By : A Bimol Akoijam/IFP 12/10/2007 1:15:29 AM
It seems self-evident that the Armed Forces Special Powers Act is a legal question pertaining to human rights. After all, so goes the argument, the Act goes against national and international legal standards and convents on human rights, and that it denies “right to life” by empowering the personnel of the central security forces to shoot to kill people merely on the basis of suspicion, and that it provides impunity to them. Therefore, it seems contra-factual and counter-intuitive to say that the AFSPA is not merely, if at all, a legal question of human rights. But the fact is that AFSPA is a legal fiction that hides the facticity of a politics.
For instance, take the case of Monorama and events that followed the discovery of her dead body at the outskirt of her village. She was picked up by the security forces from her residence and was subsequently murdered, allegedly after being subjected to sexual assault by her murderous tormentors, and her dead body was discarded in the open for the public to see, in the true spirit of a Machiavellian dictum, as a spectacle of political violence. Terming the act as one of those human rights abuses by the security forces operating under the AFSPA, various civil society groups and conglomerates demanded that the Act should be scraped. But the question is in what sense does the notorious Act allow those murderers to commit the heinous act? What in the Act allows the security forces to discard the murdered “enemy” or “insurgent” (as they would term) in the public space without seeking the help of police to pick up body? Or, what stops the political executive and the generals of the military from persecuting those murderers? Such questions would probably find chinks in the seemingly impeccable link between the AFSPA and the crime committed by the murderers of Monorama. In fact, such questions are bound to reveal a diabolical political reality that hitherto gets obscured by the juridical arguments that links human rights and the AFSPA.
It ought to be remembered that the refusal or inaction of the political executive, or, for that matter the generals, to initiate persecution against the perpetrators of a prima facie crime is beyond Section 6 of the Act. That is, nothing in the Act stops the generals or the political executive to take such a course of action. That they would not take such an action but rather seek to justify the murder of the young woman by saying that she was “a pucca insurgent” (reportedly by the Chief Minister of the state) or that she was “an IED expert” of an underground outfit has nothing to do with the provisions of AFSPA.
Eternal Suspicion
Such effort at justifying (or condoning by not taking action) the murder is deeply rooted in a political culture of suspicion, which is born out of a nationalist politics that excludes people from the very idea of nationhood. Deeply embedded as it were in a civilizational narrative with discernible racial inflection of the Indian nationhood, one of the prominent architects of modern Indian nation, Sardar Patel had echoed such a suspicion long before the Act was enacted in 1958. He wrote to Nehru that the “people inhabiting these portions (meaning “North East”) have no established loyalty or devotion to India. Even the Darjeeling and Kalimpong areas are not free from pro-Mongoloid prejudices”. With the nationhood that gets defined in terms of the experiences of the so-called “mainstream”, the burden of proving loyalty—while perpetually living under the debilitating and murderous suspicions—lies with “the people inhabiting (the North East)”, not with those Indians who have “mainstream blood” in them. Incidentally, a retired general of the Indian army who once served Manipur as its Governor admits the racial inflection of the “mainstream” as he says that “most Indians need to realize that apart from Aryans and Dravidians the Mongoloid races inhabiting…North East are as much Indian and unless this realization spreads, do not blame the North-East for calling you (meaning “national mainstream”) outsiders”. Such admission aside, the fact remains that the historically rooted racial and cultural prejudice towards the people in the region gets continuously reproduced politically and violently all these years. And the AFSPA is a legal fiction that camouflages that reality.
That AFSPA does not define “insurgent” or “terrorist”” or perpetrators of a “criminal” act as laws would normally do is primarily because the issue here is the “suspected communities”. It is not politically correct to say so, but it has to cover the portions inhabited by those who do no have “established loyalty or devotion to India”. Hence the expression “disturbed area”, that too, tellingly without defining what constitutes that disturbance. That the security forces would force people of a village, wherein an attack on them had occurred, to sing Sare Jahan Se Acha Hindustan Hamara (incidentally a song written by Pakistan’s national poet) is a reflection of the pedagogy of the same nationalist politics. The deepening of the violence and humiliation of the self-righteous nationalist politics was reflected in the humiliation of the Minister who harped on the tricolour on his car to prove his loyalty and credential, by the young army officer, who had probably left the “gentleman” in him at the time of his passing out parade at the military academy (aren’t they called “gentlemen cadet” there?).
