, through correspondence, Sharmila and a man named Desmond Coutinho felt a deep connection, and seem to have fallen in love with one another. Mr. Coutinho pledged his life, and all that he has to her help and cause. He is a social worker, of Indian origins, from UK and Africa. They have never had any sort of normal relationship, Sharmila is a State prisoner, they can at best meet in public courts. Sharmila announced to the world that he was her fiance: the boats began to rock.</font></font></p>
<p><font color="#222222"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Despite the fact that Irom Sharmila has independently taken on the awakening of the people in her prayerful Fast, and has done more than any man in Manipuri history for Peace, for Manipuri society, for which she was regaled as a Goddess, when it came to Coutinho, she is regarded as a woman, who is held subjected to all the culture bound conditioning that area holds. This includes, not being able or allowed to marry or associate with men whom the family disapproves of. Mr. Coutinho is one such association.</font></font></p>
<p><font color="#222222"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">At what age can a woman be allowed to make her own choice? She's 42 now.</font></font></p>
<p><font color="#222222"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Shockingly, just two days ago, on her way to the fortnightly hearing, Sharmila declared to the press and NDTV that those who claimed to be her staunch supporters were threatening to `honour kill' her if she persists in her relationship with Coutinho. Worse, her brother, Singhajit, told the press that:</font></font></p>
<blockquote><p><font color="#222222"> <font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font>"I am a trustee member of the Just Peace Foundation, but let me speak in my capacity as the brother of Sharmila and not as a member of the JPF. </font></font></font></p>
<p><font color="#222222"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font>"As a brother, I had told Sharmila that if her affair with Desmond Coutinho is going to influence her and constrain her to change her stand, then I would be ready to sacrifice my role as a father to my children and spend the rest of my days in jail".<a rel="nofollow" class="sdendnoteanc" name="sdendnote4anc" href="http://www.gandhitopia.org/forum/topics/dismissing-sharmila-in-two-jails-state-people-s-goddess-mindset?xg_source=activity#sdendnote4sym" id="sdendnote4anc"><sup>iv</sup></a></font></font></font></p>
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<p><font color="#222222"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">What does this mean? Is it a threat to Coutinho's life if Sharmila changes her mind about continuing the Fast? Is it a threat to Sharmila's? What is the normal legal proceeding when someone threatens a life? She is gentle. Like Gandhi, doesn't press charges.</font></font></p>
<p><font color="#222222" face="Times New Roman, serif">What is amazing, is that when Sharmila undertook her Fast initially, which was to her DEATH, there was no uproar from society. Her effort was seen to be serving the ideals they all cherished. The message from her supporters seems to be, `<em><strong>We will hold you as a Goddess, whether or not you like it, but, if you step down from the pedestal we insist you stand on, we will kill you.'</strong></em></font></p>
<p><font color="#222222">The Rebelling Reluctant Goddess, is now becoming increasingly dismissed by her</font> <font color="#222222">own</font> <font color="#222222">supporters, publicly, in the press:</font> <font color="#222222">It is alarming to note the new tones coming from</font> <font color="#222222">the</font> <font color="#222222">JPF- the Just Peace Foundation</font><font color="#222222">'s statements about Irom Sharmila.</font> <font color="#222222">In an interview,</font></p>
<blockquote><p><span>``Sharmila also claimed her protest [...] has been hijacked by the very people in-charge of her campaign [the JPF]. The activist says she is not even allowed to donate money from her international prizes to causes like the Uttarakhand flash-floods tragedy.</span></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font>In its defence, the organisation [JPF] says the primary problem is their communication gap, given the restrictions on meeting Irom Sharmila, who is under judicial custody in Manipur. Babloo Loitongbam of the Just Peace Foundation said, “Sometimes there is a tendancy to make a mountain out of a molehill.”<a rel="nofollow" class="sdendnoteanc" name="sdendnote5anc" href="http://www.gandhitopia.org/forum/topics/dismissing-sharmila-in-two-jails-state-people-s-goddess-mindset?xg_source=activity#sdendnote5sym" id="sdendnote5anc"><sup>v</sup></a></font></font></p>
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<p><font face="Times New Roman, serif">What does this mean? Whose tendency? Where? Sharmila's? So, the activist that got all the money for the JPF, which doesn't listen to her about how to use that money; the activist who is insistent on stepping off the Goddess platform in her dedication to truth, and dared to fall in love with a foreigner, is now a hysterical, weak little woman, making mountains out of molehills?</font></p>
<blockquote><p><span>``On Sharmila likening some of the people as the Taliban, Singhajit said it could be due to poor vocabulary on her part. "It was a family issue and blaming CSOs would be out of place and inappropriate," he added.</span><a rel="nofollow" class="sdendnoteanc" name="sdendnote6anc" href="http://www.gandhitopia.org/forum/topics/dismissing-sharmila-in-two-jails-state-people-s-goddess-mindset?xg_source=activity#sdendnote6sym" id="sdendnote6anc"><sup>vi</sup></a></p>
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<p><span>Because she seeks to keep what is left of her personal liberty clear of the webs of false concepts of ideals and imaginations in those around her, her words are now due to her `poor vocabulary', and `out of place' and `inappropriate.'</span></p>
<p><span>We haven't heard these dismissive statements before. Does Sharmila get to refute these charges coming from the second prison?</span></p>
<p><span>Let Sharmila meet Coutinho and get to know him, herself. She's 42 years old. And in so doing, maybe the family will get to know him too. If she breaks the engagement, or decides to marry, its her decision. No one questioned her maturity when she entered the Fast. But now, as the Goddess insistently steps down from the pedestal, her perception of reality is alluded to.</span></p>
