MLAs' petition to Amit Shah says it all
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: July 13, 2023 -
It’s an irony that on the same day the Supreme Court asked the government of Manipur and the centre to safeguard lives and properties of citizens in the strife-torn state, 31 MLAs raised concerns over role of the Assam Rifles vis-a-vis the prevailing unrest situation and have decided to petition Union home minister Amit Shah to replace three units of the para-military force, which has been projecting itself a ‘friends of the northeast’, ‘friends of the hill people’, etc., from the state.
Apart from refusing to direct the army and paramilitary forces to specifically provide security in tribal areas of the state on the ground that in its ‘72 years of existence, it has never issued directions to the Army on how to conduct military, security, or rescue operations’, a bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and comprising Justices PS Narasimha and Manoj Misra on Tuesday significantly remarked that the greatest hallmark of democracy was civilian control over the army and hence, it could not breach that.
Entrusting the task of maintaining law and order, and security of the state to the elected government, the court also directed the state and central governments to ensure the protection of life and liberty of citizens in Manipur, thereby driving home the message to the establishments that the apex court is not impressed with efforts made so far to contain the violence, which is in its third month.
It short, the court’s observation is that both the state and the centre shall have to give more than their best.
To any concerned stakeholders, the expectation would definitely be that the Supreme Court would have pulled up the governments for failure to at-least safeguard life of the civilians, especially in the context of deployment of unprecedentedly large number of central security forces.
Notwithstanding the court’s explanation that issuing directives to the army or paramilitary forces would amount to interfering in the government’s ability to govern, the people of Manipur’s wish is that the court would hold either the centre or the state accountable for continuation of the violence taking into consideration that home minister Amit Shah had assured to handle the situation in the hills, Kuki areas to be specific, with similar task in the plains assigned to chief minister N Biren.
CM Biren appears to be carrying out his given task to some extent as there has been no disturbance caused to peace in the valley districts, including the state’s capital Imphal, which used to witness impromptu protests and shutdowns.
The sharp increase in the attendance rate of students ever since the government decided to resume formal education from class I to VIII standard is also an example of stabilisation of the situation in the valley.
As firing incidents are mainly reported in the so-called buffer zones manned by central forces, it could be safely stated that the central government is yet to empower forces under its command to act diligently and impartially, which is also manifested with the decision of the 31 MLAs to petition home minister Amit Shah to replace some Assam Rifles units with other central forces that are more inclined towards promoting the unity of the state.
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