Alienating Manipur

Draconian laws and reactive measures of force by the State result in gross human rights violations and only serve to further marginalise a forgotten people

When one observes the manner in which colonising nations of the past and present flex their oppressive muscles under veils of righteousness, one is boggled at the consistency that is imbibed in imperialism. Whether it was educating savages in the 1850s, stemming the red tide in the 1960s or liberating Iraqis in 2004, it all boils down to the same neo-colonial machinery preceded and succeeded by bogus rhetoric. Words like freedom, liberation, and patriotism now more than ever are bandied about by the haves in order to further oppress the have-nots.

And when one observes leviathan developing countries like India, there isn’t too much of a difference, save one… where colonial nation-states of the West conducted and continue to conduct mass human rights violations outside of their borders, the Indian government and elite gleefully do so within their own. Whether it is oppression of minorities by State-supported fundamentalist groups like the Bajrang Dal and Ranvir Sena or human rights abuses perpetrated by the State itself in Kashmir and the North-east, the flow of blood and the disenfranchisement of victims is one and the same.

India has had and continues to have a veritable spectrum of draconian laws that are supposedly aimed at stopping terrorism. Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA), Terrorist And Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA), Prevention Of Terrorism Act (POTA), the Disturbed Areas Act (DAA), the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA)… each, when implemented, result in the oppression of the most under-privileged members of our society.

The latest in a long list of human rights abuses under the benign gaze of the state and central government was the custodial death of Thangjam Manorama resulting in wave after wave of protests, both violent and peaceful, in Manipur where the AFSPA has been enforced for the last 24 years. Twenty-four years of oppressing a region and a people who had long been discarded by the central government from the Indian mainstream.

The wording of the AFSPA enacted by Parliament in 1958 is indeed blood- curdling to even read let alone act out. The act states that any commissioned officer, warrant officer, non-commissioned officer or person of equivalent rank in a disturbed area may fire upon or use force even to the point of causing death if he is of the opinion that it needs to be done to maintain public order. He may arrest, without a warrant, any person against whom a reasonable suspicion exists and may use the above- mentioned force to effect the arrest, as well as enter and search without warrant any premises to make any such arrest or if reasonable suspicion exists.

Any person arrested under this Act is to be taken to the nearest police station and placed in custody without any delay. If this weren’t enough, the Act also gives sweeping immunity to anyone acting under it. It states verbatim, "Protection to Persona acting under Act: No persecution, suit or other legal proceeding shall be instituted, except with the previous sanction of the Central Government, against any person in respect of anything done or purported to be done in exercise of the powers conferred by this Act".

It does not take a socio-political genius to figure out that the very wording of the Act itself begets heinous misuse. When one considers it in tandem with a corrupt State and police machinery, as is the case in many parts of India, the human rights violations sky-rocket upwards.

All the other laws mentioned above are regurgitated versions of one another. The Indian government seems to have a periodic revisit to its legitimised mechanism of oppression in order to repeal one law and fortify it with yet another law, more draconian and heinous than its predecessor, all meant to quell "terrorism" and "threats to national unity"… with tragicomically abysmal results.

First there was the Preventive Detention Act passed by Parliament in 1950 in the bloody aftermath of Independence and Partition to curb activity that was perceived as a threat to national unity. This Act expired in 1969 and was quickly replaced by MISA in 1971, primarily used to curb the Naxalbari uprisings, which in effect meant persecuting and killing leftists, trade unionists and poor peasants.

In 1958 the AFSPA was passed and remains un-repealed and very much in use in Kashmir and the North-east. The AFSPA and MISA were soon followed by TADA in 1985, and despite both MISA and TADA being repealed, thousands of innocents have been detained under TADA and continue to remain till date as under-trials, facing horribly trying conditions of malnutrition, torture and, many a time, custodial killings. After MISA and TADA came and went, 2002 signalled the arrival of the one act that could match the AFSPA in its lethality, and that was POTA, which was used by the BJP government to rigorously oppress Muslims in various parts of India.

Did I once hear something about India being a democracy?

There is plenty of justification and rationalisation from the Indian government, army and police as to the need for these acts. It is often argued that these laws are needed to fight terrorism and maintain law and order. The rhetoric to follow is the same pseudo-patriotic dribble.

While it appears that there is a very vague element of truth to the rationalisation offered by the government, and seems to follow the means vs. end argument, what is often overlooked is that even these extreme, draconian means with the usage of laws like the AFSPA are flawed and corrupt. What then results is a scenario where the end is still as far away as it always has been, if not further, and the means employed by the state brings about the complete collapse of civil society and fundamental human rights. This is so because even if by some astonishingly myopic stretch of logic the argument made by the government is bought, the very fact that there are absolutely no rigorous justice mechanisms for members of the police or army who misuse the Acts, proves that this is flawed logic, and that the government is only using these Acts to oppress those who don’t fall within the mainstream set-up.

It is high time that the Indian government, and many other nations for that matter, realised that reactive measures of force could never achieve the sustained development of a stable and strong civil society that proactive measures of peace and dialogue can. How can the government hope to bring peace and stability to Jammu and Kashmir or the North-east if they continue to station hundreds of thousands of soldiers without any plan for troop reduction? How can the government consider itself one for the people if there is no sustained grievance-addressing dialogue with the people of these troubled regions?

Instead we have macho rhetoric and custodial deaths.

The State can’t offer the rationale that terrorist groups flourish when it has done next to nothing to address the fundamental needs of the people in these same areas, in fact further marginalising them every step of the way. Instead of escalating the confrontation with militant groups, the government would probably do a lot better by giving them a reason to not exist, and furthermore give the people of those regions a reason to not join or support these groups. When family members are killed, the youth are enraged and want revenge and secession from a government that oppresses them periodically.

And why not? If a government provides nothing of what it is supposed to provide to its citizens, and above that willingly oppresses them, who wouldn’t want to secede and participate in an armed struggle? For every Manorama who is killed in custody, there will be many more pushed towards the extreme step of arming themselves because of that death, and indeed that rage is well justified.

In the North-east the government would do well to dialogue not just with militant groups but also with the people residing there, the ones who are the most disenfranchised. Rigorous proactive efforts have to be made to bring them into the Indian mainstream. For those who do not wish to be a part of India, the government should engage in constructive dialogue that is not based on blind ideologies of national unity and preservation of borders but rather based on what is best for the people.

In a functioning democracy people have the right to claim secession as long as human rights aren’t trampled upon. And one can safely say that if the Indian government were to provide its own citizens in the North-east with proper socio-economic development, and not marginalise them, the number of people wanting to claim secession would reduce quite drastically.

One of the first steps towards doing that is to repeal draconian laws like the AFSPA that condemn the whole state and the people residing in it. No doubt, terrorism has to be battled but it has to be done while upholding the Constitution… a Constitution that considers all citizens of India as equal, regardless of race, gender, religion, caste or creed. Instead of enacting one draconian law after another, why not improve the existing State and police machinery that already has strong laws to prevent genuine criminal activity?

Just as important, everyday people in India who don’t bear the brunt of these laws have to look beyond government propaganda on supposed "terrorist " groups, and truly support and fight for the ones who are oppressed and upon whom human rights violations are perpetrated. Every Manorama in every part of India is our sister, brother and comrade. If we don’t fight for them, we’ve lost the fight for ourselves… because we are them.