<p><font color="#222222">Here in Sweden,</font> <font color="#222222">and many parts of the world,</font> <font color="#222222">there is a rising distaste within the</font> <font color="#222222">general</font> <font color="#222222">population for immigrants coming with feudal mindsets, that would actually consider killing their female family members if they try to have relations or marry outside the fold. There have been several `honour killings', and the fact is, no matter how you</font> <font color="#222222">try to</font> <font color="#222222">wrap your mind around it, to kill someone, to take away their life, their experience on Earth, because you disagree with their views,</font> <font color="#222222">whether by war, or sick concepts of family honour, is inhuman,</font> <font color="#222222">and therefore, truly uncivilised.</font><font color="#222222">Disown if you want, but don't play God.</font></p>
<p><span>The forces for real law and order in India need to get right on this one. India looks more feudal than the stone ages.</span></p>
<p><a rel="nofollow" class="sdendnotesym" name="sdendnote1sym" href="http://www.gandhitopia.org/forum/topics/dismissing-sharmila-in-two-jails-state-people-s-goddess-mindset?xg_source=activity#sdendnote1anc" id="sdendnote1sym">i</a>Willey, P.K. (2010) Earth Ethics of M.K Gandhi with teachings from Holy Mother Amma: an Introduction: 11</p>
<div id="sdendnote2"><p class="sdendnote"><a rel="nofollow" class="sdendnotesym" name="sdendnote2sym" href="http://www.gandhitopia.org/forum/topics/dismissing-sharmila-in-two-jails-state-people-s-goddess-mindset?xg_source=activity#sdendnote2anc" id="sdendnote2sym">ii</a>Ibid: 892.</p>
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<div id="sdendnote3"><p class="sdendnote"><a rel="nofollow" class="sdendnotesym" name="sdendnote3sym" href="http://www.gandhitopia.org/forum/topics/dismissing-sharmila-in-two-jails-state-people-s-goddess-mindset?xg_source=activity#sdendnote3anc" id="sdendnote3sym">iii</a>The Sangai Express. (Friday, November 8, 2013) TSE follows up on Honor Killing Threats Charge. Urs:<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.thesangaiexpress.com/tseitm-32225-tse-follows-up-on-honour-killing-threats-charge/">http://www.thesangaiexpress.com/tseitm-32225-tse-follows-up-on-hono...</a> As seen Nov. 10, 2013.</p>
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<div id="sdendnote4"><p class="sdendnote"><a rel="nofollow" class="sdendnotesym" name="sdendnote4sym" href="http://www.gandhitopia.org/forum/topics/dismissing-sharmila-in-two-jails-state-people-s-goddess-mindset?xg_source=activity#sdendnote4anc" id="sdendnote4sym">iv</a>Ibid.</p>
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<div id="sdendnote5"><p class="sdendnote"><a rel="nofollow" class="sdendnotesym" name="sdendnote5sym" href="http://www.gandhitopia.org/forum/topics/dismissing-sharmila-in-two-jails-state-people-s-goddess-mindset?xg_source=activity#sdendnote5anc" id="sdendnote5sym">v</a>The Sangai Express. (Saturday, November 9, 2013) Faced Honour Threats, says Sharmila. Courtesy, NDTV. Url:<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.thesangaiexpress.com/tseitm-32191-faced-honour-killing-threats-says-sharmila/">http://www.thesangaiexpress.com/tseitm-32191-faced-honour-killing-t...</a> As Seen Nov. 10, 2013.</p>
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<div id="sdendnote6"><p class="sdendnote"><a rel="nofollow" class="sdendnotesym" name="sdendnote6sym" href="http://www.gandhitopia.org/forum/topics/dismissing-sharmila-in-two-jails-state-people-s-goddess-mindset?xg_source=activity#sdendnote6anc" id="sdendnote6sym">vi</a>The Sangai Express. (Friday, November 8, 2013) TSE follows up on Honor Killing Threats Charge.</p>
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Looking for people influenced by Gandhi
tag:gandhiking.ning.com,2013-11-08:2043530:Topic:74905
2013-11-08T16:33:25.784Z
Gondo Mohamed Stéphane
https://gandhiking.ning.com/profile/GondoMohamedStephane
<p>-We are preparing for a documentary film about people influenced by Gandhi across the world: "With Gandhi today".<br></br>-We are looking for people whose life has been influenced by him... Young and not-so-young, with ALL kinds of profiles and backgrounds.<br></br>-Our goal is to show that Gandhi's message is still alive and universal.<br></br>-No need to be a philosophy expert, it is your passion that is important.<br></br>-The director, Joël Calmettes, has already directed about fourrty films... about…</p>
<p>-We are preparing for a documentary film about people influenced by Gandhi across the world: "With Gandhi today".<br/>-We are looking for people whose life has been influenced by him... Young and not-so-young, with ALL kinds of profiles and backgrounds.<br/>-Our goal is to show that Gandhi's message is still alive and universal.<br/>-No need to be a philosophy expert, it is your passion that is important.<br/>-The director, Joël Calmettes, has already directed about fourrty films... about Nelson Mandela, Albert Camus, Nicolas Bouvier, Ahmadou Kourouma, etc<br/>-If you agree to be interviewed, please EMAIL ME your profile and tell me how Gandhi influences your life today: moulbrej@club-internet.fr</p>
<p>If you have any question, don't hesitate to ask.<br/>Thanks in advance for your cooperation<br/>Olivier BREJOUX<br/>Chiloé Productions' website (in french): <a href="http://chiloe.fr/">http://chiloe.fr/</a><br/>Paris, France<br/>moulbrej@club-internet.fr</p>
PEACE --THOU ARE EVERY WHERE
tag:gandhiking.ning.com,2013-09-09:2043530:Topic:74090
2013-09-09T01:13:14.458Z
Gondo Mohamed Stéphane
https://gandhiking.ning.com/profile/GondoMohamedStephane
<p>YOU ARE EVERYWHERE</p>
<p>YOU twinkle in my memory like stars,<br/> You falls from my eyes in the shape of drops,<br/>
You comes to me as unforgotten dream,<br/>
You are string of invisible relationship,<br/>
You have your presence on my life`s board,<br/>
You are source of happiness and sadness,<br/>
You are not here and there,<br/>
You are everywhere.</p>
<p>© A POEM BY DR. RAM SHARMA, INDIA</p>
<p>YOU ARE EVERYWHERE</p>
<p>YOU twinkle in my memory like stars,<br/> You falls from my eyes in the shape of drops,<br/>
You comes to me as unforgotten dream,<br/>
You are string of invisible relationship,<br/>
You have your presence on my life`s board,<br/>
You are source of happiness and sadness,<br/>
You are not here and there,<br/>
You are everywhere.</p>
<p>© A POEM BY DR. RAM SHARMA, INDIA</p>
peace
tag:gandhiking.ning.com,2013-09-09:2043530:Topic:74008
2013-09-09T01:11:21.455Z
Gondo Mohamed Stéphane
https://gandhiking.ning.com/profile/GondoMohamedStephane
<p>WHERE IS PEACE</p>
<p>WHERE IS PEACE<br/> What heavy storms of hate,<br/>
blow out the lamps of civilization,<br/>
bullets are ruthlessly sprayed,<br/>
over innocent human beings,<br/>
who ooze blood with heart rendering cries,<br/>
skulls and skeletons of war hit men,<br/>
heave a sigh- they were killed for no offence<br/>
where is peace--<br/>
nowhere---<br/>
dr. ram sharma</p>
<p>WHERE IS PEACE</p>
<p>WHERE IS PEACE<br/> What heavy storms of hate,<br/>
