Patricia Mukhim – SAWM Sisters

Law & Order, Politics: Why AFSPA Is Still in Place in Many Northeast Districts

Patricia Mukhim — Wed, 06 Apr 2022 06:10:37 +0000

This story first appeared in TheQuint

What made it to the news was the lifting of AFSPA, not that the law was reimposed in some areas for six more months.

News that areas under the Disturbed Areas Act, the forerunner to the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), have been significantly reduced created a temporary flutter in the media. The matter, however, quickly slipped out of public attention as mainstream media turned its focus to Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s desperate googly.

To give credit where due, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government at the Centre has so far been the only one to take the eight northeastern states seriously enough to review whether the contumacious AFSPA needs to be revoked, and if so, from which districts of the four states where it is being imposed.

The Union Home Ministry on 31 March announced that the Disturbed Areas Act would be removed from several districts comprising Nagaland and Manipur and partially from one district in Assam. In Manipur, AFSPA will no longer apply to 15 police stations areas of six districts. Similarly, in Nagaland, the AFSPA will not be in force in 15 police stations across seven districts.

Who Does the ‘Dirty Job’ in Nagaland?

The Home Ministry apparently acted on the recommendations of a high-level committee that was constituted after the Oting killing in Nagaland in December last year, where 14 civilians were mistaken for militants and shot in cold blood. The committee was to consider the feasibility of lifting the AFSPA completely. How the committee concluded on which areas to lift the AFSPA from is a matter that requires careful analysis by independent security experts.

Interestingly, what made it to the headlines was the lifting of AFSPA from certain areas of the three states of Nagaland, Manipur and Assam. What was not mentioned was that AFSPA was reimposed in certain districts for another six months, beginning 1 April.

In Nagaland, the areas that are still considered ‘disturbed’ are the districts of Dimapur, Niuland, Chumoukedima, Mon, Kiphire, Noklak, Phek, Peren and Zunheboto districts, and areas falling within the jurisdiction of police stations of Khuzama, Kohima North, Kohima South, Zubza and Kezocha in Kohima district; Mangkolemba, Mokokchung-I, Longtho, Tuli, Longchem and Anaki ‘C’ in Mokokchung district; Yanglok in Longleng district; and Bhandari, Champang, Ralan and Sungro in Wokha district.

We can only surmise that being commercial hubs, the people in these areas are subjected to regular extortion and intimidation by Naga militant outfits, and because the state police don’t have the wherewithal or the spine to curtail this – since the NSCN(IM) has a tight hold on the government – an independent force has to do the dirty job.

In Assam, the ‘disturbed area’ tag has been withdrawn completely from 23 districts and one sub-division of the state’s 33 districts. Only nine districts and one sub-division will still be tagged as ‘disturbed area’ under the Act.

Ethnic Bias in Manipur?

In Manipur, the ‘disturbed area’ tag will no longer be applicable in seven police station areas of Imphal West district, four police station areas under Imphal East district and one police station area each in the districts of Thoubal, Bishnupur, Kakching and Jiribam. The six districts from where AFSPA is withdrawn are in the valley. Since 2004, the AFSPA stands withdrawn from the Imphal municipality.

The AFSPA, therefore, continues to be enforced in the hill districts of Manipur, where the NSCN(IM) and other Kuki outfits operate. There is clearly an ethnic bias here, as has always been the case in Manipur, where the politics of the hills and plains has been the bone of contention.

Out of 60 seats in the Assembly, 40 are from the Imphal valley and only 20 are from the Naga-inhabited hills.

In Arunachal Pradesh, where no change has been made, Tirap, Changlang and Longding districts border the Mon district of Nagaland, which is the area dominated by various factions of the Naga militants. Namsai and Mahadevpur police stations in Namsai district border those areas in Assam that ULFA militants use as a passage to Myanmar. The above areas are declared ‘disturbed areas’ and AFSPA has been extended there, too, for six months beginning 1 April. The rest of Arunachal Pradesh is relatively peaceful.

Why Can’t Other States Follow the ‘Tripura Model’?

It may be noted again that the Disturbed Areas Act precedes the AFSPA. The Disturbed Areas Act can be invoked by the Governor of a state or the Central government. Only after an area is declared as ‘disturbed’ can AFSPA be invoked. It follows, therefore, that once the ‘Disturbed Area’ tag is lifted, AFSPA is automatically revoked.

