Six decades of military policing and atrocities with the help of AFSPA, the draconian law enacted in 1957 demands active resistance from the people of the country as a whole so that the AFSPA is repealed and Miltary policing with immunity to kill, torture and rape is put an end to. Irom Sarmila today personifie the valiant struggle for these people's demands. CPI(ML) appeals to all progressive, democratic and revolutionary forces to join the 27th March Parliament March with these demands in which the Ma Taruni and other comrades of Sarmila Kanba Lup from Manipur and various other organizations from the Northeast and J&K participate.
(This Note is written in support of Sharmilla Irom solidarity Yatra and
Anti AFPSA Campaign. The Yatra Starts from Shrinagar from October 16th
and end seen Manipur on October 27th )
A NOTE ON ARMED FORCES SPECIAL POWER ACT AND IROM SHARMILAS
STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE:--
Asit
“Today every pore of my body is screaming
For you Irom
The screams were suppressed since when…..
anger was coming out in my screams and protests
As I was screaming and shouting for your release at VT
Station.
My being had shaken within
To tell people about you, what you stand for
To tell people about draconian law AFPSA
I felt lighter”
“Anna Hazare you have won
After 85 hours of your FAST
The Lokpal bill will be implemented
After a decade of your fast
Still the AFPSA has not been repealed
Anna will you be able to stop the bloodshed
In the name of law”
(Kamayani Bali Mahabal)
The lofty proclamations of Liberal
democracy like, equality, liberty, right to life are the social contract signed
by the Modern Nation States to legitimize itself values as liberal democracy,
where citizens rights are sacrosanct, where individual rights are supposed to
be the foundation in the structure of Governance mechanisms including the Co’orcive
apparatus like the Army, paramilitary, and the police.
However the reality is different.
The existence of extremely draconian Acts like the Armed forces special powers
act, (AFSPA), Un lawful activity act (UAPA), Chattisgarh special security Act,
National security act, and various provisions in the penal code like “sedition”
make a mockery of the claims of liberal democratic character of the Indian
State. These claims are equally fraudulent and hilarious as the proclamations
are made by the representations of the Indian ruling classes in forums like the
United Nations, G.20, and world economic for me etc. The propanda machines for
the neo-liberal exploitation parade India
Recently discovered thousands of
unmarked Graves in Kashmir is a horrifying
testimony of the state of human rights to like and the legality of extrajudial
killings which of course involves both rape and Murder.
AFPSA- The Armed Forces (Special
Powers) Act of 1958 (AFSPSA) is one of the most draconian legislation used by
the Indian rulers to enslave and oppress peoples under the garb of fighting
separatism. For the past sixty years in North East and almost two decades in Kashmir have been virtually under army rule. This rule by
the army has had a drastic effect on the daily life of the average citizen
residing in North East and Kashmir .
A state of de-facto abrogation of
fundamental rights including the all important right to life and large scale
encroachment by the army on the life and liberty of the citizens of the above
mentioned areas. AFSPA violates the fundamental constitutional rights of right
to life, liberty equality, freedom of speech and expression, peaceful assembly,
moving freely. Practice of any profession, protection against arbitrary arrest
and freedom of religion enshrined in Articles 21, 14, 19, 22 and 25 of the
Constitution.
AFSPA has been used in these
regions for thousands of deaths, custodial death and rape, torture,
encirclement of the civilian population, sadistic combing operations looting of
private citizen’s property etc. Thousands of youth have simply disappeared
another euphemism for encounter deaths.
Draconian laws are antithetical to
Modern democracy since they overturn the fundamental tenets of modern jurisprudence
on which democracy rests viz. a person is presumed to be innocent till proven
guilty. The genre of draconian laws thereby makes it difficult for persons
booked under it to redress their grievances and get relief, such as bail. It
grants extra ordinary power to the investigating agencies (police etc) to
elicit confessions etc. Thus the act empower the investigating agencies to
easily frame a person whom they suspect to be guilty.
