Our hope is not going to sail beyond these loud vaunts of political parties making promises during elections to get the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) repealed. Though the Act contravenes both Indian and International law standards, the world’s largest democracy claiming that it is committed to protect human rights, is not going to lift this draconian law as long as it suffers from the secession phobia.According to a material of the South Asian Human Rights Documentation Centre, ‘when India presented its second periodic report to the United Nations Human Rights Committee in 1991, members of the UNHRC asked numerous questions about the validity of the AFSPA, questioning how the AFSPA could be deemed constitutional under Indian law and how it could be justified in light of Article 4 of the ICCPR, the Attorney General of India relied on the sole argument that the AFSPA is a necessary measure to prevent the secession of the North Eastern states’.
Well, the general public and the armed forces are parts of a common social system. But if one is given the license to destroy the other on mere suspicion then the whole situation depends on the mood of even a non-commissioned officer of the Army. Note that bad laws will only manufacture bad people. So the answer to the problem is to have humane laws. AFSPA has brought disenchantment in people. If an establishment suffers from certain phobia it should utilize its best resources to tackle the issue immediately. Caging certain section of the people under military apparatus for decades only demeans the establishment. Also note that one factor that constantly ruffles India’s preaching elegance before the world is this human rights issue.
We realized that India’s secession phobia is acute. The following cases confirmed this fact. As recent as on November 5, 2015, the Amnesty International had made this statement—“Despite repeated calls to withdraw the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) from UN experts as well as national and international groups, the Act continues to be enforced and continues to cause flagrant human rights violations”. According to the Amnesty International, during the then UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay’s visit to India in March 2009, it was clearly stated that the Act breached contemporary international human rights standards. “Furthermore, Margaret Sekaggya, then UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders in 2011 and also Christof Heyns, then UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary executions in early 2012, had recommended repeal of AFSPA. During the second cycle of the Universal Periodic Review in 2012, India also received specific recommendations to review and repeal AFSPA,” said the statement. However, these recommendations were ignored as India was reluctant to accept them, it added.
International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) has also been asking the Government of India to repeal the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) without further delay.
“The AFSPA has facilitated gross human rights violations by the armed forces in the areas in which it is operational,” Sam Zarifi, Asia-Pacific Director of the ICJ said. “It is a repressive and draconian law that should have no place in today’s India”.
Several UN human rights bodies have recommended that the AFSPA be repealed or significantly amended. These include the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (2014), the Special Rapporteur on violence against women (2014), the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions (in 2013 and again in 2015), the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders (2012), the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (2007), and the UN Human Rights Committee (1997).
