Mr. A. K. Antony, the Defense Minister of India is an exception as a politician. Antony has an impeccable record of being honest. Antony is from the state of Kerala where he is often referred to as the saint. But it appears that he has left his honesty back home in Kerala, when he took charge as the Defense Minister of India in Delhi.
Antony is confessing and lying at the same time. The minister on June 26, 2007 confessed that the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958 (AFSPA) is inhuman. In the same breath he lied that the ministry has taken actions on serious complaints regarding the abuse of this Act.
The minister said [A]ctually, the armed forces, the Ministry of Defense and I are very much concerned about the human rights issue [regarding the abuse of AFSPA]. Whenever we get any serious complaint, we take strong action and at times extreme action. We will not tolerate human rights violations. The Act has a lot of scope to improve to make it more humane.
True, several persons sympathise with the victims of abuse of the AFSPA. But what makes Antony different from the rest is that he holds command responsibility as the minister responsible for the acts committed by his troops. No one who has suffered from the abuse of the AFSPA will be satisfied with the Defense Ministers sympathy. As a minister can Antony guarantee that the AFSPA will not be misused?
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has informed the Ministry of Defense at least a dozen cases concerning the abuse of the AFSPA from the state of Manipur alone in the past one year. All these cases are regarding incidents that happened after Antony took charge of the ministry. Can the minister prove that his ministry has taken action in a single case?
Antony also said to safeguard the rights of the army, it requires a special law, the AFSPA, justifying his ministrys opposition for the repeal of this law. What the minister conveniently forgot is the rights of those who are abused by the army under the cover of the AFSPA.
In troubled times the law enforcement agencies require special treatment. But that must not be by providing impunity, that too for a proven trigger-happy force which has raped, tortured and intimidated a large number of people in the past few decades. If this is the policy that Antony and his ministry would like to pursue, he is no different from Adolf Hitler who advocated special privileges for Schutzstaffel (SS).
Any law enforcement agency that has a good reputation does not enjoy absolute impunity. Their deeds are put under constant scrutiny to ensure that there are no instances of abuse of authority. If the army or other paramilitary forces stationed in areas where the AFSPA is pressed into use is engaged in misuse of authority, the blame must be on those who sanctioned such a law. Without checks and balances any law enforcement agency will misuse their authority.
The approach in sensitive circumstances must be to bring checks and balances to ensure the least possibility of abuse of authority. This is how a sensible government differs from a dictatorship. The enactment and the continued use of AFSPA is the example of insensitivity the Government of India has shown to the issues in Kashmir and the North-East. This is exactly the complaint of the people from these regions.
The continuing use of the AFSPA raises a few questions. These are however not limited to human rights. Has the situation in those places where the AFSPA has been pressed to use improved the situation in those places in any form? Has it improved the morale of the armed forces? Has it reduced violence in these regions? Has the Act helped to bridge the gap between the local population and the government?
Maintenance of law and order and establishment of rule of law cannot be achieved by providing absolute impunity to the law enforcement agencies. Impunity perpetuates torture and other inhuman practices by the law enforcement agencies. Impunity isolates the ordinary person from the state. It interferes with the ordinary course of law, resulting in the miscarriage of justice. It breeds fear than respect and trust. It destroys the social fabric of harmony and tolerance.
There are no issues that a government cannot sort out through discussions. Use of violence and its justification is not an invitation for discussion. If the Government of India is honest in solving the issues that it face in the North-East and Jammu and Kashmir, what it require is this minimum understanding.