Provisions of the Armed forces
special power act are far more severe. The provisions of the Act provide
special powers to the Governor, where by they can on their own discretion
(without consulting the duly elected chief Minister), by notification in the
official Gazette, declare the whole or part of the state or union territory to
be disturbed area. Bypassing duly elected and represtative political authority
is tantamount to de facto imposition of emergency.
Unlike other draconian laws, the Armed
forces special powers Act does not stop at providing special powers to the investigating
agency to elicit confession and to conduct search and arrest operations. It in
fact provides the investigating agency with absolute powers whereby, even a Havildar
if he is of the opinion that it is necessary to fire or otherwise use force,
even to the causing of death, can make use of the provisions of the act, thereby,
harming the democratic fabric of the Country.
More disturbingly, even while it
provides the Armed Forces with such absolute powers, it also provides them with
immunity from any legal accountability. Even though the acts are in operation
in the states and union territories of the country, the elected initiate legal
proceedings let alone administrative against Armed forces without prior
sanction of the Central Government. (License to Kill, INSAF, 2005)
Provisions of the Act-
Section 1 defines the title of the
Act.
Section 2 (a) limits the
jurisdiction of the Act to the seven states of the North east of late it has
been extended to Kashmir .
(b) Defines disturbed area as area
notified under section 3 to be a disturbed area Section 3 to be a disturbed
area.
Section 3 states that if the
Governor of a state or Central Government is of the opinion that an area is in
such a disturbed or dangerous state that the use of armed forces in aid of
Civil poser is necessary, then either of them can declare it to be disturbed
area by notification in the Gazette.
Section 4 gives the following
special powers to any commissioned officer, warrant officer or non commissioned
officer of the armed forces in a disturbed area.
(a). If in his opinion, it is
necessary for maintenance for public order to fire even to the extent of Causing
death or otherwise use force against a person who is acting in contravention of
an order prohibiting the assembly of five or more persons or the carrying of
weapons or of things capable of being used as weapon.
(b) If in his opinion, it is
necessary to do so then to destroy any arms dump or fortified position, any
shelter from which armed attacks are made or are likely to be made, and any
structure used as training camp for armed volunteers or as a hide out for armed
volunteers or as a hide out for armed gangs or absconders.
© Arrest without warrant any person
who has committed a cognizable offence and to use whatever force is necessary
to affect the arrest.
(d) To enter and search without
warrant any premises to make an arrest or to recover any person wrongfully
confined or to recover any arms, ammunition, explosive substance or suspected
stolen property.
Section 5 makes it mandatory for
the Army to hand a person arrested under the Act to the nearest police station
with least possible delay.
Section 6 lays down that
prosecution, suit or other legal proceedings can be instituted against a person
acting under the act, only after getting previous sanctions of the central
government.
Historical Background of Afpsa:--
The AFPSA gives the armed forces
wide powers to shoot, arrest and search all in the name of aiding civil power.
It was first applied to the north eastern states of Assam
and Manipur and was amended in 1972 to extend to all the seven states in the
north eastern region of India Assam
As the great Himalayan range
dividing South and Central Asia runs down the
east, it takes a Southward curve and splits into lower hill ranges. The hills
are punctuated by valleys and the valleys are washed by the rivers that drain
into the Bay of Bengal . Waves of people
settled in these blue hills and green valleys at various times in history. They
brought with them cultures and traditions. The new interacted with the old and
evolved into the unique cultural mosaic that characterizes the region. Through
the Centuries, these hills and valleys have bridged South, South east, and Central Asia . On today’s geo-political Map, a large part
of the original region constitutes the seven states of the Republic of India ,
but its political, economic and socio-cultural systems have always been linked
with South East Asia . The great Hindu and
Muslim empires that reigned over the Indian subcontinent never extended east of
the Brahmaputra River Assam Assam became a part of British
India and British continued to influence the political affairs of
the region.
This undue interference eventually
led to the bloody Anglo Manipuri Conflict of 1891. The British reaffirmed their
position but were cognizant of the ferocious spirit of independence of these people
and did not administer directly but only through the King.