blow out the lamps of civilization,<br/>
bullets are ruthlessly sprayed,<br/>
over innocent human beings,<br/>
who ooze blood with heart rendering cries,<br/>
skulls and skeletons of war hit men,<br/>
heave a sigh- they were killed for no offence<br/>
where is peace--<br/>
nowhere---<br/>
dr. ram sharma</p>
poem on PEACE
tag:gandhiking.ning.com,2013-09-09:2043530:Topic:74177
2013-09-09T01:07:31.942Z
Gondo Mohamed Stéphane
https://gandhiking.ning.com/profile/GondoMohamedStephane
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<td bgcolor="#FFFFCC"><p><font color="#29425A" size="2">Dr. ram Sharma, India</font></p>
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<tbody><tr><td bgcolor="#FFFFCC"><p><font color="#29425A" size="2">WAR AND PEACE…</font></p>
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<td bgcolor="#FFFFCC"><p><font color="#29425A" size="2">Dr. ram Sharma, India</font></p>
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<tr><td bgcolor="#FFFFCC" height="34" valign="top"><font color="#29425A" size="2">Poem</font></td>
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<tbody><tr><td bgcolor="#FFFFCC"><p><font color="#29425A" size="2">WAR AND PEACE</font></p>
<p><font color="#29425A" size="2">WAR AND PEACE<br/>Thinking about the war,first,<br/>Think white coloured birds in the sky,<br/>Look at the silent blue sky,<br/>Touch the green flowerful trees,<br/>Thinking about the war,<br/>Look towards the clouds,<br/>Feel the fragrance of flowers,<br/>Feel the humanity within yourself,<br/>Think about love,<br/>Think about peace</font></p>
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Irom Sharmila: Growing Moral Power of a Real Satyagrahi
tag:gandhiking.ning.com,2013-06-06:2043530:Topic:71044
2013-06-06T17:23:26.798Z
Gondo Mohamed Stéphane
https://gandhiking.ning.com/profile/GondoMohamedStephane
<p></p>
<div class="media_embed"><a href="http://tinypic.com/?ref=qrkw3q" target="_blank"><img alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic" border="0" class="align-center" src="http://i40.tinypic.com/qrkw3q.jpg"></img></a></div>
<p> </p>
<p>India's daughter, Irom Sharmila, is a truly stellar student of Mahatma Gandhi's teachings and principles.</p>
<p class="western">Her method of application is unique to her, and is a purer effort than anything the face of the Earth has seen in known centuries.</p>
<p class="western">It is the great love inside this World Sister that calls out to the love in those who are…</p>
<p></p>
<div class="media_embed"><a href="http://tinypic.com/?ref=qrkw3q" target="_blank"><img alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic" border="0" src="http://i40.tinypic.com/qrkw3q.jpg" class="align-center"/></a></div>
<p> </p>
<p>India's daughter, Irom Sharmila, is a truly stellar student of Mahatma Gandhi's teachings and principles.</p>
<p class="western">Her method of application is unique to her, and is a purer effort than anything the face of the Earth has seen in known centuries.</p>
<p class="western">It is the great love inside this World Sister that calls out to the love in those who are denying that love and truth are the core of our beings, who pretend through arrogance that love is not who and what we are. It is this love that has inspired her to undertake the spontaneous and natural response of the Fast to gross human violations of our one shared heart, to the pretence and denial of our inescapable inner knowing that love is the most important thing we will ever experience here, in our lives on this Earth. And thus began her monumental Satyagraha.</p>
<p class="western">Minnie Vaid, who recently published a book called <em>Two Journeys</em>, that included her own work, and the <em>Birth</em>poem of Irom Sharmila, had this to say of meeting someone in whom moral power stands supreme:</p>
<blockquote><p class="western">“The first impression was of her frailty, she is quite tiny and slim, the first thing you notice is the tube in her nose….once she starts talking and maintains an inflexible stand backed by tremendous faith in God, you realize she is far far from frail….the term ‘Iron Lady’ is absolutely ap<font color="#211F1F"><font face="Merriweather, serif"><font size="2"><span><span>t.”</span></span></font></font></font></p>
<p class="western">“I would describe Sharmila thus: incredible courage and determination, inflexible will, she does not care if others support her or not, she continues her fast undeterred. More than the hunger issue or missing food and water, she has managed to remain calm and composed, with a stable mind in the face of terrifying loneliness. She is not allowed friends and visitors unless they get official permission so she largely leads a solitary life.” (From interview by Chintan Girish Modi <font color="#999999"><font face="Merriweather, serif"><font size="2"><span><span><a href="http://thealternative.in/inclusivity/interview-with-minnie-vaid/">http://thealternative.in/inclusivity/interview-with-minnie-vaid/</a>)</span></span></font></font></font></p>
</blockquote>
<p class="western">A successful satyagraha campaign has several distinct phases. the basics are: the confrontation with injustice; the call to truth - in Irom's case, through the use of the Fast as a prayer to Truth; resistance and suppression of that call to truth, in which we see in her being jailed, silenced and forcefed for the last 13 years; and then, as the sheer will of the resistor of injustice grinds on and their moral power becomes undeniable in the minds of the oppressors also, finally meaningful dialogue begins.</p>
<p class="western">This is the power of Satyagraha, clinging to Truth. At a certain point, the scales tip, and the wrong doer begins to seek to make amends, as either their personal conscience is pricking, or the power of public opinion forces them to acknowledge the call to truth, see the injustice, and work to right the wrong. Everyone ultimately prefers to be on the winning side, especially if in politics.</p>
<p class="western">The way of the Satyagrahi is found in the inner chambers of the heart. It is the path of obedience to conscience and Truth. Gandhi sought to keep the ethical ideal high in the minds of those who would offer Satyagraha.</p>
<blockquote><p class="western">[These] are hints to the Satyagrahis that they must appeal to God alone. The courts of this world cannot help them. How can they? The courts of a blind king must also be blind. This does not mean that the officers of the court—the judges—were blind. But there can be no other result when the officers administer an unjust law. Therefore, a Satyagrahi’s appeal lies to his own strength, to his faith in God, and his God given strength. These will never fail him.</p>
</blockquote>
