Prison houses and Valleys of torture
Structural State-sponsored violence in Kashmir and North East India
- Part 2 -

Devika Mittal *

Jan Karwan, from Srinagar to Imphal for Repeal AFSPA at Imphal on October 27 2011 :: Pix - Bullu Raj

AFSPA – for whose security?

"The army came to our house past midnight of July 16. There were about 100 soldiers. They surrounded our house and knocked at our door, which I opened. They searched the house but could not find anything. Then one army officer came out with a grenade in his hand and asked my son in Hindi what it was. In fact, he did not know what it was. He also cannot speak Hindi.

The army had come with a list of names which they claimed was the list of suspects in the locality. I said to the army officer that there is another person in the locality with the same name as my son. However, the officers did not listen.

My son was crying from fear and they did not understand that my son could not even speak sensibly since he is mentally disabled. He hugged me by my waist and cried loud. He also has a problem with his walking. So they dragged him away. I tried to follow him. I was recovering from surgery and had a pain in my waist. When I tried following an officer kicked me.

At morning we, along with other people whose children were also arrested last night gathered together in front of the police station. By about 4pm my son, along with many others, was brought to the police station. I could see that my son had been brutally tortured. He was shown to a doctor who advised that he be given more medical treatment. However the police refused to provide any.

As a mother I cannot forget the look in my son's eyes when he was brought to the police station. However, to whom shall we complain about all this? The police are equally helpless. To the army or to the government who sent the army here? Or to the insurgents? Every day here is uncertain. You can never be sure about tomorrow." – Mani Thombi, mother of Jano.

This incident that had took place in Manipur in 2006 is one of the thousands of incidents that occur almost daily in these states. Even besides these horror stories, there are arbitrary rules. Some of the rules applicable in AFSPA-imposed areas of Assam bar people from carrying too much cash or even a second person on a bike. The rules keep changing.

AFSPA has led to extra-judicial killings, torture and gang-rape. The Imphal Free Press gives reference to a report entitled 'Manipur: Memorandum on Extrajudicial Summary or Arbitrary Executions' collated and later, submitted by the Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights in Manipur and the UN to the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Summary or Arbitrary Executions that mentioned that altogether 1528 people, including 31 women and 98 children were killed in fake encounters by security forces in Manipur between 1979 and May, 2012. These are the statistics only for one state.

In AFSPA-imposed states, gang-rapes are a norm. One of the most known cases of gang-rape and murder is that of Manorama Devi, a Manipuri woman who was considered to be a suspect. It had managed to create uproar and the case reached Guwahati High Court but the accused army officials had refused to come and the case was dismissed.

Warisha Farasat (2012) had talked about sexual abuse during the house raids, search operations, crackdowns in Kashmir. "During these search operations the men were held for identification outside their houses, near mosques or in a common ground while the security forces searched their homes. During these search operations, safeguards such as inclusion of a women officer in the search teams are never followed", she argued.

Though there are several movements in the country today to gather support for the repeal of the law, there has been little success. One major reason being the glorification of the Indian army and the extreme or blinded nationalism.

Conclusion

We noted the structural and everyday violence that people in the AFSPA-imposed states suffer. It poses several questions to the concept of a nation, to democracy, to the judiciary.

This structural and everyday violence in these states also pose an important strand in the discourse of violence and modifies our understanding of it as it challenges certain notions of violence.

Violence is not always sudden and disrupts normalcy. It does not always uproot the order of the society. It is sometimes, as we see, the normal order in a society. It defines society in these states.

The violence in these states is structural. It is directed to a certain group. The axes of violence are the political situation – the people in the AFSPA imposed states are considered to be secessionist and anti-Indian, Gender – Gang-rape is a common reality, women get the worse, Economic situation – the victims are often poverty-stricken and ethnic/racial group. This again helps us understand the base of our society. It is not against the order in the society but re-iterates it. Violence is being used to restore patriarchy, ethnic based discrimination and economic inequality .

The state-sponsored violence in these states that have been misused to torture civilians also reminds me of Foucault's notion of State having the right over life and death.

The Modern State has the monopoly of violence. Like in the past where the 'autocratic' regimes had the right to "grant" death, the modern states have adopted the principle and exercises the right of life or death over its citizens (known as subjects in the past) (1978). In this case, it doesn't seem that we have moved in history at all. Even though the nation prides itself as the World's largest democracy, in these states, it is nothing less than an autocrat. It also questions the sole authority of the law to restore justice as the law itself perpetrates violence.

Moreover, it questions the notion of justice. Who defines justice? Should the state who perpetrates violence and injustice be given the authority to define it? Does the Indian judiciary that is silent on the issue be given the authority? Who defines justice and for whom? For the mainland Indians, as they are called, who may not even know the capital of Tripura?

Thus, Violence may occur to anyone, anywhere, in any form. But it is also selective and structural. It is on one hand, used by the state to 'safeguard' people and sometimes, used to safeguard itself.

References

• Benjamin, Walter. 1968. Critique of Violence. In Reflections. New York: Schoken.
• Bourgois, Phillipe. 2003. In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
• Bourgois, Phillipe and Nancy Scheper-Hughes. 2004 .Introduction: Making Sense of Violence. Phillipe Bourgois and Nancy Sheper-Hughes (eds.) In Violence in War and Peace: An Anthology. Pp. 1-27. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
• Farasat, Warisha. 2012. 'Armed Forces Special Powers Act provides impunity for rape' Link here (Last accessed on 22nd February 2013).
• Farmer, Paul. 2003. Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Foucault, Michel. 1978. "Right of Death and Power over Life" in The History of Sexuality, Part V. Link here (Last accessed on 22nd February 2013).
• Kleinman, Arthur. 2000. 'The Violence of Everyday Life'. In Veena Das, Arthur Klienman, Mamphela Ramphele and Pamela Reynolds (eds.). Violence and Subjectivity. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Noorani, A G. 2009. 'Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act: Urgency of Review', Economic and Political Weekly, Vo. 44, No. 34: 8-11.