As a child, I grew up in India’s Northeast state of Manipur thinking that all citizens of this country are equal. And then as I grew up and started understanding the country and its politics, I discovered that some Indians are less equal than other Indians.
In my part of India, there is a special Act – the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) – which gives any person in the Indian armed forces the right to arrest, shoot, torture and kill anyone on mere suspicion and not even the Indian Supreme Court is there to protect any of us. No wonder that my state, Manipur, had the highest number of killings in the entire country in 2009.
The Armed Forces Special Powers Bill was passed by both the Houses of Parliament and it received the assent of the President on 11th September, 1958. It came onto the Statute Book as “The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958”. The AFSPA is based on a 1942 British ordinance intended to contain the Indian independence movement (Quit India movement) during World War II. Enacted as a short-term measure to allow the deployment of the army in India’s northeastern Naga Hills, the AFSPA has been in existence for five decades. It has since been used throughout the northeast and particularly in Assam, Nagaland, Tripura and Manipur. Indian officials have long argued for the continued use of the law by citing the need for the armed forces to have extraordinary powers to combat armed insurgents.
Under the Indian Constitution, the AFSPA violates the following articles: (a) Article 21 – The right to life – is violated by section 4(a) of the AFSPA, which grants the armed forces the power to shoot to kill in law enforcement situations without regard to the restrictions of international human rights law on the use of lethal force ; (b) Article 14 – The right to equality – This article guarantees that “the State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India”; (c) Article 22- Protection against arrest and detention. Article 22 of the Indian Constitution provides protection against arrest and detention and under section 5 of the AFSPA, a person arrested must be handed over to the nearest police station with the least possible delay along with the circumstances occasioning such arrest but this has not been followed at all.
We, the women of Manipur as well as other parts of northeast India, have long protested against the AFSPA. We have held meetings, rallies, carried out campaigns and marched to India’s Houses of Parliament to bring the issue to light. Since the year 2000, Irom Sharmila, from Manipur, has been on hunger strike demanding repeal of the act. The government has responded by keeping her in judicial custody in a hospital in Manipur, force-fed through a nasal tube.
The AFSPA has violated women’s rights for a long time. Many cases of wrongful arrest, torture and rape have occurred since AFSPA was imposed. You can speak to any women in northeast India and they will tell you tales of how the AFSPA has violated their rights, taken their futures away. Who can forget the brutal extra judicial execution of Manorama Devi in Manipur in 2004? After being arrested by members of the Assam Rifles in July 2004, Devi was found dead near her house in the Ngariyan area the next morning. She was shot through the lower half of her body in an attempt to hide that bullet wounds had been used in an attempt to hide evidence of rape. The Assam Rifles claimed that Devi was a member of an armed group. However at the time of her arrest, no weapons were found and many say that, even if she was involved with a group, that is no way to arrest and kill a person.
Manipur women rose in anger against the rape and killing of Manorama Devi. An extraordinary protest took place where women stripped in front of Kangla, which is an important historical and archeological site of Manipur and which was used as headquarters of the Assam Rifles (which is a paramilitary force), an episode which shook India and the world. In response, the Prime Minister came and assured the women of Manipur that he would take action. The Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh eventually responded by setting up the Justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy Committee to review the AFSPA. The committee recommended repeal of the Act in its report submitted on June 6, 2005. Due to opposition from the armed forces, the government has sat on the report and refused to appeal the Act. Till now in 2010, no one has been punished for that killing. We all hold the AFSPA responsible because those who killed Manorama Devi knew that they would not be touched because of the AFSPA.
There has long been international criticism of the AFSPA. In 1997, the United Nations Human Rights Committee expressed concern over the “climate of impunity” provided by the Act. Since then, the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions (2006), the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (2007) and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (2007) have all called for an end to the AFSPA. But nothing has happened.
Women from the northeast believe that we can play a pivotal role in bringing about peace and justice in the region with collective voices from all sections of the society if we sincerely work together. That is why, in June 2009, we formed the North East Women Initiative for Peace (NEWIFP). Many know how women’s groups in northeast India have developed many powerful programmes of direct, non-violent, action designed to confront the armed violence of both the insurgents and the security forces. However, most of their actions remain in “protest” form and, after the initial action dies down, nothing much happens. The women’s movement in India’s northeast that has emerged in response to the ongoing armed conflict is still confined to “saving the sons of the soil” syndrome. The women of northeast India need to make ourselves understand the issues of war, conflict and peace. We need to understand the different aspects of violence and the militarization of northeast societies so that we can contribute to a solution.
As a part of this initiative, we have to directly engage in debates and dialogue with the armed forces and government officials on the highly controversial and sensitive topic of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. We will need to continue this journey until we bring about the change that we wish to see.
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Binalakshmi Nepram is a writer-civil rights activist who has published in both national and international journals on issues relating to armed violence, small arms proliferation, peace processes, women and peace building. She is the author of three books, “South Asia’s Fractured Frontier: Armed Conflict, Narcotics and Small Arms Proliferation in India’s Northeast”, “Meckley”, a historical fiction based on the conflict in Manipur and an edited book titled “India and the Arms Trade Treaty” published in 2009. In 2004, Ms Nepram co-founded the Control Arms Foundation of India. In 2007, in order to help thousands of women who are affected by gun violence in her home-state of Manipur, she launched the Manipuri Women Gun Survivor’s Network. In 2010 she was awarded the Sean MacBride Peace Prize by the International Peace Bureau.