One state of the Northeast that set an example and revoked AFSPA after assuring the Central government that the state no longer needs the Act was Tripura, whose then-Chief Minister was Manik Sarkar. This was in August 2016. Tripura has remained free from insurgency, although political violence erupts there every now and again.

The question that arises, therefore, is why are other states afflicted by AFSPA unable to follow the Tripura model? Is it because the State governments rely heavily on the Centre for the maintenance of law and order? Why are the State police unable to tackle extortion that continues unabated in Nagaland and Manipur? Do we actually need the army – a force meant to tackle the enemies of the country – to tackle armed, subversive outfits who make intermittent noises about sovereignty and a separate Constitution even while they enjoy all the perks and comforts of life bestowed on them by a compliant Indian government?

A Case of ‘Stockholm Syndrome’?

In Nagaland and Manipur, there are alternative voices that assert that revoking AFSPA would make them vulnerable to the underground outfits, ostensibly in peace talks with the government of India, while back home, they are as mercenary as they can get. One is reminded of the Stockholm Syndrome where the victim falls in love with the oppressor.

The killing of 14 people last year in the Mon district of Nagaland generated wide public backlash. But otherwise, the AFSPA has been a perpetual plague – nay, a sore – that people in the Northeast have learnt to live with now. Taking the matter to the Supreme Court by human rights groups of Nagaland and Manipur has brought little solace.

Sure, the top court had appointed the Jeevan Reddy Committee to take stock of this colonial law dating back to 1942, when the Indian Independence movement was at its height and its leaders demanded that the British quit India. The movement became violent and was leaderless. The then-Viceroy, Linlithgow, promulgated the above Act to contain the violence with an iron hand. This same law was with some amendments reintroduced in Parliament in 1958 to deal with the Naga insurgency then. The Jeevan Reddy Committee submitted its findings but with no outcome.

How British Used ILP to Keep ‘Savages’ Away from Tea-Growing ‘Sahibs’

It bears repetition to remind readers that AFSPA, as we have all heard ad nauseum, confers on the army and other central para-military forces the ‘license’ to shoot to kill, search houses and destroy any property that is “suspected” to be used by insurgents in areas declared as “disturbed” by the Home Ministry.

Decades ago, as a newly independent nation, India might not have been fully aware of the ecosystem in its northeastern periphery. Here was a region comprising people of different races, not in the least “Aryan” or “Dravidian” in their looks, cultures, et al and exacerbated by the fact that the British kept them away from the ‘civilised’ people residing in the plains of the then-state of Assam, by an instrument called the Eastern Bengal Frontier Regulation Act, 1873, now known by the nomenclature of Inner Line Permit (ILP).

The British used this Act to keep out ‘wild savages’ who were likely to hurt their tea-growing sahibs. The Nagas and Abor tribes of the then-NEFA were known to regularly venture into the tea gardens to assert their authority over what they knew were their territories.

It is intuitive that the same ILP is being put on its head and is now used to keep other Indian visitors from entering the states of Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh unless they get an entry permit. And the surprise of all surprises is that the BJP government enforced the ILP in Manipur before the state elections in 2017.

Manipur Alone Has Over 1,500 Cases of Fake Encounters

Since 1958, AFSPA has been liberally invoked whenever the “territorial integrity” of any state is threatened. It was invoked in Punjab in 1983 during the insurgency years and revoked in 1991 when order was restored in Punjab.

While the armed forces defend AFSPA to the hilt, the Act has claimed many lives in fake encounters. In Manipur alone, 1,528 such cases have been documented and presented before the Supreme Court. India has failed as a nation if in seven decades it has not developed a force to counter internal rebellion.

It’s disturbing to note that a nation that broke free from colonial rule, should continue to use the same laws that were used by a foreign power on its subjects. Can the people of the Northeast then be blamed for the narrative that one colonial power (the British) has been replaced by another colonial power (India)? Does this imply that the country’s ‘Ashta Lakshmi’ cannot be trusted to do the right thing unless their actions are guarded by a force that is meant to fight an external enemy? These questions arise when a part of the country is put under the yoke of a colonial law.

In a liberal democracy – one which believes in a Constitution that guarantees the right to life to its citizens – laws like the AFSPA and sedition are black marks on the annals of this country. It’s time we threw these out and other colonial laws from our law books.

