Armed Forces Special Powers Act Research Articles

State Violence and Collective Victimhood in a Militarised State

The implementation of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in Manipur exemplifies how certain spaces and populations become margins through the administrative practices of the state. The state is endowed with the authority to categorise as legitimate or illegitimate the various forms of violence and practices toward its citizens. This action of the state has resulted in the formation of associations like the Manipur Women Gun Survivors Network and Extrajudicial Execution Victim Families Association via the shared experience of violence and collective victimhood, connecting those families or individuals who are more adversely affected by AFSPA. The diverging perspectives and experiences of state violence are juxtaposed in order to display both the anguish and expectations of the victims’ families as also the commitments of the perpetrators towards the democratic state. Finally, the narratives of violence, sufferings and testimonies are repositioned and anchored to juridical and political discourse, in order to find the meanings of justice, healing and reparation in a militarised society like Manipur.

Meira Paibis Movement Roles in Creating Peace at Northeastern India

Starting from the aim of stopping the rebel movement, the enactment of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) of 1958 in practice became a boomerang for security stability in Northeastern India. The privileges granted by the government to soldiers are used as a pretext for discrimination and violations of human rights. The patriarchal tradition, which then considers women as property and weak creatures, causes women and children to suffer the most. Reports of sexual harassment cases, rape, and even murder unilaterally encouraged Meira Paibis as a grassroots women's movement to develop a strategy of resistance. Meira Paibis uses a non-violent approach through symbolic methods that are viewed as extreme and controversial in its mission. This research will describe the significant role of the Meira Paibis women's movement in organizing resistance to AFSPA policies and their efforts to achieve positive peace in Northeastern India. This paper will elaborate on the non-violence approach to see the strategies played by Meira Paibis and the obstacles faced in the process of achieving her goals.

Citizens, the Smoking Guns of AFSPA and Bare Life in Northeast India

At the heart of ‘Indian nation-state making’ in the post-colonial context is dominant imagery and imaginary of Indian-ness, and there is an uncertain relationship between legitimate and illegitimate violence, and debate on integration and coercion of diverse nationalities in this state-nation. The ethnic nationalities of India’s Northeast have not been well integrated into the Indian imaginary and share a sense of belonging. Insurgency shapes the politics of this borderland and fuels secessionist aspirations and led to a demarcation of disturbed areas and exceptional citizens. Following Foucault and Agamben, I highlight the immense ‘unchecked’ sovereignty and biopolitical control of the Indian government to demarcate zones of democratic exception in Northeast India and enforce laws such as the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) to perpetuate its domination, militarise and radically decide on matters of life. The law is draconian in its implications and I review some of the extant literature that reveals the ‘bare life’ enjoyed by some Indian citizens. Integrating ethnographic voices from Manipur, this paper deepens our critical perspective on the AFSPA to understand its fundamental impact on everyday life and routine violence in Manipur and the consequent emigration of its citizens.

Kashmir Conflict and the Advent of Torture: An Overview

Modern states have built burgeoning detention facilities like immigration centers, prisons and police cells that engage in torture and other cruel, inhuman treatments. The law enforcement agencies engage in torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment in the name of counter- terrorism, security threats and soon. The state uses torture and makes it clear that enhanced interrogation techniques makes a person from kidnapping to extra-ordinary rendition, from citizen to unlawful enemy combatant and from human to terrorist. The valley of Kashmir faces torture and other cruel inhuman treatments since insurgency began in 1990’s, with violent uprising and have elicited terrorism. Methods like torture is used as a tool of counter- insurgency by Indian security forces. The government of India used all efforts to crush the movement of self- determination of Kashmir. The strong response from India violates the human rights and international humanitarian laws. The law enforcement agencies, army and para- military forces have engaged in reprisal attacks against civilians resulting in indiscriminate firing, search operations, gang-rapes and burning of houses in the valley. After 1990, the situation in the Kashmir valley deteriorated and Kashmir was declared a disturbed area and laws like Disturbed Area Act (DAA) 1990, Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) 1990 and Public Safety Act (PSA) 1978 were imposed. The purpose of the paper is to examine the concept of Torture in Kashmir valley and bring to light the plight of the victims in the valley.