It was during the Second World War,
when the Japanese tried to enter the Indian sub continent through this narrow
corridor, that the strategic significance of the region to the Indian armed forces
was realized. With the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
With the end of the war, the global
political map was changed over night. As the British were preparing to leave
Asia the political department of the British Government planned to carve out a
buffer state consisting of the Naga Hills, Mikir Hills, Sadiya Area, Balipara
Tract, Manipur, Lushai Hills, Khusi Hills, and hills in Assam, as well as the Chin
Hills and the hills of Northern Burma. The impending departure of the British
created confusion and turmoil over how to fill the political vaccum they would
leave behind. Ultimately, the various territories were parcled out to Nehru’s India , Jinnah’s Pakistan kingdom of Manipur
The Deception in Nagaland:-----
At the beginning of the century,
the inhabitants of the Naga Hills , which
extend across Indo-Burmese border, came together under the banner of Naga
National Council (NNC) aspiring for a common homeland and self governance. As
early as 1929, the NNC petitioned the Simon commission, which was examining the
feasibility of future of self governance of India
The Naga leaders forcefully
articulated the demand of self governance once British pulled out of India Indian Territory .
Articulating the democratic aspirations
of the people of Nagaland, The Naga National Council proclaimed Nagalands
Independence in retaliation, Indian authorities arrested the Naga leaders, the
Armed forced special power act is one of the instruments where the Indian state
used to violently suppress the democratic aspirations of the people of North
east. In 1975, some Naga leaders held talks with the Government of India which
resulted in the Shillong agreement, this agreement was forced on them,
democratic forces of Nagaland smelt a rat in this deceptive agreement rallied
the people behind them for the national liberation of Nagas one of the voice
which articulates the democratic demand of Naga people for National liberation
is National socialist council of Nagaland (NSCN).
MIZORAM:
In the Lushai Hills of Assam India India
Much of this blood shed and
genocides by the Indian state could have been avoided if the Indian ruling
classes had listened to the voices of democratic aspirations of the people of
Nagaland and the rights of colonized Nationalities. This Brutal, force
accession was based on a feudal, Brahminal and Patriarchal notion of so called
Indian main stream based on the dominant Aryan Brahminal culture, destroying
the cultures and aspirations of National, linguistic, ethnic and religious
minorities in the process eliminating indigenous populations.
Culturally the high caste dominated
feudal Indian society is totally incompatible, with the ethics of North east
cultures which were by and large democratic and egalitarian. To make matters
worse the Indian ruling classes forcibly clubbed these different Non feudal
ethnic groups with Adivasis cheating them in the name of scheduled tribes and
in the process forcing them to be marginalized and stigmatized by the upper caste
ruling elites of India
The languages of the Northeast are
of the Tibeto-chinese family rather than the Indo Aryan of Dravidian likes rest
of India
Politically dependant, the North
east is being economically undermined; the traditional trade routes with south east
Asia and Bangladesh India
by the chicken neck a narrow corridor between Bangladesh
and Bhutan
At partition, the area was cut off
from the nearest port
of Chittagong India Assam produces one fourth of all petroleum for India , yet it is processed outside of Assam Bengal who live under rigidly
feudal, Casteist socio economic conditions in their own states are ready for
all kinds of Menial jobs at much at much lower wages. As they pour in more and
more local laborers are being edged out of their jobs. Illegal immigration from
Bangladesh and Nepal is also perceived as a threat In Tripura
the indigenous population has been reduced to a mere 25% of the total
population of the state because of large scale immigration from the North east
and Bangladesh
The Indian states primary interest
in the Northeast was strategic, and so was its response to problems. A series
of repressive laws were passed by the Government of India in order to deal with
this rising National liberation aspirations of the people of North east. In
1953 the Assam Naga Hills and
Tuensang districts. It empowered the Governor to impose collective fires
prohibit public meetings and detain anybody without a warrant.
On 22 May 1958 a mere 12 Days after
the Budjet session of Parliament was over, the Armed Forces (Assam-Manipur) special
powers ordinance was passed. A bill was introduced in the Monsoon session of Parliament
that year. Amongst those who cautioned against such blanket powers to the Army
included then the Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha Mr. PN Sapru. In a brief
discussion that lasted for three hours, in the Rjya Sabha, parliament approved
the armed Forces (Assam-Manipur) special powers Act with retrospective from 22
May 1958.