<p class="western">Gandhi recognized that women have ample stores of moral strength, more than men, given by the Creator to<i>guide</i> mankind. He saw that women's participation to reform society would ensure purity in clinging to Ahimsa – Love. Gandhi put more reliance upon women as Satyagrahis than men.</p>
<blockquote><p class="western">“For the courage of self-sacrifice woman is any day superior to man as I believe man is to woman for courage of the brute.”</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote><p class="western"> “I would love to find that my future army contained a vast preponderance of women over men. If the fight came, I should then approach it with much greater confidence than if men predominated. I would dread the latter’s violence. Women would be my guarantee against such an outbreak.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p class="western">Irom Sharmila, scion of true strength, and queen of patience, has, for 13 years put in a universal call to all consciences. All that is happening to remove AFSPA from India, is in many ways, tied to her unending effort. As the prayer of her Fast is heard, and recognition of her moral power spreads, meaningful dialogue is the first phase of winning compromise.</p>
<p class="western">This dialogue is happening now in more and more circles of governance.</p>
<p class="western">Whether we like it or not, we are subject to the laws of our country. To change the law takes many efforts, all at once. The biggest force, is demonstrable public unity, for governance is ultimately, to be of and for the people, and cannot govern without their consent. Barring that, extreme strenuous efforts by individuals, such as Irom Sharmila, hold out the ideal before people, and scrape our conscience. As more people respond to the touch of that ideal, dialogue, protest, and public unity supporting truth begins. When dialogue reaches a certain point of reciprocity, change occurs. This has been happening with greater and greater momentum in Manipur and Kashmir, two places under tremendous distress from the AFSPA act.</p>
<p class="western">There have been some encouraging developments, we are beginning to hear a language of dialogue and responsiblity in the media regarding AFSPA.</p>
<p class="western">On May 29th, Human Rights Alert and Asian Legal Resource Center went to the UN in Geneva, and, as a side event, held meetings with evidence that supported the report of the UN Special Rapporteur Manjoo on the atrocities of AFSPA and civilian justice in Manipur. </p>
<p class="western">Along with this, an Association of Victim's Families in Manipur took a list of over 1500 people who have been unjustly killed by AFSPA to the Supreme Court of India, demanding governmental accountability. The Supreme Court appointed a committee to see if the list was true, and found that it is true. The finding demands action.</p>
<p><a href="http://tinypic.com/?ref=34pl0zd" target="_blank"><img alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic" border="0" src="http://i43.tinypic.com/34pl0zd.jpg"/></a>On June 4th the Chief Minister of Kashmir, Omar Abdullah, which is also under AFSPA, met with the Prime Minister of India:</p>
<blockquote><p class="western"><font color="#000000"><font face="Lucida Grande, Lucida, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif"><font size="2"><font size="2"><b>New Delhi, June 05 2013:</b></font> Making a strong pitch for phased removal of the controversial Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah today asked the Centre to set in motion a mechanism which could guide in repealing of the act from the state.</font></font></font></p>
<p class="western">"I am of the firm belief that all outstanding issues, however, contentious they may be, can be resolved through a process of sustained and sincere dialogue.</p>
</blockquote>
<p class="western">[Bold Italics Ed.'s.from: <a href="http://e-pao.net/GP.asp?src=10..060613.jun13">http://e-pao.net/GP.asp?src=10..060613.jun13</a>]</p>
<div class="media_embed"> </div>
<div class="media_embed">When power learns to talk with respect for the voices that power would rather ignore, the first steps to establishing democracy, justice and equitable society are made.</div>
<p class="western">We must keep up our optimistic faith that Irom Sharmila's efforts will be rewarded; hers are efforts for humanity in all of us to be honoured. We cannot lose her, we cannot let her cause wane.</p>
<p class="western"> </p>
<p class="western">with love in service to truth, </p>
<p class="western">Aunty Kamala</p>
Three Views of Irom Sharmila, the Greatest Gandhian of our Century
tag:gandhiking.ning.com,2013-05-07:2043530:Topic:69479
2013-05-07T17:06:13.379Z
Gondo Mohamed Stéphane
https://gandhiking.ning.com/profile/GondoMohamedStephane
<p></p>
<p>Anyone who respects Gandhi will be deeply interested in the selfless effort of Irom Sharmila. It is internationally recognized that even Gandhi could not have physically borne with the torture of nearly 13 years of force feeding and politically forced silence. </p>
<p>It is difficult to get information about Irom Sharmila other than news reports of her few words caught on her way to and from the fortnightly hearings in Imphal. Very few people are allowed to meet her, no matter…</p>
<p></p>
<p>Anyone who respects Gandhi will be deeply interested in the selfless effort of Irom Sharmila. It is internationally recognized that even Gandhi could not have physically borne with the torture of nearly 13 years of force feeding and politically forced silence. </p>
<p>It is difficult to get information about Irom Sharmila other than news reports of her few words caught on her way to and from the fortnightly hearings in Imphal. Very few people are allowed to meet her, no matter who you are, as the recent rejection of the UN Special Rapporteur's request demonstrates. </p>
<p>These are three views of Irom Sharmila that my research on her is pulling up. The first, is by Soma Chaudhury, takes place in 2006. She points to the power filling Irom Sharmila, which Soma calls, `a moral force.'</p>
<p class="western">The second is by her first biographer, Deepti Mehrotra, in 2008. In Deepti's meetings with Irom Sharmila, Irom mentioned, and then gave her a 1000 stanza poem she had written, called Rebirth. If you know where it can be ordered from please reply on the comment.</p>
<p class="western">The third is by soniasarkar26, a blogger, who met Irom Sharmila in 2010, she gives a brief biograhical account of issues, and was the one to whom Irom publicly disclosed that she has a beloved, a fiance, and plans to marry<em>after </em>her mission is completed.</p>
<p class="western"> </p>
<p class="western"><strong>1. By Soma Chaudhury Tehelka (India magazine) December 9, 2006</strong></p>
<p class="western"><a href="http://archive.tehelka.com/story_main23.asp?filename=Ne120906The_unlikely_CS.asp">http://archive.tehelka.com/story_main23.asp?filename=Ne120906The_unlikely_CS.asp</a></p>