To deal with the suspicion of the “others”, not insurgency, that a “state of exception” has been deployed as a “paradigm of government” in the North East. The AFSPA is the legal fiction that represents this politics. Based on distrust for the “local”, including the local police and cognate forces, the central authority asserts its presence in the affairs of the state but only surreptitiously. While presenting itself as a force at the disposal of the state authority, the latter does not have control over the former. Incidentally, driven by the need to prove its loyalty, wittingly or unwittingly the local authority brutalizes its police forces by militarizing them. And these local forces seek to prove their worth and also beat the suspicion (tellingly without the AFSPA), by becoming more brutal than the central security forces. That’s the reality of Manipur.
Here one must add that if the insurgents are also practicing the same culture, it only underscores the deepening of the subversion of our life and collectivity by that culture. And one does not restrict the subversion by justifying or asking for the perpetuation of those practices. Incidentally, argument that human rights are being abused by both the warring camps has been often used to divert from the real issue we have at hand: that the AFSPA is a political question that is founded on the principle of “state of exception”, something that the liberal state often deploys while seeking to defend against threat to its security and integrity. Although it cannot have a pure juridical form, “state of exception” in modern times manifest itself as a legal fiction. AFSPA is one of those rare species. Unpacking its fictional façade is required for us to confront and challenge its debilitating violence.
However, when it comes to AFSPA, most seem to have been distracted by its fictional legal front. Just as the critics of the Act rest their arguments primarily on the legal premise, the supporters of the Act argue from a legal ground by asserting that it is a legal measure to deal with “insurgency”. Indeed, while some even seemed to concede the “excesses” of the Act, they simultaneously wonder on the question of “what after AFSPA”. Obviously, they do not realize that both theoretically and empirically, the AFSPA has barely anything to do with insurgency. One might argue that to see the deeper premise of the Act and its reality may not be easy. But it is definitely not a difficult task to register the empirical fact that the Act, despite being in force for so long, has not controlled, leave alone solved, the “problem”.
Empirical Blindness
Insurgency in Manipur is a historically understandable phenomenon. It is a movement that takes a politico-military campaign. Irrespective of whether one likes it or not, we cannot run away from it. It is there; it is a reality that marks our life. And therefore it has to be addressed in its totality. Unfortunately, just as they have missed the empirics of their lives, those who ask the question of “what after AFSPA” seem to have grossly missed this nature of insurgency. In fact, they also do not understand what is to respond to armed or militaristic campaign under a democratic order.
There is no denying that any state would use forces, including the military, if its security and integrity is threatened, especially by armed rebellion or movement. But in a democratic republic, the security forces respond to the situation under the restraints and constraints of its democratic imperatives. Security forces cannot operate like the rogue army or the mercenaries. That is why in order to face extraordinary challenges, specialized units (e.g., Special Weapon and Tactic Team or SWAT) have been created to carry out the task without jeopardizing the imperatives of “rule of law” and ethos of a democratic order. Creation of special units of the state forces to militarize the police or giving the military to operate with minimum restraints is to work against the gains of civilized democratic order.
One ought to reflect as to why both the Supreme Court and the Reddy Committee have expressed caution against the prolonged deployment of army in the internal affairs of the state. Or why does the Constitution seek to restrict the deployment of the military in the internal affairs of the state by making it a temporary measure (as exemplified by the emergency provision of the Constitution or Cr. P. C.)? Or why is it that the Commander-in-chief of the armed forces is the civilian President rather than the professional military general? For that matter, one needs to understand the meaning of the saying that “war is too serious a business to be left only in the hands of the generals”.
Perpetuating the prolonged deployment of the military by going against these obvious practices (for example by saying that AFSPA is a means to solve insurgency or that it is required for one does not want to be “dragged to courts”) can only be a handwork of a diabolical mind or stupidity of ignorant.
But the tragedy is that the AFSPA has been justified by the military saying that they are engaging in a “low-intensity war with various armed groups which threaten the national security and integrity, while it was upheld by the Supreme Court saying that it is a “law and order” situation and that the “disturbed” condition is not caused by “armed rebellion” and that the situation does not constitute a “threat” to the “security” of the nation! And to add to that tragedy, casting suspicion on any dissenting voices against the Act, the minds that refuse to see the empirical reality or reduce what is essentially a political issue to legal arguments on human rights, the AFSPA continues to cover up a diabolical political reality and its violence in the state.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The author can be reached at bimol_akoijam@yahoo.co.in
Source: http://ifp.co.in/ArticleFull.asp?ArticleID=202
It seems self-evident that the Armed Forces Special Powers Act is a legal question pertaining to human rights. After all, so goes the argument, the Act goes against national and international legal standards and convents on human rights, and that it denies “right to life” by empowering the personnel of the central security forces to shoot to kill people merely on the basis of suspicion, and that it provides impunity to them. Therefore, it seems contra-factual and counter-intuitive to say that the AFSPA is not merely, if at all, a legal question of human rights. But the fact is that AFSPA is a legal fiction that hides the facticity of a politics.