Enactment of AFPSA from colonialism to neocolonialism:---
After the transfer of power in 1947
the Indian ruling classes enacted draconian laws like AFPSA for the neocolonial
exploitation and to suppress the aspirations of democracy ad National liberation
in North east since two decades it has been imposed in Kashmir
resulting in thousand of extrajudicial murders, tortures rapes and custodial
killings.
My friend Nayan writes with the so
called de colonization. India
North east India is one of South Asia ’s
most contested spaces. Contestations have taken many forms, armed opposition to
the Indian state. Movement for separate federal states and autonomous units
based on ethnic lines, to struggles against extractive industries and for more
funds from central government. The AFPSA stands almost in centrality of
creating spaces for such contestation, with the content of the Act having
changed little over the last 50 years and impacting the North east, India and
South Asia in profound ways. The act it self stems from the specific Context of
North east’s integration into post-colonial India emerged out of a dominant
mainstream Hindu (even as enshrined ‘secular’) Nationalist imagination, long
drawn self determination struggles, first inaugurated by Naga rebellion who
asserted their own independent history, became the defining characteristic of
the region which is materially, and ideationally a space distinct from the
larger vision of a developing India. While India India
Disunity as a factor that led to
British rule over South Asia had been a part
and parcel of the awareness of Nationalist awakening since 19th
Century. The trauma of partition at independence accentuated the anxiety of
“disunity”. Emergence of the post revolutionary regime in 1949 in China Assam , the land of nationalist Gopinath Bordoloi
and political leadership of Manipur, Sardar Patel wrote to Jawahar Lal Nehru
“The People inhabiting these portions have no established loyality or devotion
to India Hyderabad )
or by a response to internal aggression (as is said to be the case with Jammu and Kashmir
A “border state” that is also backwards
needs to be “taken over” because it is a “strategic necessity”. A “backward”
people need not be consulted about whether they would actually like to be
“taken over”. A battalion marches in, and a population is told by the armed
forces of a state that is still trying to get its own constitution together,
that the Constitutions that “backward” people give to themselves or the
democratic institutions that they evolve in the course of their “history” are
of no consequence. What is of consequence is the “strategic necessity” of the
emerging India
Writing further about the nature of
AFPSA, Nayan says: --
A cursory reading of AFPSA reveals
that the Act is an act of legitimizing the involvement of the military in the
domestic space, not supplementing by replacing “civil power”. The military
character of the Act is reflected in multiple ways. AFPSA allows “use of armed
forces”, defined as “military forces and the air forces operating as land
forces” and “any other armed forces” of “the union” (section 3) in the domestic
space.
Section 2 (c) of the Act also
clearly shows the close aftimity between AFPSA and those laws governing the military
such as the Army Act (1950). It reads, “All other words and expressions used
herein but not defined in the Air Force Act 1950, or the Army Act 1950, shall
have the meaning respectively assigned to them in those Acts”.
In six sections, being one of the most
shortest Acts to be passed in the history of the Indian legislation, it unmasks
the military paradigm involved. For example, what constitutes the “disturbed
and dangerous condition” for an area to be declared a “disturbed area” in not
defined at all (Section 3). All that is required is to be declared an area
“disturbed area”. It is as good or bad as declaring war, once it is so
declared, what it means is clear. In fact, the principle of war is unmistable
here. Just like declaring war, once an area is declared as “disturbed area”,
the personnel of the “armed forces” simultaneously acquire powers to us “force
as may be necessary” based on their “opinion” and “suspicion” to effect “arrest
without warrant” or fire upon or otherwise use force, even to causing death.
(Section4).
Also unlike assumption of innocence
of a “suspect” or accused in the domestic space, hostile intention of the
inhabitants of the alien and hostile space is taken for granted for the
military personnel. Thus, the “opinion and suspicion” of the commanding officer
of a military formation serves as the basis for exercising power to “fire upon
or otherwise use force”’ which he thinks is “necessary” not only to “search any
premises or destroy any shelter and structure” but also “arrest or even to
causing death” (section 4).
