Repeal AFSPA 7-27-2015

27, July 2015                          Repeal AFSPA

India’s long standing Armed Forces Special Powers Act, or Afspa, enacted in 1958 has fostered an unhealthy culture of impunity which has led to repeated gross human rights abuses against civilians in so called “disturbed areas”. Afspa was initially enacted in Punjab to counter the Punjabi Suba movement and the subsequent demand for a separate State - Khalistan. Its implementation had disastrous consequences, but first a little background.

In the 1950s, linguistic groups across India, eager to preserve their language and culture sought statehood, which led to the establishment of the States Reorganization Commission in Decemeber 1953. At that time, Punjab included present-day states of Punjab, Haryana and some parts of Himachal Pradesh along with Chandigarh. The vast majority of Sikhs lived in Punjab.

The Akali Dal, a Sikh-dominated political party active mainly in Punjab, sought to create a Punjabi Suba ("Punjabi Province"). The Sikh leaders stressed the linguistic basis of the demand, while downplaying its religious basis — a state where the distinct Sikh identity and language (Punjabi) could be preserved. Peaceful protests occurred all over Delhi and neighboring Punjab but on orders from the Central Government, the police and military responded with brutal lathi charges, imprisonment, torture, killings and many hundreds more simply disappeared.  

The Indian Government, under Indira Gandhi, was wary of carving out a separate Punjabi language state, because it effectively meant dividing the state along religious lines giving Sikhs a 60% majority; fearful that the Sikhs would undermine the Congress Party’s dominant power, Indira Gandhi encouraged Punjabi Hindus to declare their mother tongue Hindi. I was living in Delhi at that time and Punjabi was the common language used in Delhi and Punjab. The Hindu newspapers from Jalandhar, exhorted Punjabi Hindus to declare Hindi as their "mother tongue", to counter Punjabi Suba proponents. This later created a deep chasm between Hindus and Sikhs of Punjab which still lingers on to the present day.

What followed was escalating violence against Sikh civilians and militants by the Punjab police and military acting with complete impunity; not a single member of the police or military has been charged or indicted for acts of violence in what was commonly called encounter killings – much like unprovoked killings in Iraq, Afghanistan and African Americans in the US.

Afspa, which can be activated by the federal or state governments, gives soldiers wide powers to arrest, detain and kill with complete impunity from prosecution and punishment. Military courts are supposed to try soldiers guilty of such abuses but this rarely ever happens. This has resulted in  frequent rapes, torture, murders and disappearances of civilians.

In Nagaland, Jummu and Kashmir, the implementation of such draconian laws have had predictable consequences. It has radicalized the local population against such heavy handed measures and intensified the insurgencies much like US counter-insurgency measures have emboldened the Taliban and ISIS.

In July, Amnesty International published a damning report on abuses in Jammu and Kashmir, and called for repeal of the law. Indian legal authorities and human rights groups throughout the world, including the United Nations, have also urged its immediate repeal. In 2008, Human Rights Watch published a major report on Afspa calling for its repeal. In 2012, the United Nations said the act “clearly violates international law.” In 2013, a former chief justice of India, J.S. Verma, chairman of a committee charged with reviewing Indian law, also called for Afspa to be repealed.

In May, the state of Tripura mothballed  the law declaring it no longer necessary. The coalition alliance of The Peoples Democratic Party and The Bharatiya Janata Party, which governs Jammu and Kashmir, called for its repeal. Prime Minister Modi should heed the collective voices of human rights activists and repeal Afspa now.