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Mending the British-made Assam-Mizoram dispute: Northeast needs creative solutions like building economic and technology hubs in contested zones

Patricia Mukhim — Thu, 29 Jul 2021 05:30:38 +0000

This story first appeared in Times of India Blog

Historically speaking, it is an ironic sight. Assam police stepped inside the known cultural boundaries of Mizoram and Meghalaya this week, but these areas were only demarcated by the British after they entered the region in 1826 following the Treaty of Yandaboo.

Today the borders between Assam-Meghalaya, Assam-Mizoram, Assam-Nagaland and Assam-Arunachal Pradesh are all hotly contested spaces and marked by frequent bloodbaths.

Constitution vs tradition

Recently, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma referred to ‘constitutional boundaries’, mutually agreed to at the time of carving out new states from undivided Assam. However, this concept is alien to the people in these newly created states. Each state carved out of Assam holds fast to its traditional cultural boundaries, conveyed to the people by their pre-Constitution rulers/chieftains.

Present Mizoram, formerly the Lushai Hills, the Naga Hills, now Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh formerly North East Frontier Agency were forested areas which the British wanted to keep away from the plains people, with their propensity to explore business opportunities. Instead the British wanted to exploit these opportunities themselves, from coal and limestone mining to tea-growing in these tribal areas. The Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation 1873 was the line drawn to demarcate the boundaries between these tribes in the hills and the Assam plains. This is what is referred to as the Inner Line Permit.

That the border skirmishes between Assam and Mizoram and Assam and Meghalaya should erupt just 48 hours after Union home minister Amit Shah left Shillong, where discussions were held between him and the Northeast chief ministers on resolving all border disputes amicably before India observes its 75th year of Independence, is shocking.

What tribes understand as nation

India is a subcontinent of myriad races and each tribe believes it is indigenous to the space it occupies. For the tribes of the Northeastern states, the word ‘country’ is restricted to their respective homelands. Nation is a place where they are free to live the way their ancestors lived.

If there is an external threat, they will go back into their shells and resort to defence mechanisms they know best – to attack before the enemy overpowers them. This native instinct may have been overcome by those from the Northeast who have moved out of their homes to pursue their professions elsewhere. But those who remain tied to their roots back home act and react with those native instincts.

It’s evident that resolving the border disputes between Assam and the other states would require statesmanship of a high order. The Northeast states could gain more by collaboration, more so when Assam is the link state to six others. In the past, Assam had inflicted economic blockades on Mizoram and Nagaland after every border tussle. No central government has taken these border disputes seriously, much less tried to resolve them.

Institutions like the North Eastern Council and later the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) too never invested time and effort to iron out these differences. Land, being a scarce commodity, is much sought after by states with bigger, growing populations and shrinking spaces.

Disputed areas as economic zones

With political brinkmanship having taken over the border issue and Twitter wars between the contesting states raging like wildfire, there is need for civil society engagement too. The borders will continue to remain contentious until some creative solutions are found. In the past there were proposals to turn the disputed areas into economic zones which would benefit the states concerned.

Disputed borders can also become educational hubs, IT parks, health centres and tourist destinations where investments can come from DoNER and the benefits shared by people on both sides. It would be in the interest of all concerned if these contested areas were administered by a central agency to prevent future claims and counter-claims.

How would it be if these areas were brought under one umbrella administration such as a centrally administered territory so that there is no quarrel over which state is investing more and which one less, even while people from both sides of the divide gain economically and also by way of good education and health infrastructure that could come up in these contested spaces? Other than this shared interest one sees no way for a peaceful resolution of the border disputes.

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Editors in Modi’s India have two choices — speak up or give in to intellectual slavery

Patricia Mukhim — Tue, 28 Jul 2020 06:04:54 +0000

This story first appeared in The Print

The press, which is the fourth pillar of Indian democracy, is not given the same status as the other three pillars today. Journalists have to make their choice.

Can the press speak? If it does not speak, then is it still the press? But what does it speak? To whom does it speak? These were questions debated at a webinar organised recently by Newslaundry — that audacious news portal that dares call out the most imperious editors of our times. As the editor of The Shillong Times, I have to confess that for the first time in my dozen years of service to this 75-year-old newspaper, I feel a sense of bondage; of not being able to breathe the air of freedom guaranteed by Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution that is destined to secure our freedoms for us.

