Irom Chanu Sharmila

Irom Chanu Sharmila

Irom Chanu Sharmila (born 14 March 1972), also known as the "Iron Lady of Manipur" or "Mengoubi" ("the fair one") is an Indian civil rights activist, political activist, and poet from the Indian state of Manipur, which is located on the north-eastern side of India. On 5 November 2000, she began a hunger strike in favour of abolishing the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 that applies to the seven states and grants Indian armed forces the power to search properties without a warrant, and to arrest people, and to use deadly force if there is "reasonable suspicion" that a person is acting against the state. She ended the fast on 9 August 2016, after 16 long years of fasting. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Irom Chanu Sharmila has received more than 1,448,215 page views. Her biography is available in 28 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 25 in 2019). Irom Chanu Sharmila is the 610th most popular social activist (down from 509th in 2019), the 1,042nd most popular biography from India (down from 958th in 2019) and the 46th most popular Indian Social Activist.