With my limited and meager knowledge about history and politics, allow me to express a few words regarding the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958.In 1942 The then British government promulgated the armed forces special powers ordinance to contain the Quit India movement spearheaded by Mahatma Gandhi. Sixteen years later, based on that ordinance the Indian parliament passed the armed forces special powers act in 1958 commonly known as the AFSPA 1958 solely to crush the Naga national movement spearheaded by AZ Phizo. Once an area is tagged as ‘DISTURBED’ (undefined) by the central government, AFSPA automatically comes into force. The home ministry still feels Nagaland is a very disturbed and dangerous place and made no hesitation again in extending AFSPA 1958 to the whole of Nagaland for a period of six months wef June 30 2016. Under this Act, the armed forces are given extraordinary powers to search or make arrests without warrants, to shoot on mere suspicion even to the extent of causing of death and no prosecutions or no legal proceedings can be initiated by any court against the security forces personnel for their actions without the sanction of the central government. AFSPA 1958 was first applied to the Naga hills(then under Assam) and then extended to other seven north eastern states and to other states including Jammu and Kashmir(AFSPA 1990). It’s a well-known fact that under this very Act and some couple of similar Acts before AFSPA 1958, Nagas especially in 1950’s and 1960’s had suffered the most. Under the pretext of fighting insurgency, AFSPA1958 continues to remain in Nagaland for more than five decades. This is ridiculous because when it was promulgated in Nagaland in 1958, there was only one naga political group under the banner of NNC and here today we have nine or ten groups. The point is,’is it really serving its purpose?’. Many renowned national as well as international human rights activists/organizations have widely condemned the Act and urged India to repeal the Act for good saying the very Act overrides the constitution of India and is not in consonant with the international laws. Some worth mentioning are as follows; under the AFSPA 1958, article 14-equality before law, article 21-right to life, article 22-protection against arrest and detention, article 32-right to constitutional remedies are violated. The United Nations human rights committee in 1997 declared that AFSPA is in violation of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) law to which India is also one of the signatories. The international human rights watchdog, Amnesty international has been urging India to withdraw AFSPA completely. in fact the UN in 2012 asked India to repeal AFSPA saying it has no role to play in Indian democracy. Even the Jeevan Reddy committee set up by the then UPA government in Nov. 2004 to review the provisions of AFSPA 1958 says the Act is “a symbol of oppression, instrument of high handedness” and had recommended its repeal but its still far from being implemented. Why set up a committee when its report is going to get rejected anyway? the most surprising and interesting of all is that the supreme court(the guardian of the constitution) is in no mood to strike down AFSPA as unconstitutional. This definitely emboldens some mindless and heartless individuals in the government set up to stick to their guns and never allow the Act to get repealed or even get amended. On one side, the international communities around the world especially the U.S which is also a democratic state like India is following standard procedures complying with the international laws in the military campaign against the dreaded ISIS. On the other side, India boasting herself as the largest democracy in the world is making mockery of her democracy by discriminating her own citizens through AFSPA 1958 in the north eastern states. Instead the government of India should practice without any double standard the basic principle of democracy, that the government is’ by the people, of the people and for the people’.