The presumption of hostile intent
as the legitimate basis for the “armed forces” to take action, characteristic
of a war zone, is highlighted when these powers can also be exercised for acts
that are “likely to be made” or “about to be committed”. Besides the nature of
the power conferred upon the armed forces, the fact that commanding officer are
given the power to judge and executive action on his own only proves that the
Act is based on the business of war. In a “war situation, any officer- irrespective
of whether he is a commissioned, Junior commissioned or Non Commissioned
officer- leading his men in the field has to be the judge as well as part of
the body that executes his judgments. In the context of “maintaining law and
order within the domestic space, the same person or body cannot be the judge as
well as the one who executes the judgments.
Moreover, “the soldiers”
operational space, that is “alien and hostile”, is a relatively
undifferentiated space and it does not require elaborate conditions and
procedures as in the case of the differentiated domestic space. Hence, unlike
other Acts (including the erstwhile POTA) which provide explicit conditions and
elaborate procedures running into pages, AFPSA is hardly a one page Act with
six sections. All that the Act requires is to restate the assumption of taken
for granted hostile intent (based on “opinion” and “suspicion”) of the
inhabitants of the alien and hostile space (“disturbed”) to exercise the power
to eliminate, destroy or neutralize the latter (Section 4).
AFPSA does not have any provision
for interrogation and / or gathering evidence. Nor is it like any other so
called “special laws”, meant to ‘facilitate’ trial or “enhance” conviction
rate. It is plainly an instrument of war empowering the military and forces
operating under it to eliminate, neutralize and destroy the enemy or “suspected
enemies”, which more often than not practically include every body residing, in
the “disturbed area”. Enough instances are these to show that civilians in a
“disturbed area” are also inherent targets under the Act.
Civilians are always at the
receiving end of the Act, as in any other war zone in alien territory forming
part and parcel of the “collateral damage” thus making indismrinate firing and
killing of civilians, including women and children, by security forces
intrinsic to the use rather than deployment of the military, in concrete term
insurgency has spread and thrived in the Northeast. This begs the question:
what has the military been doing all these decades and how has AFPSA furthered
counter insurgency? Such question, along with subversion of democratic institutions
and principles through prolonged and continuous deployment of the armed forces
under AFPSA, raise questions of militarism that is a, “phenomenon by which a
nations” armed forces under AFPSA, raise questions of militarism that is a
“phenomenon by which a armed forces under AFPSA, raise questions of militarism
that is a “phenomenon by which a nation’s armed services come to put their
institutional preservation ahead of achieving national security or even
commitment to the integrity of the government structure of which they are a
part, which goes far beyond the idea of the military perse in counter insurgency.”
Interestingly, it was observed that
American troops deployed and engaged in actual combat in the recent Iraq
Irom Sharmillas struggle and her body as site of contestation:--
“Indian army rape us” read the
banner which the women were holding when they protested against the murder and
death of Manorama devi in front of Army Headquarters in Imphal, Manipur in year
2004. Thangiam Manorama a Manipuri woman was raped and Murdered by Jawans of
Rastriya rifles in July 2004. Testifying before the (retired) Justice Upendra
Inquiry Commission instituted to probe the circumstances leading to the death of
Ms Manorama, her bereaved mother said that around seven or eight personnel of
the Assam Rifles (AR) violently entered their house in the intervening night of
July 10 and 11, and one of the personnel pointing his gun at her, asked about
Ms Manorama “At that point of time, Manorama came out of her room and the AR
men pounced on her and took her towards the verandah”. She further said that
Manorama was dragged outside the house and the personnel severely beat her VP,
and that she could hear the “muffled voice” of her daughter. After sometime,
the personnel brought Manorama back into the house. At this time, the mother
said that Manorama “was clutching her phanek (a Sarong like traditional garment
worn by Manipuri women) with her left hard”, and that her “shirt was
unbuttoned. The personnel made out an arrest memo and got Manorama mother to
put her thumb impression on the memo. Before taking her away, the personnel
allowed Ma Manorama to changed into a new pohanek and a shirt. The mother said
that the lifeless body was discovered at Yaipharok Manik village the next
morning. The autopsy on Manorama’s body was conducted at the regional institute
of medical science hospital in Impahl, the state capital, after the Irilbung
police picked up her body. Testifying before the Upendra commission, the
doctors who conducted the autopsy confirmed the presence of semen on the
undergarments of the victim, and more than half a dozen bullet injuries,
including the genitals.
