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By BUGLE | July 2026 | Last updated: July 2026 For sixteen years, a woman in a small Indian hospital room did not eat. She was kept alive by a tube threaded through her nose, re-arrested every single year on the same charge, and visited by almost no one outside her own campaigners — because meeting her mother, she had vowed, would only happen once the law she was protesting was repealed. It never was. This is the story of Irom Sharmila, whose fast is widely regarded as the longest hunger strike in recorded history — what she was protesting, why it lasted sixteen years, and what happened to her after it ended, a part of the story most retellings leave out. What's in this guide How it began · The law she was fighting · Sixteen years, day by day · Why the state force-fed her instead of letting her go · How it ended · What happened after — the part most articles skip · Is this really the world's record? · Why it matters beyond Manipur How it began: ten minutes that started s...

Irom Sharmila: 15 Years After Her Hunger Strike — What Changed and What Didn't Irom Sharmila: 15 Years After Her Hunger Strike — What Changed and What Didn't By BUGLE  |  June 2026  |  Last updated: June 2026  |  11 min read This post is part of BUGLE's ongoing coverage of AFSPA and Northeast India, which began with our three-part Irom Sharmila series in 2011. Where things stand in 2026: Irom Sharmila ended the world's longest hunger strike on August 9, 2016 — after 5,844 days of refusing food while being force-fed through a nasal tube in a Manipur hospital. She married British-Indian activist Desmond Coutinho in August 2017, gave birth to twin daughters in 2019, and now lives quietly in Kerala. AFSPA — the law she fasted to repeal — is still in force in Manipur. The state has, since May 2023, also witnessed its worst ethnic violence in decades, with over 258 people dead and 60,000 displaced. The torch she carried for 16 years ha...