“No recent case of misuse of AFSPA in NE”
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: June 08 2016 -

“There was no recent cases of misuse of the law (Armed Forces Special Powers Act) in the region (North East)”.

This was what the Indian Army said in defence of the prolonged imposition of the infamous Act in the North East region and of course Kashmir.

A news report filed by the Press Trust of India (PTI) quoted Eastern Army Commander Lieutenant General Praveen Bakshi as stating “If the army is required to handle insurgency, we require AFSPA. If we don’t have AFSPA, our hands are tied and we cannot do our job. It is an enabling provision and not a draconian provision”.

These two statements are pregnant with political implications and they would have far reaching ramifications in the North East region in general and Manipur in particular in view of the fact that Irom Sharmila has been fasting against the controversial Act for over 15 years.

From the military perspective, the Indian Army may have their own logic for defending AFSPA which has its genesis in British colonial era.

Some pertinent but disturbing questions arise here.

What is the fundamental duty of the Indian Army? Is it not defending the country against aggression by external forces?

If the Government of India is hard-pushed to deploy army in the North East region, should we assume that violent conflicts seen in the region as international conflicts?

Again, if the insurgency problems of the North East are treated as internal issues, how could the Government of India justify deployment of army in the region?

Compared to the insurgency problems in the North East, the issue of Naxalism is far graver in terms of magnitude and geographical domain which former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh described as the biggest threat to the country’s sovereignty.

Here many people would like to question why Kashmir and the North East can’t be spared from AFSPA if the same infamous Act is not necessary in tackling the country’s biggest threat (Naxal movement).

The army commander was saying that there was no recent case of misuse of AFSPA in the region.

One obvious connotation of his statement is that there were cases of misuse of the military Act in the past and Manipur has had more than its own share of the many scourges of AFSPA.

By restricting the infamous AFSPA to only Kashmir and the North East for a protracted period, the Indian State has drawn a sharp line of division between these two so-called troubled regions and the rest of the country where peace purportedly prevails.

It was often argued that impunity was given legal and political sanction or institutional support in Manipur with the imposition of the Armed Forces (Special) Powers Act 1958.

This argument assumes great significance if one juxtaposes it with the US diplomatic cables leaked by Wikileaks.

The leaked cables say, “The violations have been carried out under the cover of this very act (AFSPA). Governor SS Sidhu admitted to the American Consul General in Kolkata, Henry Jardine, that the Assam Rifles in particular are perpetrators of violations in Manipur which the very same cables described as a state that appeared more of a colony and less of an Indian state.

The army may have their own logic in defending AFSPA but the Government of India need to see beyond the military perspective if India is a republic which genuinely values and upholds the tenets of democracy.

Or should the people of the North East region and Kashmir continue to suffer physically and psychologically of being second class citizens?