The spokes man of the security
forces, while claiming “responsibility for the “killing of a hard core PLA
cadre, stated that they acted on the basis of “specific information” about the
presence of PLA cadres at Bamon Kanpur area. They went on to state, on this
bass an AR team rushed to the area and apprehended Manorama. During interrogation
she disclosed that she possessed an AK 47 rifle and was willing to take the
army personnel to recover the weapon. However, on the way, she was gunned by
the AR personnel as she made a bid to escape by jumping down from the army
vehicle. One radio set, hand grenade and some incriminating documents were
recovered from her possession.”
On the face of it, these accounts
seem no different from the familiar stories that emanate from the “normal”
world of Counter-insurgency operation in the Northeast.
The bereaved mother’s statement
could have been any “unofficial” account, made only to be delegitimised by
official spokes men as “baseless allegation”. Made by vested parties against
the patriotic soldiers of the Indian security forces fighting the “enemy within”
the post-hoc statements of the army officials would have been the final say on the
“official” reality of the situation on how they have eliminated an “enemy”.
This time however, there was a
“Freudian slip” that revealed the inner reality beneath the normality of hither
to familiar counter insurgency narratives in the Northeast. Havildar Suresh
Kumar of the Assam Rifles, who signed the arrest memo, inscribed on the Memo
that MS Manorama was being arrested as a “suspect” and that nothing had been
taken from her house or her person.
There is no legal “absurdity” in
the killing of Ms Manaorama under the AFPSA. What does ring hollow is the incredulity
of a narrative that features a group of armed men of the mighty India military
having necessarily to fire more half-a-dozen bullets in order to subdue a women
dressed in Phanek while she was allegedly trying to escape from them by jumping
down from their vehicle, and that too late at night. Havildar Suresh Kumar’s
inscription on the arrest memo says that nothing was recovered from her. Meaning
she was un-armed. The post-hoc statement by the spokesman of the security
forces, on the other hand, mentions the recovery of a “hand grenade”, a “radio set”
and “incriminating documents” form “her possession”.
The death of Manorama opened out
issues that became too unpalatable for the brutalized people of Manipur.
Indeed, for many, this was the last
straw. Venting decades of suppressed rage, a group of prominent women in the
community protested by disrobing and staging a “Naked Protest” in front of the
Assam Rifles Headquarters ion the heart of Assaults/ 483, Imphal city. They
shouted “Rape us, kill us, take our Flesh”. While attempting top break open the
gate of the AR headquarters. In immediate response, an indefinite curfew was imposed
in Imphal and the surrounding areas (A.Bimol Akoijam, Another 9/11, Another Act
of terror The “Embedded disorder of the AFPSA).
The rape and murder of Manaorama is
not an isolated case but thousands of these kind of sexual assaults and murders
happen to the women ion Northeast every day since past sixty years.
The Indian state and its killing machines
use the body of the women in these area to exercise the control on behalf of
the Indian state.
Irom Shormilla has been on fast for
the revocation of AFPSA since 11 years, her body also has become a site of
contest for legality and illegality of the Indian state. Indian state whose
constitution guarantees right to life and liberty, also kills, rapes and
murders thousands of women every passing year. Irom Sharmilla has been
arrested, rearrested and force fed many times ostensibly to make her live, this
was done by the authorities to stop her from dying invoking the attempt to suicide
of the Indian penal code.
On the other hand every day India
This exposes the farce of legality
of the Indian system which has been imposed on the body of Irom Sharmilla.