<p class="western">An 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?</p>
<p class="western">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.</p>
<p class="western"> </p>
<div class="media_embed"><div class="media_embed"><a href="http://tinypic.com/?ref=5exw8p" target="_blank"><img alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic" border="0" src="http://i44.tinypic.com/5exw8p.jpg"/></a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p class="western">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.</p>
<p class="western">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”.</p>
<p class="western">Yet we have remained oblivious to it. The Indian State has remained oblivious to it.</p>
<p class="western"> </p>
<p class="western"><strong>2. By Deepti Priya Mehrotra in <em>InfoChange News & Features,</em> April 2008 :</strong></p>
<p>The first time I met Irom Sharmila, in early-November 2006, she was reading a book on Japanese folk stories. Subsequently, we discussed books whenever we met -- Buddhist texts, Manipuri poetry, the newspapers, Che Guevara’s Motorcycle Diaries, Swami Rama’s Mystics of the Himalayas... I lent her Chinua Achebe and Greek mythology, and she spoke about her poems, saying: “I write long poems -- some 400 lines, one 600 lines.” </p>
<p class="western">In February 2008 she said she wanted to return to Imphal and, once alone, write a poem of at least 1,000 lines. “It will be about what I have seen and experienced of life, of our society,” she said.</p>
<p class="western"> </p>
<div class="media_embed"><a href="http://tinypic.com/?ref=334ulbq" target="_blank"><img alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic" border="0" src="http://i40.tinypic.com/334ulbq.jpg"/></a></div>
<p> </p>
<p class="western">Irom Sharmila left New Delhi for Manipur on March 4, 2007, and was arrested a few hours after her arrival in Imphal. She was remanded to judicial custody on March 7, 2008, for a year.</p>
<p class="western">Permission to visit her in hospital in Imphal is not easily granted. When I made a trip to Imphal in April 2007, her brother, Irom Singhjit, ran around trying to get me permission to visit her. A jail escort came in with us. </p>
<p class="western">For six weeks, nobody had been allowed to meet her. Her face broke into a delighted smile when she saw us: she proffered a little notebook, saying: “I have completed writing the poem! It is a poem of one thousand and ten lines!” On my request, she read out the first page of the poem, and translated it. Called<em><strong> Rebirth,</strong></em> it reflects on the frailty of the human body, and the reason we are sent here, to exist between birth and death. </p>
<p class="western">Irom Sharmila is philosophical, thoughtful and determined she will not eat until AFSPA is repealed. Not a single morsel of food, or even a drop of water, has passed through her lips since November 4, 2000 -- a period of nearly 90 months. Stoic, friendly, and completely committed, Sharmila is a unique rebel....</p>
<p class="western">Yet, Sharmila continues to languish in jail. Her grandmother Irom Tonsija Devi, who provided much of her early inspiration, died on March 1, 2008 at the age of 105. She had not met her beloved granddaughter for over seven years. Neither has Sharmila’s mother Irom Sakhi Devi, although she often passes by the hospital, located barely a kilometre from their humble home. Unshed tears shining in her eyes, Sakhi Devi says: “I feel I will go mad sometimes.” </p>
<p class="western">Sharmila Irom one day said: “The day the Act is withdrawn I will eat rice from my mother’s hands.” Physically isolated, her body frail, Sharmila’s spirit remains as strong as ever. Tucked away in a state geographically and culturally remote from the capital, she nonetheless poses a powerful challenge to the impunity and high-handedness of State power.</p>
<p class="western">Deepti Priya Mehrotra is a Delhi-based writer. Her book on <strong><em>Irom Sharmila: Burning Bright </em></strong>was published by Penguin in 2008.</p>
<p class="western"> </p>
<p class="western">3. <strong>By Soniasarkar26 <a href="http://soniasarkar26.wordpress.com/tag/irom-sharmila/">http://soniasarkar26.wordpress.com/tag/irom-sharmila/</a> </strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p></p>
<p class="western"> In 2010, Sharmila’s silent protest completed a decade. Curious to know what makes the Iron Lady of Manipur, as she is popularly known, this resilient, I had sought an appointment with her. Permission, however, was not easily granted. The request moved from one sarkari office to the other for nearly two months. Finally, I was allowed to meet her on December 20, 2010. Knowing well that even celebrated writer and activist Mahasweta Devi was denied permission, I considered myself lucky.</p>
<p class="western"> </p>
<div>Before I met her, I had sketched an image of Sharmila in my mind by reading various newspaper reports that featured her struggle, her pain and her plight. They had made her look gloomy and exhausted. But my perception changed the moment I got the first glimpse of her when I lifted the green curtains of the ward for under-trials needing medical attention at Imphal’s Jawaharlal Nehru Hospital. She looked frail but cheerful and welcomed me with a wide smile as I walked into the room. Her freshly washed hair smelled of a familiar brand of shampoo. The shiny wet curls of her hair were carelessly playing on her forehead. She looked calm and unencumbered, the fairness of her skin heightened by the pink top that she was wearing.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Strange though it may sound but of all things, we started talking about food. “As a child, I loved eating. After finishing my own meal, I used to eat off others’ plates. My mother often scolded me for this. It is an irony that my struggle is related to food – though it’s about not eating,” Sharmila had said. She spoke haltingly in English. Her voice was frail.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Born on March 14, 1972 in Kongpal Kongham Leikei in the east of Imphal, Sharmila loved eating freshly plucked raw vegetables – peas, cabbage and red spinach. Her other love was pastries.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>In fact, a night before she started her fast, she bought two packets of pastries and cakes from a local bakery. “ I ate all of them to fill my stomach, and vowed that it is my last day of eating. I totally surrendered myself to God,” she recalled. Her fast was triggered by the Malom massacre of November 2, 2000, in which 10 people were killed by security forces on the outskirts of the capital Imphal. She consciously chose to fast because all other forms of protest such as demonstrations or strike would harm others unlike fasting that could harm only her, and not anyone else.