AFSPA, 1958 - A Law Review — Emergency Unproclaimed — Part 2 |
By: Dr. Naorem Sanajaoba * |
The reasons had espoused the same set of strong arguments, advanced at the time of enactment and invocation of the colonial Armed forces Special Powers Ordinance in 1942 by the imperial power, who desired the British to keep the empire in tact. The obvious contradiction lies in the fact that the justification for colonization or, re-colonization through colonial statute after the lapse of the colonialism is totally absurd and false. The demoniacal colonial law had to exist in order to sustain NSGT colony and conversely, the invocation of colonial statute proves that the colony survives after the British left India in 1947. - The central issue, which resulted to insurgency or, national liberation movement - as it has been known to the insurgents or, in the parlance of universal de-colonization, is the historical legacy and a deep structure political question, which should not be addressed to legitimize the draconian law and the army, who had been given additional empowerment for extra-judicial execution under the AFSPA. The issue has been misconceived as 'law and order' or, at most 'internal security' issue, whereas it bears the intrinsic essence of de-colonization and national liberation war- euphemistically, known as secessionism. The issue remains very deep and the fault lines are profound. The sustenance of the issue for more than four decades itself indicates that human eights violations and the twisted perceptions are merely symptoms of the malaise. The Annual Report of Home Ministry, Government of India 1996-97 reports about the state most affected by insurgent activities of various militant groups. The union government, has therefore, arranged for talks with a Nagaland outfit since 1997. The available evidence, the demand-structure, the historical facts and the pattern of union government's response to the political issue make it amply clear that the decades-old political violence, as espoused by the insurgents or liberation army of the NSGT, has been a consequence of unresolved political question from the time of Indian Independence. Historical evidence very clearly stipulates that -
The accords, reached and breached between national groups and the government during the last five decades, being purely political issues in all sense of the term, exclude the wide arms of the apex court or, human rights commissions or, the instruments of the civil government like the army. Since 1997, the union government has initiated political moves by holding dialogue with one of the liberation outfits of Nagaland. Even after 9 years of talks, no result has so far emerged. The human right violations following the invocation of special demoniacal laws and state repression for nearly half-a-century has been inextricably associated with the political question. The issue, therefore, stands for the closest political scrutiny ; however, the enactment of special laws, invocation of half-a-century old emergency laws without formal declaration of emergency have to be assessed on the basis of 'rule of law' and accepted standards civilized jurisprudence. Read Part 1 | Read Part 2 | Read Part 3 | Read Part 4 | Read Part 5 | Read Part 6 | Read Part 7 | Read Part 8 | * Dr. Naorem Sanajaoba is a Professor and Dean of Law Faculty at the Gauhati University, Asom. The author is a human rights defender and a social activist in the NE region of India for more than 4 (four) decades and is a reknown author of several internationally distributed books on human rights, humanitarian laws, among others. The author can be contacted at [email protected] . This article was first webcasted on November 18th, 2006 and updated subsequently in later days. |
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