Let me begin this response to the Narendra Modi government’s decision on Thursday, March 31, to lift the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act – AFSPA – from parts of the Northeast with a tribute to a living person and to scores of the deceased from Manipur and Nagaland.
To the living legend Irom Sharmila, the one who made a personal sacrifice for the removal of the repressive law by refusing to put a morsel of food in her mouth for 16 years in a row – from November 2000 to August 2016 – demanding that the Union government remove that legal shield for the security forces in the region as it has been misused by a section to kill and maim innocent citizens in the name of the state.
To those 1,528 persons in Manipur who allegedly lost their lives due to the impunity granted by the Union government to security forces through AFSPA. Justice has eluded the families of those persons to date because the same Modi government has not allowed for the prosecution of security personnel who stand accused of going beyond their official brief under the guise of AFSPA.
File photo of a protest against AFSPA in Manipur.
On the other hand, the Supreme Court, which was hearing a case based on a petition filed by an organisation of the victim families, is yet to form a new bench after the retirement of Justice Madan Lokur in December 2018.
My tributes are also for those who fell to the security forces’ bullets in the case of “mistaken identity” in Oting village of Nagaland in December last year.
On Thursday, March 31, as soon as the Union home minister Amit Shah took to Twitter to announce that the Modi government had decided to shrink areas under AFSPA in the Northeast, a sense of euphoria engulfed a wider section of national media. The nature of the announcement was such that media blitzkrieg was only expected.
The Modi government likes to operate in a Rambo style, to send out a message to the media and public that it takes decisions and fast tracks them. The operative word phrase in this announcement is, perhaps, “from the midnight onwards”. Come 12 am, “entire 23 districts of Assam, and partially from one district of Assam, six in Nagaland and six in Manipur” would be kept out of the jurisdiction of AFSPA, it was said.
No sooner did the news reach the Northeast, the reaction was also unanimous approval.
Irom, the face of the region’s protest against AFSPA, welcomed it at once, but also underlined the need for recognising the past mistakes of the government in an interview to Hindustan Times:
“This is a really good moment for an activist like me. I am happy to see that the mainland politicians in Parliament are willing to do something different. The decision to repeal an outdated and colonial law seems a real sign of democracy to me… It’s a new beginning and a result of the decades-long fight. The first step has been taken, and I want AFSPA to be abolished permanently from the entire Northeast. The victims, who have lost their loved ones and those who have personally suffered because of this law, should be compensated.”
While across a large section of media one can read or hear only the hailing of the government’s decision, it is perhaps prudent to unpack it too.
What will not change
First, let’s look at how Times of India in its editorial on April 1 responded to the government’s announcement.
Drawing the attention of its readers to the reality on the ground, it said, “…[A]pplication of AFSPA in Assam was far less heavy-handed compared to Manipur and Nagaland. Hence, removing the Act from most of Assam was low-hanging fruit. Whereas the relatively small areas being exempted in Manipur and Nagaland mean most of these two states continue to remain in the shadow of the draconian law.”
In the din of celebrating the Union government’s decision, let this truth be not drowned – those in Nagaland, and Irom’s state, Manipur, don’t have much to cheer at this decision. It doesn’t bring any good news to Arunachal Pradesh either, simply because there is no change in the status quo in that state.
Only a day after Shah’s tweet, two youngsters were shot by an Assam Rifles jawan covered under AFSPA as he suspected them to be ‘terrorists’. The young men were returning home after a round of fishing in Arunachal’s Tirap district.
While it is true that AFSPA in Assam not as heavy-handed as in Manipur and Nagaland, it is worth recalling that there was never an assurance to a commoner in Assam either that they would not be unfairly impacted by the draconian law. This was particularly true of the semi-urban and rural areas of Assam, where citizens have lived under the shadow of fear due to the fact that security forces have – several times – acted with impunity granted by the law.
The law was not lifted from the district I come from in Assam. Drawing from my personal experience, what I deduced from the adulatory tweets of Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on the decision is that the swanky malls which sell products of international brands in Guwahati will no longer have to co-exist with AFSPA. In fact, Guwahati stands as a quintessential example of a city where prosperity and conflict have co-existed.
I don’t doubt that this is one consequence – a good one – of this decision. However, on the other hand, a ride home to Upper Assam will always come with advice from family and friends to complete it within daytime.
Representative image during a security check in Manipur: PTI
Even during the day, while crossing Karbi Anglong, Dima Hasao, Golaghat or Tinsukia districts, private vehicles could at any time be ordered to be stopped and parked by the side of the highway by security forces. Drivers then are asked to step out of their vehicles and stand in a row. Personnel take positions with arms for army convoys to pass through. Most times, the passengers in those private vehicles would be women and children, waiting with trepidation and very close to live ammunition.
The knowledge that unarmed, innocent and common people have been othered by their own army and inflicted with a gaze of distrust will remain in people’s minds even after the March 31 announcement.
