AFSPA back in the news again : Watered down version ?
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: April 02, 2012 -

Campaign to support Irom Sharmila 11 year long Hunger-strike at New Delhi :: Nov 5 2011

The Armed Forces Special Powers Act is back in the news. First was the 'on the record' pronouncement of UN Special Rapporteur Christof Heyns that the Act should be repealed on the ground that it is a symbol of excessive State power and has no role to play in a democracy and second was the statement of Union Home Minister P Chidambaram that his Ministry has sought three amendments in the Act, which is pending before the Cabinet Committee on Security.

Before we go on, a few points need to be put on record. There is nothing unconstitutional about the Act, as the Supreme Court of India has already upheld its Constitutionality in the case filed by the Naga People's Movement for Human Rights in 1997 but issued a series of dos and don'ts. This however is not the point.

AFSPA has been imposed in the North East region since the 1960s after the Naga National Council raised the banner of independence under an armed movement and the whole of Manipur came under this Act in 1980.

Extraordinary measures to tackle extraordinary situation is the political explanation given by the Government of India for the continued imposition of the said Act, but when a situation is deemed to exists in such a state that it 'demands' that this Act be imposed for over five decades, then the 'extraordinary situation' argument can be turned on its head.

In its undiluted understanding, an extraordinary situation cannot go on forever and therefore the question of whether the situation in the North East can be understood strictly under the context of the 'extraordinary situation' or not arises. This is a point which Delhi has been conveniently sidestepping all these years, refusing to remove the blinkers from their eyes.

As has been argued by many earlier, AFSPA means cleverly sidestepping the Constitutional obligation of declaring a state of emergency in a region and thereby granting unbridled powers and authority to the security forces in the name of containing the armed movement, without accountability.

A state of emergency for over five decades without going through the Constitutional obligation and the picture should become clearer. Constitutional it is, as the Supreme Court has ruled, but pit this against the observation or recommendation made by the Justice Jeevan Reddy Commission wherein it stated that Constitutional validity is not an endorsement of the desirability or advisability of the Act and topped off with another observation that AFSPA is too sketchy, too bald and quite inadequate in several particulars and a proper understanding of the political and social connotations of the Act arises.

The final recommendation was the repeal of the Act while some of its appropriate provisions may be incorporated in the existing Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. The Second Administrative Reforms Commission in its 2007 report had also echoed a similar thought.

This is a brief sketch of AFSPA in the last few decades and predates the pronouncement of the UN Special Rapporteur and the statement of Union Home Minister P Chidambaram, but the interesting point to note here is that AFSPA goes much beyond the mere understanding of deploying security personnel armed not only with sophisticated weapons but with a legal safeguard.

It goes beyond this and needs to be understood in the political and social context of the North East region, Manipur in particular. The Act is not applicable or has not been enforced in any other region of the country except for the North East and Kashmir and this offers some insights on the political psyche of Delhi.

The peace process with the NSCN (IM), NSCN (K) and some armed groups operating in the region are well underway but AFSPA is still in force in Nagaland and other States of the North East.

Does this mean that the extraordinary situation still persists in the places where political dialogue is under progress or does Delhi's understanding of extraordinary situation mean something which needs to be explained by them alone ?

Amendment is what Mr Chidambaram is talking about, which is a departure from what the Justice Jeevan Reddy Commission has recommended and which has again been backed by the second Administrative Reforms Commission.

What are the amendments that the Government has in mind has not been spelt out, but if speculations are anything to go by then it could mean making arrest warrants mandatory, scraping the power of the armed forces to open fire even to the extent of causing death on suspicion and setting up of a grievance redressal cell.

The talk about amendments is a tacit acceptance of the fact that an Act like AFSPA can have no place in a democracy, but a watered down version of the Act does not take away its discriminatory strand. This is what Delhi should take into consideration too, especially when the Look East Policy has been one of its major slogans all these years.