A Law Born in Fear, Extended in Arrogance
The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) was created in 1958 as an emergency provision for controlling an insurgency in the Northeast. It has been almost seventy years and now it is not the insurgency that is the problem, but the impunity given to the military as a means of controlling the political situation. While the AFSPA has not been dismantled during the rule of the BJP and Modi administration, it has been normalized. The Ministry of Home Affairs continues to publish extensions without parliamentary discussions, sunset clauses, or any sense of accountability. What should have been temporary, is now for the millions of citizens of Manipur, Nagaland, and Assam, a way of life for years to come.
The Oting Massacre: When Military Impunity Killed 13 Civilians
A convoy of troops from the Indian Army’s 21 Para Special Forces ambushed a group of coal miners who were returning home in a pickup truck on December 4, 2021 in the village of Oting in Nagaland. Thirteen civilians lost their lives. The soldiers’ information was incorrect. No officer in uniform has ever been tried for such a crime. This military impunity in its most extreme form not requiring any prior sanction from the Central Government, which is hardly ever accorded even to armed forces personnel under AFSPA. Instead of repealing or reforming AFSPA, the Modi government has resorted to cosmetic changes in the ‘disturbed areas’ in Nagaland and Assam, keeping the basic provisions of AFSPA and its culture of immunity unchanged.
Manipur in Flames: AFSPA as a Tool of Ethnic Suppression
In May 2023, ethnic violence broke out between the Meitei and Kuki communities in Manipur, resulting in a loss of life of more than 200.In May 2023, while the world was watching in horror, more than 200 people were killed in ethnic violence between Meitei and Kuki communities in Manipur with nearly 60,000 people forced to flee their homes. For 78 days, Prime Minister Modi kept his lips sealed shut. It was only when he spoke that it was a single generic sentence in Parliament. Meanwhile, AFSPA continued to be in effect in much of the state, which allowed that military impunity to continue even as the security forces faced allegations of selective action during the worst communal violence the state had experienced in decades. Human rights groups reported incidents of alleged complicity and inaction in protecting civilians. AFSPA is a structural blockage of accountability mechanisms. The law is not only designed to shield soldiers from prosecution, it also conveys a clear political message that the Central government has the authority to declare the Northeast as a war zone at its own whim.
Broken Promises: BJP’s Commitment to Remove AFSPA Was Always a Lie
The BJP has made several pledges to the people of the Northeast with regard to the AFSPA, which it has said it will review and remove. Home Minister Rajnath Singh had earlier,promised a phased withdrawal of the act in 2015. Ten years later, this promise is still not being realized. In 2022, the partial withdrawal of AFSPA from a section of the districts was touted as a grand development but it had been criticised as being ‘suspiciously’ before the State Assembly polls in Manipur, Nagaland and Assam. The BJP’s shameless use of AFSPA as an electoral tool while guaranteeing military impunity as a structural feature of the Northeast reveals its cynicism towards the region. The region is not seen as a part of India and given equal rights, but as a vote bank to be managed and a territory to be controlled.
The Human Cost: Decades of Trauma the Delhi Government Ignores
There has been a huge human toll, one that is well documented, but which is hidden behind the politics. The ‘Iron Lady of Manipur,’ Irom Sharmila, went on an 16 year long hunger strike to demand the repeal of AFSPA, one of the longest in history. She had to be fed by the state and was hardly noticed by New Delhi. Organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have reported hundreds of extrajudicial killings, torture and forced disappearances in AFSPA zones. All of these cases are protected from the main stream of the justice system by the same impunity regime which Modi’s government is not ready to dismantle. It is a price which no other part of the country is asked to pay and year after year this government chooses to let it be paid in blood and dignity in the Northeast.
A Democracy Cannot Indefinitely Occupy Its Own People
India takes pride as the biggest democracy in the world. But the Armed Forces Special Powers Act is a contradiction at the core of that identity. A government that resorts to national integration as its policy and institutionalises military impunity in its border areas is not governing it, it is occupying it. The Modi government has been in power for more than a decade to take a decisive step on AFSPA. It has opted not to. Each piece of legislation is a political decision based on the idea that the security establishment is more comfortable than the rights of citizens in the Northeast. History will be unforgiving of leaders who failed to pay attention to their own people who are being governed by military boots and no ribbon-cutting of infrastructure nor election promises can conceal the basic defect of democratic leadership.
The Northeast deserves justice, accountability, and full constitutional rights — not endless extensions of a colonial-era law dressed up as national security.