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>A day after she began fasting, the cops had charged her with the attempt to suicide under section 309 of Indian Penal Code (IPC) and had put her in Imphal’s Sajiwa jail. Two and a half months later, she was shifted to the hospital, where she has been nose-fed thrice every day – at 10am, 2pm and 9 pm- since then.“I don’t feel hungry. The liquid diet keeps my stomach full,” she had said. The plastic tube through which she is fed was hanging close to her neck, but that has become a part of her body in these many years.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>In 2004, Human Rights Alert (HRA), a collective of lawyers moved the Supreme Court (SC) to remove the charges against her as her intentions were not commit suicide. The SC had then asked them to file the case in Gauhati High Court in Manipur, which a year later ordered her release. But then the court was silent on whether such charges should be removed or not. Later, in 2006, Irom Sharmila’s supporters brought her to Delhi to pressurise the Centre to repeal AFSPA but it was all in vain. After being moved from one government hospital to another for six months, she was later forced to go back to Imphal. Every year, she is released for a day in March only to be arrested the next day and sent back to the hospital.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>The youngest of nine siblings, Sharmila grew up a lonely child. She raised chickens, sold their eggs and donated the money to a local blind school. Never academically inclined, Sharmila joined a vocational course for shorthand, typing and journalism after school. Before she went on a hunger strike, Sharmila also wrote columns in a local newspaper and worked in a non-governmental organisation. She had often joined demonstrations when protests spilled out on the streets, mostly revolving around army actions against civilians.She was close to her brother, Irom Singhajit, nearest to her in age. With their parents busy running their grocery shop when she was a child, it was Singhajit who took care of her. Their mother’s breast milk had dried up when Sharmila was born, so Singhajit would take his little sister to other mothers in the neighbourhood who breastfed her. In exchange, he did their household work.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Even today, Singhajit is by her side. He left his job as an agricultural officer in an NGO to garner support for his sister’s struggle. “He is like a guardian to me,” she told me. Sharmila, who is now seen as a symbol of resistance in India, stressed that she inherited her willpower from her grandmother, Irom Tonsija Devi. Tonsija Devi, who died in 2007, was a part of the 1939 Nupi Lan movement–a war women waged against the export of rice by the king, Maharaja Churachand, and the British government. “My grandmother was illiterate but she had great knowledge of politics and economics,” Sharmila had said,sitting on the bed in her hospital room.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Her room was full of gifts– a wind chime, presented by a filmmaker who directed a short film on her, a red and white Assamese gamcha, a gift from a photographer, and a statue of Meera Bai, given to her by another nurse, were a few among them. She said that most of her time was spent in doing yoga and writing poetry. Two years back, Zubaan had published 12 of her poems in a volume called <em>‘Fragrance of Peace’</em>. Books were lying heaped on an iron cot in the room. I had spotted a Khushwant Singh, a Kahlil Gibran and a Chetan Bhagat in the pile of books. “Most of these books have been gifted to me by my lover,” she said shyly.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>This was the first I had heard of a man in her life as before this, I had never heard or read any reference to her love relationship. Initially I hesitated to ask more but Sharmila was clearly keen to talk about him. “His name is Desmond Coutinho,” she said. A Britisher based in Kerala, he got to know about Sharmila after he read ‘Burning Bright’, a 2009 book on the Manipuri struggle written by Deepti Priya Mehrotra. “He wrote me a letter after he read the book. We have been exchanging letters since then,” she said smilingly.</div>
<div><div class="media_embed"><a href="http://tinypic.com/?ref=34ikbiv" target="_blank"><img alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic" border="0" src="http://i42.tinypic.com/34ikbiv.jpg"/></a></div>
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<div>Pointing her long skinny fingers at the plants – Chinese evergreen and ponytail, surrounding her bed, she had told me,“These are my friends. I water them, and tell them about my feelings for him.”</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Minutes later, she had asked me if I could call him. I was a bit confused about what to say at the moment but couldn’t refuse her. I rang up a number that she remembered by heart. As I got to talk to Coutinho, Sharmila, like a teenager in love, had asked me to tell him that she loved him. Coutinho expressed similar emotions for her and said, “Please tell her that I want to come and see her, but I am yet to get the permission.”</div>
<div> </div>
<div>In another few minutes, we hung up. And then I suddenly noticed Sharmila, her smiling face turning pale. She immediately covered her face with a book. I noticed tears in her eyes. “I miss him. I want them to grant him permission soon,” she told me. Two years later, the permission has not yet been granted. But Coutinho had met her in the court in March last year while Sharmila was being produced before the judiciary – an annual ritual before she gets released for a day. However, Sharmila’s supporters beat him up because they do not approve of the idea of Sharmila having a romantic relationship with a Briton.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Despite such hurdles, their love for each other hasn’t faded away. “I fully intend to return to Manipur to marry Sharmila and I will live and die for her. I do not see any other end for us,” Desmond told me in a recent conversation.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>He had gifted her a wooden statue of the two legendary lovers, Krishna and Radha.“He says that he’s Lord Krishna, and I am his Radha,” Sharmila said. As a young woman, she used to ride a bike and had never behaved in a “stereotyped” manner in her younger days, her mother told me. But now, she has started talking of desires that any woman of “marriageable” age would do. “I want to get married. I want to be free,” she told me. “But,” she stressed, “after my demand is met.”</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Do you have stories of Irom Sharmila from people who have met her? Please send or post here! Thanking you!</div>
What is Your View of Spirituality?