Am I the only one who feels that I have to correct a phrase here and a sentence there lest it offends someone? There was a time when one could just shoot from the hips when it came to issues that hurt the public cause, of course, bearing in mind that well-rehearsed adage – ‘Your freedom ends where my nose begins’.

Why is the press, which is the fourth pillar of Indian democracy, not given the same status as the other three pillars – the legislature, executive and judiciary? Why are these three pillars today almost sacrosanct and beyond reproach? Why is the press being shown its place time and again by the three other pillars, especially by the executive and judiciary? What are we in the media doing wrong? Are we doing something we have not done before? Will someone point out our transgressions? And by someone, I mean a neutral third party with no vested interest in any of the four pillars.

The job of the press

Why should the press speak, and freely? The answer to this question was given long ago by US Supreme Court JusticeGeorge Sutherland who said, “For the saddest epitaph which can be carved in memory of a vanished liberty is that it was lost because its possessors failed to stretch forth a saving hand while yet there was time.” This is true of most of us today. We are appalled at the grovelling by a section of the media in India. The primetime panel discussions on TV are orchestrated to sing praises to the Narendra Modi government.

After the Emergency, when Indira Gandhi was defeated in the elections and the Janata Party government came to power, L.K. Advani—who was the information and broadcasting minister at the time—admonished certain media persons and said to them, “When you were asked to bend, you crawled”.

The irony is that it is Advani’s party, the BJP, which is now drawing the boundaries within which media should operate.

So, are we any better today? And yet we do nothing other than discussing these distasteful episodes amongst ourselves. Each one of us fears to call out these journalistic misdemeanours. So they continue happily, basking in the glory of those who hold the reins of governance today. They enjoy a privileged status because they oblige and brook no dissent against the status quo.

Then there are media houses with no revenue model other than an undue reliance on government and corporate advertisements. Well, the coronavirus pandemic has revealed some ugly facets — this model is unsustainable and not by a long shot. Hundreds of journalists have been laid off, some with not even a package that will see them through for the next six months. They lost their jobs just like that because the media barons never really delved deep into the model upon which their revenues were built. Yes, the pandemic has brought down that house of cards and publications from different cities have just winded up and staff let off. What happens to those voices from the periphery? Is India now going to be a country of a few top metros where only the lives of the metrosexual matter?

A long due correction

Why must the press speak? Is that a tough question to answer? Not if one is a disciple of the old school journalism. The press gives voice to the disempowered. At least that is what was drummed into our ears by seniors in the profession. The press should bring before the executive, legislature and judiciary the social, economic and political maladies that the ordinary citizens experience on a daily basis. It is expected that such reports would nudge the conscience of the three pillars of democracy and they would rush in to address those infirmities.

It worked for a while, that is until the Modi government stepped into the corridors of power and decided it was not going to be bothered by a vigilant, questioning, meddlesome media. Period.

So, who is now holding the legislature, executive and judiciary accountable? Well, a section of the media is still doing so, although it’s gasping for air. Conformity is the order of the day. If you don’t conform, you perish. It’s a hugely polarised world we are living in. It’s the Liberal Left versus Radical Right, and most of us are caught in the middle (minus the ideology except to continue to live our lives in some meaningful way, if that is possible). We continue to speak because we still cling to our dear lives and to Freedom of Speech and Expression or its much watered-down version.

There are so many virtues attached to our freedoms and yet, when we are now seeing up close and personal the rapid erosion of those freedoms and the complete politicisation of the law enforcing agencies investigating the Delhi riots, we are stunned into silence. Speaking up extracts a price, but it’s either that or intellectual slavery. The choice is ours.

Russian anarchist Michael Bakunin, in Federalism, Socialism and Anti-Theologian, aptly remarked that “Intellectual slavery, of whatever nature it may be, will always have as a natural result both political and social slavery”.

If at all we are to reclaim our intellectual freedom, then the press has to lead the way. We have a responsibility to correct the infirmities in the three supporting pillars even as we lend ourselves to correction. Yes, correction, not denunciation, because no single pillar of democracy should have overarching influence or control over the other.

The author is a journalist and editor of The Shillong Times. Views are personal.

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