The 39 year old Manipuri is about
to complete 11 years of a hunger strike in protest against AFPSA that gives
security forces powers to kill with impunity. The UPA promised as far back as
2004 to replace the act with a “more humane” law but has shown little interest
in taking up the task in the face of opposition from the internal security establishment.
Union Home Minister P Chidambaram recently admitted these was no consensus
within the Government on the issue. Ms Sharmila’s fast began on November 32000,
a day after security personnel shot down 10 people at a bus stand just outside
Imphal. Within days, she was detained by the police, since then, she has been
nasally force-fed a liquid concotion of nutrients in a hospital, which serves
as her prison. After every year in detention, she is released for a day and
rearrested for attempting to commit suicide, because she refuses to call off
her fast until the government repeals the legislation, which is in force in Manipur , Assam
Nagaland and pasts of Arunachal Pradesh besides, Jammu and Kashmir
Conclusion:
“In fact, by legitimizing the use
of military force in the internal affairs of the state beyond what is already
provided in the Criminal Procedure Code and the provisions of emergency in the
constitution, AFSPA seeks to supplant rather than supplement civil authority with
military authority in the administration of everyday life. There is no question
that if exigency demands. The State, under the Indian constitution, can always
promulgate and ordinance touse its military might to deal with that exigency.
But to convert such and ordinance into a regular law that stays in place for
almost half a century is to entrench a military structure and ethos in the
polity and structure if the stare. It sets into motion the process of
reproduction and appropriation of the military structure and ethos by other
instruments of the State (the paramilitary and police) as well as civil society
itself. Ultimately, it leads to a complete subversion of the basic foundation
of society and polity. It blurs the necessary distinctions between the police
and the military, between the civilian and the combatant, and between
‘domestic’ and ‘alien’ space. This is what has happened in Manipur.” (Bimol
Akoijam)
As Bimol Akoijam says the single
Act AFPSA given rise to a plethora of Acts of horrors, like the thousands of
murders, rapes custodial deaths and rapes, disappearances, torturers, encirclements,
combing operations and genocides. Recently discovered unmarked grave in Kashmir
is a chilling testimony to these hard realities of everyday living in Kashmir and Northeast.
The lists of such acts in the
Northeast is ling, but to name a few well known cases, from 1980, onwards they
include the massacres of civilians at Heirangoi thong (Manipur) in 1984, at
RIMS Manipur in 1995, at Malom (Manipur) in 2000; the horror of army torture
and violence on civilians during operation Blue bird (Manipur) in 1987 and
operation Rhino (Assam) in 1991. Indiscriminate firing on civilians by armed forces
personnel when a type of their own vehicle burst in the town of Kohina (Nagaland)
in March 1995, the shelling and destruction of the town of Makokchung
(Nagaland) in 1994, the enforced disappearances of Loken and Lokendro (Manipur)
in 1996, and the rape of Miss N Sanjita (who subsequently committed suicide
(Manipur) in 2003.
I would conclude by stating a fact
find report cum demand by SAHELI-PUDR Fact Sheet
PUDR and Saheli Fact sheets and Demands :--
Outside the north east too, human
rights violations in Jammu & Kashmir under the AFSPA are commonplace,
including disappearances, torture, arbitrary killings and numerous instances of
mass rape of Kashmiri women by security forces.
AFSPA: Constitutional Contradictions
The large scale violations of
fundamental rights in the north eastern states is a direct consequence of the
provisions of the AFSPA, of areas declared as Disturbed Areas under Section No.
3 and the simultaneous acquiring of wide powers by army personnel under Section
4 of the Act.
The AFSPA which grants armed forces
personnel the power to shoot to arrest, search, seize and even shoot to kill,
violate the Right to Life enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution of India
which guarantees the right to life to all people.
The AFSPA also violates the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Indian signed the
ICCPR in 1978, taking on the responsibility of securing the rights guaranteed
by the Covenant to all its citizens. In particular, the Act is in contravention
of Article 6 of the ICCPR guaranteeing the right to life.
