'AFSPA no longer necessary'
Source: The Sangai Express / Ninglun Hanghal
New Delhi, November 02 2014:
More than 50 years of AFSPA has conditioned the thinking and outlook of the people of the State, said Thangkhanlal Ngaihte.
Speaking on AFSPA and India's Northeast at the monthly seminar organized by Manipur Research Forum JNU in New Delhi yesterday afternoon, Ngaihte argued that the doctrine of implementing AFSPA is longer relevant on its own terms and added that secessionist insurgencies which were used to justify the Act have long ceased to exist and therefore, the principle of existential necessity that provides a fig leaf to the Act also no longer applies" .
A former journalist, Ngaihte is an independent researcher based in New Delhi.
He said that far from maintaining law and order, which is the very core rationale for imposition of the Act, AFSPA in Manipur (and India's North East region at large) has assured neither stability nor peace, but only a pervasive sense of impunity and license, not only in terms of violence and crime, but also in terms of official corruption and collapse of the rule of law.
Though not denying that there are 'secessionist movements' such as the Naga and Mizo movement, Ngaihte argued that over the years, particularly from 2000 onwards number of fatalities have considerable come down and in practical sense "secessionist movements" are slowly dying down.
While the Mizos have signed a peace accord, most of the outfits in NE are now in the process of peace negotiations, Ngaihte observed and added that this is reason enough for AFSPA to go.
Ngaihte spoke of the emerging trend of military power over civilian administration, which he said is an undesired development and unfortunate.
Though the protest and demands for removal of AFSPA has hit the wall as the Government has no plans for its removal, Ngaihte believed that a credible civilian Government still has scope of finding a possibility in removing the controversial Act.
Ngaihte felt that the protest against the Act by focusing only on the 'draconian' and 'inhuman' nature of the Act and thus framing the debate in moralistic terms, has failed to challenge the core existential rationale of the Act.
He opined that AFSPA which is based on the doctrine of necessity therefore requires a new reframing of arguments and perspectives such a policy and decision making process and focus on the Government to bring them to task.