WAITING FOR REPEAL

Why The Parliament Sleeps Over Reddy Report

The draconian law - AFSPA - 1958 - that violates the vital provisions of the International covenants to which India is a party, infringes upon the basic tenets of civilized norms and 'Rule of Law' for the last half a century ought to be scrapped from the statute book once and for all.

Whereas Indian Nobel laureates would like to prefer silence on the repeal issue, Nobel laureate Shirin Ibadi has vowed on November 28 , 2006 in New Delhi that she would take up the AFSPA repeal issue to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and all the international fora and also to the Speaker of Indian Loka Sabha, among others. It is rather late for the international community and the members of the Indian parlaiment to remain silent on this issue for half a century.

The Iranian Nobel laureatehas stated on 29th Novemver 2006 that the Indian parliament, the Courts and the Armed Forces should be responsible if Sharmila dies. [Hindu 29 Nov.2006.p.3]

After her one hour long meeting with the Manipuri Iron Lady on hunger strike for 6 years- Irom Sharmila Chanu at AIIMS private ward bed no.56 at New Delhi, the peace Nobel laureate has stated that, her one hour long tape-recorded talk with Sharmila would be handed over to the UN Human Rights Council for stopping the half a century long state repression of the helpless Manipuris. [See the HINDU daily, 27 Nov, 2006, p. 12]. It is rather late for the international community to remain silent on this issue for half a century.

The deep structured political and nationality questions that characterize the turmoil in the North-Eastern states, Manipur in particular for half a century deserve political attention and resolution.

Notwithstanding the changing political dynamics and fluidity in the discourse - pattern, the fact remains that the global human rights standard should not be at all compromised with one pretext or another for such a long time in a situation of de facto unproclaimed emergency and the state responsibility in this context shall no longer be abdicated .

The prime minister failed to table the Reddy report to the parliament even today (3 December,2006). Instead, the report has been made available in blatant breach of the privilege of the house to the security forces which are the muscle of the executive wing of the government, for their recommendations, without taking the parliament into confidence.

No unprejudiced parliamentarian in the country including those from Manipur and the NE region had ever raised the breach of the privilege of the house when this impropriety had been committed by the home minister and prime minister of the great country and greater parliamentary traditions.

If the prime minister has respect for the Reddy report, he had been left with no option other than repealing the black law first before taking up other considerations whatever. The Indian MPs like the MPs of the third Reich of Germany conveniently sleeps over the Reddy report without exercising their constitutional mandate to examine the report.

Some local degenerate - so called Communist of motherland India [a la Akhand Bharat of a Fascist party] make local populist noise menace in Imphal municipality only, inspite of urging upon their party MPs to withdraw immediately from the working de-facto coalition at Delhi unless they repeal the black law.

The Hindu editorial [4th December p.10- "Repeal the Hated Act"] has been critical of the Prime Minister's non-action at the Reddy report for a year and a half.

It has categorically urged upon the conscience of the nation and the union government in these words- "The situation demands that AFSPA go lock stock and barrel, so that the non–accountability of the Armed Forces to the rule of law is ended and the people of the North East are invested with the same undiluted Right to Life that people elsewhere in India enjoy."

ARMY'S VIEW-PEACE RESTORED
The Army has pointed out that peace has been virtually restored in the NE region [PIB-Defence wing 16 October, 2006]. The report states: "The over-all situation in the North Eastern states has been improving steadily. A majority of Under Ground Groups in this region have been marginalized and sustained operations by the security forces have forced a number of groups to seek ceasefire/suspension operations"[ PIB 16.10.06].

By implication, the AFSPA has lost its purpose, and it stays for no purpose at all except for terrorizing the 40 million strong NE civil society.

It is time that the government of India repeals immediately the infamous AFSPA and, in due course of time, signs the ICC Rome treaty, 1998 and terminates impunity that the government of India had consistently espoused for half a century in the peripheral North Eastern region and elevated to a new great Indian tradition.

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