Irom Sharmila. Express photo by Oinam Anand.

India’s democracy, with all its problems and polemics, owes you a huge thanks. You are an inspiration. You are a hero to millions of students of democracy and believers in the might of a human being who is willing to sacrifice everything for a worthy cause. You are my hero. You will always be my Iron Lady. A number can’t define your name. Election results can’t define your political contribution. And they should not. They won’t. Heroes don’t come from a school of political arithmetic.

In the history of human civilisation, written or otherwise, heroes never had it easy. No matter how great their causes, notwithstanding their personal sacrifices. Jesus of Nazareth left this planet on a cross, bleeding real blood and breathing real breath, after soldiers hammered nails into his body. Prophet Muhammad left earth after living a life of insults, insinuations and daily tribulations. Martin Luther King Jr. left after a single .30-06 bullet fired by an assassin felled him. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Mahatma to his millions of followers, left after bullets were pumped into his chest by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu fanatic who has been an evil inspiration to his ever-growing number of unabashed admirers in these times of cow nationalism and cinema hall patriotism. Babasaheb Ambedkar, the Mahar boy who made the single largest contribution to India’s Constitution, left as a disheartened man despite his efforts to give justice to the Dalit Bahujan masses.

You are a great human being, Iromji. You have been a name and a voice for millions of people who are faceless and voiceless. You invite us to see beyond our drawing rooms, compel us to go beyond a Twitter handle here and a Facebook like there. In an age of selfie leadership, you are a lone selfless voice. In times of corporate-funded media houses and their direct-to-home shouts and criminal silences, you are a whisper, soft, yet soothing and sublime.

Iromji, Hitler, that failed painter-turned-mass killer, a megalomaniac monster and a vegetarian to his last day, came to power through elections and electoral machinations. This is how the business of politics takes care of its bottom line. Oratory has no time for a truth spoken in whispers. Elections, as important as they are in a democracy, are no guarantee that only selfless, public-spirited leaders will enter the political executive. Let’s not forget that too many criminals, real or potential, have come to power in too many countries after winning elections.

As of May 2014, the 16th Lok Sabha has the highest number of MPs with criminal cases. According to the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), which analysed the election affidavits filed before the Election Commission, 34 per cent of new MPs face criminal charges. The percentage in 2009 and 2004 stood at 30 and 24 respectively. Among the elected leaders to Parliament, as many as 112 have declared that they have serious criminal cases.

Nine leaders in Parliament have murder cases, while another 17 have attempt to murder against them. There are two MPs who have cases related to crimes against women.

With all its warts and weakness, election-based democracy is still the best model of governance. But, Iromji, democracy is as much about principles as about elections. Justice for the voiceless, accountability of the state machinery and the legitimacy of institutions can’t be reduced to a numbers game. You are a spiritual and political force to reckon with. This country of Rohith Vemula and millions of Ambedkarites deserves you. India’s students, who are fighting for democratic space, deserve your time and energy.

As of today, every third district in this country experiences some sort of armed rebellion against the state. More often than not, these districts are blessed with rich natural resources and populated by the deprived and dispossessed. Not all of these armed groups are a direct or indirect result of Pakistan’s attempts to destabilise India. These extremist groups put a strong question mark on the credibility and legitimacy of the country’s democratic institutions. Media conglomerates, fuelled by corporate money, have always spoken about bringing these districts to the mainstream. None of them have ever expected the mainstream to go to these districts and their people.

You made the mainstream go to the periphery. You were the one who made New Delhi’s media stars go to Manipur with their iPads and OB vans and take note of a worthy cause. Without bloodshed. Without organised PR networking. Without any help from a political party, local or national. Without unaccounted corporate donations. At a time when surnames make leaders out of spoilt brats and communal riots make statesmen out of criminals, you have been a glimmer of hope. When even the colour of an apple from an orchard in Sopore is political in the eyes of the buyers in Delhi’s Azadpur subzi mandi, the photograph of you, having refused food and water and having been force-fed through a tube, sitting on a hospital bed, your eyes looking into the television cameras with determination, will stay etched in India’s collective memory.

Iromji, I’m not too worried about what you will do after this election, how you’ll chart your political future and where your decisions will take you.

This is a humble attempt to convey my gratitude to you. Elections come and go. Candidates win and lose. Never has a person deprived herself of food and water for so long, for a cause that affected millions. You did that for 16 years.

Heroes like you don’t come by easily. Stay strong, my inspiration. Take care of yourself. India’s democracy and its elected representatives and their embedded media houses would do well to remember your name. You’ll always be “Mengoubi” (the fair one) in my book of prayers.

Copyright © 2017 The Indian Express [P] Ltd. All Rights Reserved

20-year-old Gurmehar Kaur

Let’s cut through the chase and not call ourselves a “democracy” anymore. Let’s put a lid on the debate regarding this so-called “freedom of expression” we proudly claim to have – for when it comes voicing dissent, we are the first to jump to quell it. Particularly when the dissent comes from a woman. Past incidents hold evidence that whenever women in India have tried to voice an opinion, which have contradicted or clashed with the opinion held by right-wing political authorities, women have been held by the collar and verbally beaten down into silence.