Also read: Watch: All You Need to Know About Nagaland Civilian Killings and AFSPA
As per media reports, the Union home minister’s tweets came following the recommendation of a committee formed by the Union government to review the sway of AFSPA in the Northeast after the massive protest against him and his government following the Oting firing in Nagaland by an army unit.
But the Mon district of Nagaland which comprises Oting, located close to the Myanmar border, has not been kept out of AFSPA. So, the only solace thus far for that affected community – the Konyak Nagas, who have voted for BJP – is the recent nomination of the Rajya Sabha member from the Nagaland unit of the BJP, S. Phangnon Konyak.
Reality belies tall claims
The home minister, however, citing reasons for lifting AFSPA from some areas of the Northeast, had tweeted, “Reduction areas under AFSPA is a result of the improved security situation and fast-tracked development due to consistent efforts and several agreements to end insurgency and bring lasting peace in North East by PM Narendra Modi government.”
Since he had given the credit to also “several agreements to end insurgency” as the reason for lifting AFSPA, perhaps it is also an occasion to understand why certain parts of the Northeast have to be kept under the Act still.
To do that, one would have to put the spotlight on Shah’s ministry and the Modi government’s inability to close some crucial peace talks even after years of deliberations, and also the fragility of some recent ‘historic’ accords.
Let’s first look at the nine districts of Assam kept out of yesterday’s decision: Tinsukia, Karbi Anglong, Golaghat, Dibrugarh, Charaideo, Sivasagar, Jorhat, West Karbi Anglong and Dima Hasao. These districts form the easternmost or Upper Assam, often termed as ‘Assamese heartland’. These areas are also the traditional home to a number of tribes. The primary reason behind keeping Upper Assam under AFSPA is the unconcluded peace talks between the Indian government and the pro-talks faction of the Assamese armed group, the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA).
Also read: Book Review: Why Naga Peace Deal Won’t Fructify Without Dealing With the Manipur Question
The talks had begun in 2011 with the Manmohan Singh government. A ray of hope came after 2014 considering Modi’s image was that of a leader who walks the talk. However, the stalemate continues.
The last the Ministry of Home Affairs interlocutor sat with the representatives of the pro-talks faction of the ULFA to push forward the talks was in the pre-COVID era – in the wake of the vociferous 2019 anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). Though there has been some talk about the government ‘negotiating’ with the anti-talks faction of the ULFA too to bring them to the table for a comprehensive peace deal, those in the loop claim there is nothing concrete so far.
Representative image of ULFA cadres. Photo: The Hans India.
Additionally, while Shah said in a March 31 tweet that the success of peace agreements by the Modi government had led to its decision to reduce areas under AFSPA in the Northeast, what doesn’t fit into the argument is that both Karbi Anglong and West Karbi Anglong districts of Assam have been kept within the jurisdiction of the law. This is even after the Union government had announced the signing of an “historic peace accord” with armed groups to “end the decades-old crisis” in 2021.
While in 2021, there was also the news about Dimasa National Liberation Army (DNLA) active in Karbi Anglong and Dima Hasao districts coming forward to peace talks with the Modi government, with both Shah and Sarma then hoping for a “permanent solution” for peace in the region, nothing much has been heard about it recently.
A peek at the districts of Manipur that are still under AFSPA also drives home the point that peace talks between the MHA and Kuki outfits and Nagas have remained inconclusive. The government has not been able to bring the Meitei groups to the table either.
The entire state of Manipur, except for 15 police stations, across six districts spread in the valley areas, will continue to remain under AFSPA. The police stations to be outside of AFSPA are Jiribam, Imphal, Lamphel city, Singjamei, Sekmai, Lamsang, Patsoi, Porompat, Heingang, Lamlai, Irilbun, Thoubal, Bishnupur and Kakchin. Most of these police stations come under the Imphal East and West districts and some parts of these districts are outside of AFSPA anyway.
In Nagaland, nine of the 15 districts, including its commercial hub Dimapur, will continue to remain under AFSPA. Additionally, areas under 15 police stations in the remaining districts would also be under AFSPA. Essentially then, even after the March 31 decision, AFSPA will be present across all districts of Nagaland. Thus there would hardly be any change on the ground.
This is an expected move considering the mother of all peace talks in the Northeast – the Naga talks – is yet to stumble out of gridlock. From time to time, there has been an effort to push through a watered-down ‘peace accord’ by sidelining the NSCN (Isak-Muivah) faction, the sole signatory to the framework agreement with the Modi government based on which the ‘historic’ talks had started in 2015.
The NSCN (I-M), over time, has become a thorn in the bouquet of factions gathered by the government to arrive at an accord as the influential outfit, and has been pretty adamant till now on its demand for a separate flag and a constitution to sign on the dotted line.
If a watered down version is pushed through, the whole argument of the Modi government being unlike the Congress government would fall flat considering it would not likely bring “lasting peace in the Northeast” as Shah had stated as an achievement of the Modi government in his March 31 tweet.