tag:gandhiking.ning.com,2013-03-27:2043530:Topic:69100
2013-03-27T13:30:56.841Z
Gondo Mohamed Stéphane
https://gandhiking.ning.com/profile/GondoMohamedStephane
<p></p>
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<p class="western"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><strong><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia, palatino;">Duty is action towards Truth, and Truth is God. </span></strong></em></span></p>
<p class="western"><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia, palatino;">That to me is the root of what I hold to be spirituality. I think this discussion is important, if only to make us pause and reflect on what we really…</span></p>
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<p class="western"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><strong><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;" class="font-size-4">Duty is action towards Truth, and Truth is God. </span></strong></em></span></p>
<p class="western"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;" class="font-size-4">That to me is the root of what I hold to be spirituality. I think this discussion is important, if only to make us pause and reflect on what we really prioritize and ethically value in life.</span></p>
<p class="western"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;" class="font-size-4">Duty to me, is a righteous path, and known through our conscience. It is the actions that we perform towards actualizing truth.</span></p>
<p class="western"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;" class="font-size-4">In our conscience, we touch the moral laws that govern us as a whole, as one human family. Our conscience serves as our own faucet, our own way to tap the universal well of our inescapable Oneness. And it is there that we experience and know our true equality with one another. For we are not these bodies made of clay – we are the activating FIRE, the life within them!</span></p>
<p class="western"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;" class="font-size-4">If we look behind every duty that we conceive, we see an ideal. These ideals are found in our hearts, what we deeply cherish as being important for us all. Peace. Love. Compassion. Justice. Honesty. Fearlessness. When we contemplate our ideal, the means to do our duty becomes clarified. Through our conscience, we guide ourselves in our walk towards actualizing these ideals in our lives. A dutiful Mother. A dutiful Wife, and dutiful Father, dutiful Husband. A dutiful son and daughter.</span></p>
<p class="western"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;" class="font-size-4">There is the duty of a true friend, and that of a disciple, a student. Of an employee, and a boss, a nurse, doctor, teacher, garbage collector, store clerk... In every relationship conceivable, it is bound, defined, known, through duty.</span><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;" class="font-size-4"><br/></span></p>
<p class="western"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;" class="font-size-4">Even things have a duty, a dharma, a righteous path. When the children were small, as we cleaned the house, I would explain the importance of keeping things in order: the role of the rug is to lie clean and flat. It's maker put a fringe on it, so that that fringe would also add to its beauty, so following the intention of the maker, we know how to treat the rug...duty can be known and described in so many ways.</span></p>
<p class="western"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;" class="font-size-4">The Home can be our greatest teacher of Duty, of Art and Beauty. Of all ethical qualities. It is when the family unit is impregnated with the love of duty, as Oriental family life is, that society moves with more functionality. I say Oriental, as family members, in the ideal held, cooperate selflessly to serve one another, working as a united entity. Of course, there are many public exceptions, particularly in the millions that are now embracing a consumer lifestyle. But in the norm, in the poorer people, in rural life, I have seen it is so. I know of many, large extended families, living together, as One. Imagine the joy of being with 30+ people, that love and support each other fully! In such a grouping, life is centred around loving, and therefore, happiness.</span></p>
<p class="western"></p>
<p class="western"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;" class="font-size-4">We hear of it now, with the famous Arab hospitality, extended to the guest entering the wretched shacks of the Iraqi people. Their society and country has been decimated by the US war upon them for the last decade. Yet, where the family unit has kept itself intact, they are not destroyed, despite very heavy loses.</span></p>
<p class="western"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;" class="font-size-4">In the Orient, we see elder sons, desperately concerned as to how to fulfil their dutiful obligations to parents and family economically, when they are older. Again and again, we see and hear, and read of older sons who went to labor in the work force in humble positions, so that younger siblings could have the benefit and advantages of formal schooling. They sacrificed their self interest , to create personal careers in society, in the dutiful responsibility to those younger than them for a lifetime. This is a very common story and phenomenon that I have seen in India and also among many African families. It was in the Occident before heavy industrialisation and the turning of society and individuals in competitive market strategies.</span></p>
<p class="western"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;" class="font-size-4">We cannot deny that in the Occident, with the socialized and deliberate break down of the family unit, by and large – and there are of course many extended families there as well, but - by and large - in the ideal held, it's each man or woman for himself, or maybe one or two with them, the rest be damned. In such a society, life becomes centred around the individuals' climb to material acquisition, power, and/or acclaim in the eyes of others, or, to the individual's personal right to their own career and lifestyle. This has brought about an extreme imbalance in our personal lives which subsequently has made our social lives chaotic.</span></p>
<p class="western"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;" class="font-size-4">Holy Mother Amma noted:</span></p>
<blockquote><p class="western"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;" class="font-size-4">``Human beings are supposed to be highly evolved. Even animals have discipline in their lives. A lion will never eat grass. A deer or an elephant will not eat meat. They do not change their instinctual routine, but human beings will do anything indiscriminately. We misuse our freedom of choice. If we do not live up to our intended purpose of spiritual evolution and act accordingly, but instead act in an undisciplined and immature way, we are undoubtedly worse than animals. If we continue to act in an undisciplined way, it will only help pave the way for our destruction.”<a class="sdendnoteanc" name="sdendnote1anc" href="#sdendnote1sym" id="sdendnote1anc"><sup>i</sup></a></span></p>
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<p class="western"></p>
