Asakiyume mita

I'm very happy that the government has decided not to hold her on spurious charges, but I worry that it means they no longer care whether she lives or dies. The imprisonment was wrong--but in a heavy-handed way, it showed concern for her individual life (though lack of respect for the many lives on whose behalf she was protesting).

I don't know how most hunger strikes end. … I suppose it wouldn't matter, even if I did, because each case is unique.

She says now that she will fight force feeding (which she hasn't in the past). It means--or I think it means--that the long impasse has to end. Either the government takes some action on AFSPA that satisfies her, or--she dies? Or maybe the government finds some excuse to make her continue with force feeding, after all.

It's my sense, in all my years of life, that governments rarely suddenly and completely drop something (and yet I think maybe sometimes they do? I wish more examples of things in either direction sprang to mind). I find it hard to believe that the Indian government will suddenly, completely, give up this law. But maybe they will? I hope somehow, something will happen, there'll be some movement, that'll mean Sharmila can live.

… I want to care as much about all the people who've suffered under AFSPA as I care about her, personally. That's what *she'd* want. But I latch on to the particular, to her as an individual.