Crucially, the AFSPA effectively
undermines civil authority. For instance:
After the Oinam incident (1987) the
Chief Minister, wrote to the Union Home Minister, “The civil law has,
unfortunately, ceased to operate in Senapati District Manipur due to excesses
committed by the Assam Rifles with complete disregard shown to the civil
administration….the Deputy Commissioner and the Superintendent of Police were
wrongfully confined, humiliated and prevented from discharging their official
duties by the Security Forces”. And consequent to the Kohima incident in 1995,
even the Superintendent of Police, Kohima, was stopped at gun point by army
personnel.
At the same time, the AFSPA is an
emergency legislation that constitutionally requires to be reviewed every 6
months. Yet it has been imposed in Manipur and other states of the north east
for years on end, which contributes the misuse of unbridled and arbitrary
powers by the armed forces.
END THE LAW THAT GIVES THE ARMED
FORCES IMMUNITY FOR RAPE, MURDER, TORTURE AND OTHER HEINOUS CRIMES.
END THE ARMED FORCES (SPECIAL
POWERS) ACT 1958
Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act
1958: A Face Sheet
[-a
factsheet adapted by the SAHELI and PUDR team from earlier reports and
submissions to the Jeevan Reddy Committee]
Over the last five decades, heavy
militarization in the north east has taken its toll on normal civilian life and
led to innumerable instances of violations committed against the civilian
populations there. Encounter deaths, extra judicial killings, disappearances,
arbitrary arrests, rape and torture have been a regular feature among the
relentless series of atrocities meted out to the people by the army with
impunity, especially in areas where they are protected by legislation like
AFSPA.
Some of the most widely known
incidents of such excesses in the north east are:
·
Army torture and violence against the villagers
of Oinam (Manipur) in 1987 who were detained in army camps, beaten mercilessly,
given electric shocks. At least 3 women were raped, 15 villagers killed, and
many left permanently disabled;
·
The gang rape of the women of Ujanmaidan
(Tripura)by security forces;
·
The terror wreaked by the army in Assam
·
the shelling of town of Ukhrul (Manipur) with
mortars in May 1994 by the Assam Rifles when they violently ransacked the town,
leaving many homes damaged, over a hundred men and women bleeding with serious
injuries and 3 dead;
·
four women raped at gunpoint, and homes and
shops set on fire by the Maratha Light Infantry, killing others people in
December 1994 in Mokokchung (Nagaland);
·
indiscriminate firing on civilians and combing
operations by the combined forces of the 16th Rashtriya Rifles, CRPF
and Assam Rifles when a tyre of an army jeep burst in the Kohima town
(Nagaland) in March 1995;
·
torture, forced detaining, starvation, sexual
assault of women and looting in the 5 villages of Namtiram (Manipur) in 1995 by
the 21st Rajputana Rifles;
·
the army’s reign of terror in Jesami (Manipur)
in January 1996;
·
the rampage of the village
of Huishu (Manipur) by the Assam
·
the massacre of 10 innocent civilians by the
Assam Rifles in Malom (Manipur) on 2 November, 2000 by security forces
·
the torture, rape and killing of Thangajam
Manorama in Imphal (Manipur) in 2004
References:--
- A. Bimol Akoijam –Another, 9/11, Another Act of Terror The “Embedded disorder of the AFPSA.
- Nayanjyoti – Integrate, Develop or “shooting to kill on Suspicion” in South Asian Periphery – term paper submitted to CSSS/SSS/JU.
- End army rule, committee for the repeal of the Armed
forces special powers Actr,
- An Illusion of Justice, PUDT
- Licence to Kill – INSAF, Delhi 2005.
- Fantasies of Development and the Democracy deficit in North East India by Sanjib Barvah.
- An Analysis of Armed Forces special power act 1958 PUCL and Asian Centre for Human Rights.
- Manipur in the shadow of AFPSA.
- Love in the time of AFPSA. Hindu editorial.
- Poem on Sharmilla by Kamayani Bali Maha Bal movement
of
- SAHELI –PUDR Fact Sheet on Human Rights abused in Northeast.
Asit Email id: asit1917@gmail.com
Blog:
www.revolutionarynucleus.blogspot.com
