By: G Amarjit Sharma (The Statesman)

The debate over the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958 (AFSPA) has shifted from public spaces to committee and seminar rooms and finally to the Prime Minister’s Office.

With this, mass resistance in the street has been withdrawn and the nature of resistance has taken a new shape. It is true that the mass uprising has triggered a new debate among the policy makers. But how far the policy makers take the messages of the masses into account is an issue that needs proper discussions.

Last year’s turmoil, triggered by the killing of Th. Manorama Devi by the Assam Rifles, rejected and exposed the draconian nature of AFSPA. But authorities appear to rely more on the opinions of Army officers and bureaucrats, both retired as well as in service rather than public opinion. The fact that a Congress government in Manipur is unable to take the Congress-ruled Centre into confidence indicates that New Delhi does not trust the region.

The North-east is perhaps India’s only region where the leadership of different national parties rarely make public appearances even when at times of significant incidents. Or perhaps the incidents/crisis that occur in the region are never significant enough for swift and apt political handling!

On the contrary, high visibility of the military personnel in the public space seems to suggest that the region, in reality, is under military rule. This reminds one of Foucault’s panoptical towers that constantly monitor the prisoners from a glass tower.

Ironically, India, as the largest world’s democracy, has condemned the neighbouring military government of Pakistan and the suspension of democracy in Nepal.

Emerging public consensus on the “vulgarity” of the Act has been given different colours by the State. One had seen how the mass opinion had been equated with the opinion of the “underground” armed groups. In addition, the government manufactured “divided public opinions”.

There are reports that during the height of the resistance against the Act, some Army personnel compelled villagers in Manipur’s Senapati district to march in support of the Act. One sees a repetition of history, when popular struggles against the colonial state based on the liberal principle of rights and freedom were rendered illegitimate by labelling mass opinion as emotional and anti-establishment. The moral right to resist the draconian laws like AFSPA is sought to be rendered as illegitimate by the legal-political discourses of the nation-State. It is rather the emergence of “the voice of the dissent” than the actual or hypothetical consent of the masses that decide the legitimacy of any policies made by the State.

The Act’s military character is evident by a cursory reading of the six sections of the AFSPA. Going through the Act, one will notice how the counter-insurgency military activities depend on the whims of military personnel in the field. Not only are the military personnel unaccountable to any democratic institutions but no case can be filed in the court of the law against their acts. The Supreme Court has no powers to entertain cases against army personnel without the Centre’s approval. In addition, it is important to understand New Delhi’s intentions on why it has used the Act for over four decades in the region.

The Act has empowered Army personnel to interfere in the domestic space where civil rights are safeguarded by the democratic norms. Under normal circumstances, any action of the state is accountable to the elected representatives.

The military personnel are given powers to “supplant” rather than supplement the civil space. There have been a number of cases where Army personnel have violated private spaces, with rape, molestation, torture and custodial killings.

An Act that permits the use of power to commit violence against the moral rights of the individual goes far beyond what is permissible in the State’s domestic sphere.

When the Act is continuously enforced in an area the military structure is reproduced and appropriated by the other instruments of the state such as paramilitary forces, the police and other non-state actors. Several instances can be cited on how the state police, in “controlling” the agitation in the recent movement against AFSPA, acted violently against dissenters. Rather than arresting insurgent activities, the Act has facilitated and created an atmosphere of violence guided by militarism.

However, the militaristic design of the State is obfuscated by such narratives as that of “law and order”. Another narrative that deviates the entire issue of the crisis is “development and governance”. It is through these narratives that an extraordinary law like AFSPA is made ordinary.

Given this militaristic design, one needs to go beyond the simpler critics — that the Army personnel lack sensitisation on human rights; that a mere non-commissioned Army officer is allowed to shoot; or that a core group needs to be formed to monitor the Army personnel's activities; or that the Act should be replaced by a more humane Act. These lines of argument would conclude that the crimes committed by military personnel are mistakes or aberrations. The Act per se is given a clean chit. It needs to be highlighted that the Act is militaristic by nature and its continuous operation has, in turn, not only led in an upsurge of insurgent groups, but has created a vicious atmosphere of violence in the social structure in the region, driven by the militaristic devise of coercion.

(The author is Research Scholar in the Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University.)