For instance, take the case of Monorama and events that followed the discovery of her dead body at the outskirt of her village. She was picked up by the security forces from her residence and was subsequently murdered, allegedly after being subjected to sexual assault by her murderous tormentors, and her dead body was discarded in the open for the public to see, in the true spirit of a Machiavellian dictum, as a spectacle of political violence. Terming the act as one of those human rights abuses by the security forces operating under the AFSPA, various civil society groups and conglomerates demanded that the Act should be scraped. But the question is in what sense does the notorious Act allow those murderers to commit the heinous act? What in the Act allows the security forces to discard the murdered “enemy” or “insurgent” (as they would term) in the public space without seeking the help of police to pick up body? Or, what stops the political executive and the generals of the military from persecuting those murderers? Such questions would probably find chinks in the seemingly impeccable link between the AFSPA and the crime committed by the murderers of Monorama. In fact, such questions are bound to reveal a diabolical political reality that hitherto gets obscured by the juridical arguments that links human rights and the AFSPA.
It ought to be remembered that the refusal or inaction of the political executive, or, for that matter the generals, to initiate persecution against the perpetrators of a prima facie crime is beyond Section 6 of the Act. That is, nothing in the Act stops the generals or the political executive to take such a course of action. That they would not take such an action but rather seek to justify the murder of the young woman by saying that she was “a pucca insurgent” (reportedly by the Chief Minister of the state) or that she was “an IED expert” of an underground outfit has nothing to do with the provisions of AFSPA.
Eternal Suspicion
Such effort at justifying (or condoning by not taking action) the murder is deeply rooted in a political culture of suspicion, which is born out of a nationalist politics that excludes people from the very idea of nationhood. Deeply embedded as it were in a civilizational narrative with discernible racial inflection of the Indian nationhood, one of the prominent architects of modern Indian nation, Sardar Patel had echoed such a suspicion long before the Act was enacted in 1958. He wrote to Nehru that the “people inhabiting these portions (meaning “North East”) have no established loyalty or devotion to India. Even the Darjeeling and Kalimpong areas are not free from pro-Mongoloid prejudices”. With the nationhood that gets defined in terms of the experiences of the so-called “mainstream”, the burden of proving loyalty—while perpetually living under the debilitating and murderous suspicions—lies with “the people inhabiting (the North East)”, not with those Indians who have “mainstream blood” in them. Incidentally, a retired general of the Indian army who once served Manipur as its Governor admits the racial inflection of the “mainstream” as he says that “most Indians need to realize that apart from Aryans and Dravidians the Mongoloid races inhabiting…North East are as much Indian and unless this realization spreads, do not blame the North-East for calling you (meaning “national mainstream”) outsiders”. Such admission aside, the fact remains that the historically rooted racial and cultural prejudice towards the people in the region gets continuously reproduced politically and violently all these years. And the AFSPA is a legal fiction that camouflages that reality.
That AFSPA does not define “insurgent” or “terrorist”” or perpetrators of a “criminal” act as laws would normally do is primarily because the issue here is the “suspected communities”. It is not politically correct to say so, but it has to cover the portions inhabited by those who do no have “established loyalty or devotion to India”. Hence the expression “disturbed area”, that too, tellingly without defining what constitutes that disturbance. That the security forces would force people of a village, wherein an attack on them had occurred, to sing Sare Jahan Se Acha Hindustan Hamara (incidentally a song written by Pakistan’s national poet) is a reflection of the pedagogy of the same nationalist politics. The deepening of the violence and humiliation of the self-righteous nationalist politics was reflected in the humiliation of the Minister who harped on the tricolour on his car to prove his loyalty and credential, by the young army officer, who had probably left the “gentleman” in him at the time of his passing out parade at the military academy (aren’t they called “gentlemen cadet” there?).