WATCH | Gurmehar Kaur Withdraws Save DU Campaign: Here’s What Happened

When Gurmehar Kaur raised her voice against the appalling violence spawned, stirred and inflicted allegedly by the ABVP (RSS’ political student arm) in Delhi University last week, she did it in the simplest, hard-hitting manner. Her activism – of a mug shot with a placard stating: “I am a student from Delhi University. I am not afraid of ABVP. I am not alone. Every student of India is with me. #StudentsAgainstABVP” – did not defame ABVP. The language in the message was not anchored in ridicule or abuse. All it did was challenge ABVP’s authority.

Kaur’s message – the vortex of her political activism – spiraled into a viral storm. It fulminated a backlash from right-wing conservatives, of colossal proportions, against her. Troll messages grounded in disturbing, unfounded misogyny, ricocheted off her Twitter page.

Kaur went on record to say that she received rape threats.

Rape has been used as the universal instrument to subjugate, silence and conquer women. In patriarchal societies, women asserting themselves has been viewed as toppling the ‘norm.’ The only way to maintain the norm, is to rein in their tongues. Instilling a paralyzing sense of fear through rape, or rape threats, is the most convenient and preferred modus operandi for those who wish to uphold the patriarchal order. Violating a woman’s body violates her identity and her sense of being. You trample over that and she’s conquered, quietened down. The only way to control her – is to sexually humiliate her.

WATCH | Virender Sehwag Tweets Following Kargil Martyr’s Daughter’s Anti-ABVP Post

What is disappointing is that it works. Kaur retracted from her #SaveDU campaign today on Twitter saying, “I’m withdrawing… Congratulations everyone. I request to be left alone. I said what I had to say.. I have been through a lot and this is all my 20 year self could take :)”.

Kaur is not alone. A little over a month ago, sixteen-year-old Zaira Wasim, who performed the role of wrestler Geeta Phogat in Dangal, was publicly berated on Twitter for meeting Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti. Wasim received countless death threats from Islamic conservatives, which bullied her into publishing an apology on a social platform. “I know that many people have been offended and displeased by my recent actions or by the people I have recently met,” she wrote in January. “I want to apologise to all those people who I’ve unintentionally hurt and want them to know that I understand their sentiments, especially considering what has happened (in Kashmir) over the past six months.”

Then of course, there was the all-girl’s rock band called Praagaash (From Darkness to Light) from Jammu and Kashmir, which disbanded in 2013 after a Muslim cleric issued a fatwa against them saying it was “un-Islamic” for teenage girls to sing in front of unknown men in public spaces. The girls were diabolically trolled on social media, receiving multiple rape threats.

WATCH VIDEO | Olympian Wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt Tweets Against Gurmehar Kaur

Kaur’s withdrawal, Wasim’s apology, Praagaash’s disbanding are indicators of forced submission; a push to align to the norm maintained a male-reigned world. Disconcertingly, their submission perpetuates the age-old narrative, that through threats steeped in violence, particularly rape, women can be gagged.

Last year, JNU student and activist Shela Rashid received rape threats when she participated in a protest opposing a seminar by Yoga guru Ramdev in JNU on Vedanta. The protest led the seminar to be cancelled but Rashid got a letter addressed directly to her. ‘The letter, written anonymously, called me everything under the sun…. I have been trolled and abused by people on Twitter, and I have learnt to ignore them. But this letter tried to create a fear psychosis,” Rashid had told The Telegraph in 2016. She too, had noted that such threats were used to control women: “This is a threat of physical abuse. This is not just about one letter, it is about broader women’s issues. The kind of language used in the letter or the rape threats on social networking sites against women deter them from entering public spaces. It also forces women who oppose to shut up.”

In the midst of bellicosity launched against Kaur – primarily by men – her older messages have been excavated. Daughter of a soldier who died fighting in Kashmir, Kaur back in April 2016, had released another string of placard messages that described her stance against war. However, one particular message from her campaign – “Pakistan did not kill my dad. War did” – has been strategically pulled out of context and is being looked at in isolation.

Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju asked who had been “polluting” Kaur’s mind. Actor Randeep Hooda too, went ahead and ridiculed Kaur, saying that she was a “poor girl” being used as a “political pawn” by political leftists.

WATCH |Randeep Hooda Writes An Open Letter After Being Accused Of Trolling Kargil Martyr’s Daughter

Two important, troubling things emerge in this context: One, that a woman cannot build or have her own political opinion – if she does, she has been “taught”. It trivializes not only a woman’s right to voice her opinion, but also her ability to build one. Disappointingly, Kaur has been man-interrupted for her views, because no one saw the context of her older campaign relating to her comment on war. At that time, the intent of her campaign was not one that supported Pakistan, but one that supported peace. It was a message aimed at both Indian and Pakistani governments, requesting them to not embroil in wars, because countless fathers were lost in such ordeals.

Here’s the larger point to think about though: If we, as Indians, threaten to rape our own women under the garb of nationalism, then we carry an alarmingly warped sense of nationalism. Our definition of nationalism is being disintegrated into a despicable charade and no one is doing anything about it.

While there have been the likes of many, like Javed Akhtar, who have voiced solidarity with Kaur, the unfortunate reality of things persists: women who voice dissent will be gagged or pushed into a corner to retract. And that’s what happened with Gurmehar Kaur today.