<p class="western"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;" class="font-size-4">Gandhi said that Rights follow Duty. And Rights without Duty, are empty. He said,</span></p>
<blockquote><p class="western"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;" class="font-size-4">``The true source of rights is duty. If we all discharge our duties, rights will not be far to seek. If leaving duties unperformed we run after rights, they escape us like a `will-o'-the wisp'. The more we pursue them, the father they fly...action is duty: fruit is its right.”<a class="sdendnoteanc" name="sdendnote2anc" href="#sdendnote2sym" id="sdendnote2anc"><sup>ii</sup></a></span></p>
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<p class="western"></p>
<p class="western"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;" class="font-size-4">In the Occident, we rely on government to take responsibility for our handicapped, orphaned, mentally challenged, ill, blind, deaf, maimed and elderly. Peter Maurin, of the Catholic Worker Movement in the US, begun in the 1930's foresaw the dangerous dehumanizing effects for human beings and community life, when abdicating responsibility towards one another and giving it to the government, through taxes. Life itself and time, become meaningful only as money. We are at the screeching apex of this form of society now, and what do we have?</span></p>
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<p class="western"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;" class="font-size-4">It is because many try to do their duty to the extent that they do, all over the world, that society functions at all.</span></p>
<p class="western"></p>
<p class="western"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;" class="font-size-4">I do feel that this selflessness, dutiful responsibility, is something we all have to learn more about. </span></p>
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<p class="western"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;" class="font-size-4">This to me is spirituality. </span></p>
<p class="western"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;" class="font-size-4">This to me, is real worship, is sadhana.</span></p>
<p class="western"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;" class="font-size-4">I am not interested in much else. Not asanas or skill in holding different postures, or breathing and breath holding techniques, or rituals of chanting and hours spent in meditation, not scripture spouting and scholarship, but the constant inner reflection on duty, its manifestation in our lives, and response to it. </span></p>
<p class="western"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;" class="font-size-4">What passes today as spirituality, with techniques galore, and expensive retreats, jewellery and clothes, morning and evening rituals, eating nor not eating this or that, and all kinds of stuff, is to me, mere fluff, if the central focus on duty is absent. </span></p>
<p class="western"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;" class="font-size-4">I do see some ritualized behaviours prescribed, some various techniques taught, as useful to learning to control the mind, to focus our energies to open our heart to see duty clearly, and to that extent valuable. </span></p>
<p class="western"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;" class="font-size-4">But, I see these prescriptions as a universal phenomenon, and cannot hold one as superior or inferior to another: The Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Bahai, (even atheist friends, and schools in science have found and devised means) - all the methods of gaining self-control and cultivating awareness and love of God, which is truth and righteousness, through duty are equally relevant to me. </span></p>
<p class="western"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;" class="font-size-4">I love the Christian compassion in action. I love the garlanding of one's beloved deity in Hindu Temples and intensely deep psychology and refined sciences – that have become a way of life - everything about Sanathana Dharma. I love the practice of Namaz, remembering 5 x a day, that we are all equally ignorant, sustained solely by a love and truth whose conception is beyond us; I love the ethics I find in Judaism; the well-presented psychology and meditation techniques of Buddhism; the far-thought out self-control in reverence and respect for all life found in Jainism. I love the brotherhood and righteous community responsibility found in Sikhism; the universal teachings and new spiritual administration model found in Bahai, which will, most certainly become universally adopted, for its degree of equality, genuine respect for the individual, and community encompassing caringness...I love the hard stance of my atheist friends who still hold the same God as me, truth, though they see it not, I am always pleased when science proves what I have been hearing Holy Mother Amma say, and what I have found in the truthful ethics and teachings of other faiths, and know to be so from my own intuition and experience.</span></p>
<p class="western"></p>
<p class="western"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;" class="font-size-4">But for myself, I like what Tagore said,</span></p>
<blockquote><p class="western"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;" class="font-size-4">``I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I woke and found that life was duty. I acted, and behold, duty is joy."</span></p>
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<p class="western"></p>
<p class="western"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;" class="font-size-4">My mother, who was Indian, kept this up in our home while we were growing up in the USA. I read it daily. It is very important that children be surrounded by truly meaningful and beautiful things while they are growing. That alone may save them, when horrendous pressures come to bear upon them.</span></p>
<p class="western"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;" class="font-size-4">We underestimate what pressure is. Its quite an internal matter! Holy Mother Amma once commented that very few can survive, many collapse from the pressure of: ``Your so handsome, so Brilliant.” flatteries. This comment was for those seeking to follow a course of personal conduct that leads to the realization of Truth. And should not we all be doing so?</span></p>
<p class="western"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;" class="font-size-4">For me, duty and beauty, are seen in each other, for duty is our actions towards truth, and truth is what is really beautiful.</span></p>
<p class="western"></p>
<div id="sdendnote1"><p class="sdendnote-western"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;" class="font-size-4"><a class="sdendnotesym" name="sdendnote1sym" href="#sdendnote1anc" id="sdendnote1sym">i</a> Amritanandamayi, Mata. Awaken Children: 3: 151. M.A. Mission Trust, Kollam, Kerala</span></p>
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<div id="sdendnote2"><p class="sdendnote-western"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;" class="font-size-4"><a class="sdendnotesym" name="sdendnote2sym" href="#sdendnote2anc" id="sdendnote2sym">ii</a>Gandhi, M.K. Young India. January 8, 1925. Age 55.</span></p>
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<div id="sdendnote2"><p class="sdendnote-western"></p>
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