To deal with the suspicion of the “others”, not insurgency, that a “state of exception” has been deployed as a “paradigm of government” in the North East. The AFSPA is the legal fiction that represents this politics. Based on distrust for the “local”, including the local police and cognate forces, the central authority asserts its presence in the affairs of the state but only surreptitiously. While presenting itself as a force at the disposal of the state authority, the latter does not have control over the former. Incidentally, driven by the need to prove its loyalty, wittingly or unwittingly the local authority brutalizes its police forces by militarizing them. And these local forces seek to prove their worth and also beat the suspicion (tellingly without the AFSPA), by becoming more brutal than the central security forces. That’s the reality of Manipur.
Here one must add that if the insurgents are also practicing the same culture, it only underscores the deepening of the subversion of our life and collectivity by that culture. And one does not restrict the subversion by justifying or asking for the perpetuation of those practices. Incidentally, argument that human rights are being abused by both the warring camps has been often used to divert from the real issue we have at hand: that the AFSPA is a political question that is founded on the principle of “state of exception”, something that the liberal state often deploys while seeking to defend against threat to its security and integrity. Although it cannot have a pure juridical form, “state of exception” in modern times manifest itself as a legal fiction. AFSPA is one of those rare species. Unpacking its fictional façade is required for us to confront and challenge its debilitating violence.
However, when it comes to AFSPA, most seem to have been distracted by its fictional legal front. Just as the critics of the Act rest their arguments primarily on the legal premise, the supporters of the Act argue from a legal ground by asserting that it is a legal measure to deal with “insurgency”. Indeed, while some even seemed to concede the “excesses” of the Act, they simultaneously wonder on the question of “what after AFSPA”. Obviously, they do not realize that both theoretically and empirically, the AFSPA has barely anything to do with insurgency. One might argue that to see the deeper premise of the Act and its reality may not be easy. But it is definitely not a difficult task to register the empirical fact that the Act, despite being in force for so long, has not controlled, leave alone solved, the “problem”.
Empirical Blindness
Insurgency in Manipur is a historically understandable phenomenon. It is a movement that takes a politico-military campaign. Irrespective of whether one likes it or not, we cannot run away from it. It is there; it is a reality that marks our life. And therefore it has to be addressed in its totality. Unfortunately, just as they have missed the empirics of their lives, those who ask the question of “what after AFSPA” seem to have grossly missed this nature of insurgency. In fact, they also do not understand what is to respond to armed or militaristic campaign under a democratic order.
There is no denying that any state would use forces, including the military, if its security and integrity is threatened, especially by armed rebellion or movement. But in a democratic republic, the security forces respond to the situation under the restraints and constraints of its democratic imperatives. Security forces cannot operate like the rogue army or the mercenaries. That is why in order to face extraordinary challenges, specialized units (e.g., Special Weapon and Tactic Team or SWAT) have been created to carry out the task without jeopardizing the imperatives of “rule of law” and ethos of a democratic order. Creation of special units of the state forces to militarize the police or giving the military to operate with minimum restraints is to work against the gains of civilized democratic order.
One ought to reflect as to why both the Supreme Court and the Reddy Committee have expressed caution against the prolonged deployment of army in the internal affairs of the state. Or why does the Constitution seek to restrict the deployment of the military in the internal affairs of the state by making it a temporary measure (as exemplified by the emergency provision of the Constitution or Cr. P. C.)? Or why is it that the Commander-in-chief of the armed forces is the civilian President rather than the professional military general? For that matter, one needs to understand the meaning of the saying that “war is too serious a business to be left only in the hands of the generals”.
Perpetuating the prolonged deployment of the military by going against these obvious practices (for example by saying that AFSPA is a means to solve insurgency or that it is required for one does not want to be “dragged to courts”) can only be a handwork of a diabolical mind or stupidity of ignorant.
But the tragedy is that the AFSPA has been justified by the military saying that they are engaging in a “low-intensity war with various armed groups which threaten the national security and integrity, while it was upheld by the Supreme Court saying that it is a “law and order” situation and that the “disturbed” condition is not caused by “armed rebellion” and that the situation does not constitute a “threat” to the “security” of the nation! And to add to that tragedy, casting suspicion on any dissenting voices against the Act, the minds that refuse to see the empirical reality or reduce what is essentially a political issue to legal arguments on human rights, the AFSPA continues to cover up a diabolical political reality and its violence in the state.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The author can be reached at bimol_akoijam@yahoo.co.in
Source: http://ifp.co.in/ArticleFull.asp?ArticleID=202
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