India News Online » News Analysis » Indian Politics » 

North East : Movement against Armed Forces Act shifts to Delhi

	October 09, 2006

It was down, but not dead. The people’s mutiny against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) which rocked Manipur following the brutal rape and killing of Manorma Devi in the Kangla fort allegedly by armed forces last year, has been going on in the state even as New Delhi had set up a special commission to examine the provisions of the infamous Act. Several recommendations were made by the Commission to rein in the “security” forces, but the Government failed to deliver them to the people. And, the sparks of the movement have been continuously ignited since then.



Spearheading the movement against AFSPA is Irom Sharmila who shifted the movement to New Delhi barely 12 hours after being freed from police custody and dramatically resurfaced at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on Oct. 4 to turn her “regional” campaign into a “national” one.



Embarrassed police officials admitted that they had no inkling of the plan to “smuggle out” Sharmila, who has been on an intermittent hungerstrike since 2000. Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh pleaded ignorance, too.



Sharmila was freed from the security ward of Jawaharlal Nehru Hospital in Imphal where she had been forcibly fed liquids through a nose-pipe. A city court had handed her an extended one-year jail sentence on charges of trying to commit suicide after her previous stint in custody ended.



On reaching New Delhi, the poet-turned-crusader visited Rajghat to lay a wreath at Mahatma Gandhi’s samadhi. Surrounded by probing journalists and photographers, she let her tears do the talking. Sharmila then proceeded to Jantar Mantar (the centre point in New Delhi where all democratic protests take place) to continue her hungerstrike.



“I want to tell the people of India that if Mahatma Gandhi were alive today, he would have launched a movement against the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act. My appeal to the citizens of the country is to join the campaign against the army act,” she said.



Babloo Loitongbam, executive director of the Imphal-based NGO Human Rights Alert, and Sapamcha Kangleipal, President of the Manipur Forward Youth Front, were by her side.



Kangleipal said Sharmila would continue her hungerstrike in the capital to draw the attention of the international community and citizens of the country to the plight of Manipuris living under the “repressive” Armed Forces Act. “Her six-year hungerstrike in Manipur failed to elicit any sympathy from the state government and Delhi. That is why she is here in Delhi.”





Fast-unto-death



As she continued her fast-unto-death at Jantar Mantar, activists of various Delhi-based human rights groups rallied around her and against the legislation that gives extraordinary powers to the armed forces during counter-insurgency operations. Planning Commission Member Syeda Hameed was among those who met the frail Sharmila with a steely resolve. Loitongbam said Hameed promised to help arrange a meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.



Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front leader Yasin Malik and Amnesty International representatives also met Sharmila on Octrober 6. Malik said he extended support to Sharmila on behalf of JKLF. “The Prime Minister should immediately meet her,” he said.





Protests in Manipur



Reports about Sharmila’s deteriorating health have triggered widespread protests back in Manipur. In a show of solidarity, Meira Paibis (women activists), students and rights crusaders have been staging protests in different parts of the valley. At many places, the protesters burnt effigies of Chief Minister Ibobi Singh.





Government cool to Sharmila fast



Reports say Sharmila has expresssed her resolve to continue her “satyagraha” against the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act after Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil reportedly told a delegation of students that though some provisions of the law might be changed, the Act would not be repealed.







——————Box—————-



Repeal Armed Forces Act: Justice Jeevan Reddy Report





The Justice Jeevan Reddy Committee set up by the Government to review the provisions of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, in the wake of widespread protests by the people in Manipur and elsewhere in the North East, has recommended the repeal of the draconian Act. The 147-page report of the Justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy Committee unambiguously recommends the repeal of the controversial law.



“The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958, should be repealed,” it notes in its recommendations. “The Act is too sketchy, too bald and quite inadequate in several particulars”.



The report adds that the impression gathered by the Committee during the course of its work is that “the Act, for whatever reason, has become a symbol of oppression, an object of hate and an instrument of discrimination and high-handedness.”



Acknowledging that the Supreme Court had upheld the constitutional validity of the Act, the Committee said that the judgment “is not an endorsement of the desirability or advisability of the Act.”



The apex court may have endorsed the competence of the legislature to enact the law. But “the Court does not - it is not supposed to - pronounce upon the wisdom or the necessity of such an enactment.”



On this point, the Jeevan Reddy Committee’s findings are clear: “It is highly desirable and advisable to repeal the Act altogether, without, of course, losing sight of the overwhelming desire of an overwhelming majority of the [North-East] region that the Army should remain (though the Act should go).”



The other members of the Committee - set up by the Prime Minister in November 2004 - are Lt. Gen (Retd.) V.R. Raghavan, P.P. Shrivastava, a former special secretary in the Union Home Ministry, Dr. S.B. Nakade, a former Vice-Chancellor of the Marathwada University, and senior journalist Sanjoy Hazarika.



The panel turned in its report in June 2005 but the Manmohan Singh Government has yet to officially accept or reject its findings.





Submission rejected



Rejecting the principal submission made by the armed forces in favour of continuation of the AFSPA, the Committee pointed out that protection from legal proceedings against soldiers acting in good faith already exists in Section 49 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (ULP Act).



Accountability



It also noted that “while providing protection against civil or criminal proceedings in respect of the acts and deeds done by [the armed] forces while carrying out the duties entrusted to them, it is equally necessary to ensure that where they knowingly abuse or misuse their powers, they must be held accountable therefore and must be dealt with according to the law applicable to them.”



Accordingly, the Committee recommends amending the ULP Act to incorporate measures that would regulate the already permissible conduct of armed forces personnel in areas where they are deployed to fight terrorist activities and provide protection to ordinary citizens against possible abuse.