Rule of Law, Violence and Exception: Deciphering the Indian State in the Thangjam Manorama Inquiry Report

In this article, I draw on Nasser Hussain’s conceptualizations on rule of law, violence, and exception to read the Inquiry Commission Report on the torture and murder of Thangjam Manorama in 2004. While clearly the Commission strongly condemns the torture and murder of Manorama, it continues to represent one of the most serious tensions that exist in the context of the rule of law and emergency that Hussain mentions in British colonial times. The Commission report attempts to resolve the tension between political exigencies and rule of law by restricting itself to being a procedural effort to deal with what is essentially a political and national security regime that ends up being curiously reminiscent of colonial reports. In other words, rather than recognizing the role of extraordinary laws such as AFSPA (Armed Forces Special Powers Act) in creating such situations, the report primarily recognizes procedural violations as responsible for the violence against Manorama. The report then ends up being a paternalistic symbolic act that fails to acknowledge the political authority of the state in conflict areas and the regime of impunity created by the very existence of the laws such as the AFSPA. However, I note that in the postcolonial context, the contestations of hyperlegality also reflect a tension between a rejection of emergency provisions for the Northeast and an inability to embrace excessive violence that the Constitution otherwise prohibits. I argue that the postcolonial state is unable to contain this tension successfully between political exigencies and the rule of law in the Thangjam Manorama case due to the continued demands for accountability by those resisting this law and protesting her and other deaths. Regardless of the intent of the author, the report following this particular death appears to have generated a fissure in the postcolonial legal narrative that reveals the excessive violence embedded in the AFSPA regime that cannot be easily embraced and yet cannot be denied and becoming increasingly difficult to contain and legitimize.

Exploring the Concept of Torture: An Analysis of Kashmir Valley

AbstIndia is considered as world’s largest democracy. The country has a civil society, free media, and independent judiciary. Still, the country is engaged in quotidian violence like torture, which is widely prevalent in the name of national security, investigation crimes, extracting information and punishing criminals. Torture is an instrument of state power in an authoritarian system which applies all means to silence the political opponents or bend them towards rule of law. Nevertheless, torture occurs in the democratic countries in which rule of law is highly respected likely in maintaining peace and public order, national security and fight against terrorism. It is clear that in democracy when the rights of an individual have been weakened and are on the mercy of those who are in power, the result is that quotidian violence and other cruel punishments can occur. Torture is a brutal method of social and political control which relies on complex networks of technology, training, facilitators and perpetrators. It demands classified structures located within enclaves of barbarism in order to achieve its aim of inducing terror. Modern states have built burgeoning detention facilities like immigration centers, prisons and police cells that engage in torture and other cruel, inhuman treatments. The law enforcement agencies engage in torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment in the name of counter-terrorism, security threats and soon. The states use violence like methods to control and terrorize its people to maintain the status quo or to destroy internal or external political, ideological or military threats. The state uses torture and makes it clear that enhanced interrogation techniques make a person from kidnapping to extraordinary rendition, from citizen to unlawful enemy combatant and from human to terrorist. The valley of Kashmir faces torture and other cruel inhuman treatments since the insurgency began in 1990’s, with the violent uprising and have elicited terrorism. Methods of torture are used as a tool of counter-insurgency by Indian security forces. The government of India used all efforts to crush the movement of self-determination of Kashmir. The strong response from India violates the human rights and international humanitarian laws. The law enforcement agencies, army, and para-military forces have engaged in reprisal attacks against civilians resulting in indiscriminate firing, search operations, gang-rapes and burning of houses in the valley. After 1990, the situation in the Kashmir valley deteriorated and Kashmir was declared a disturbed area and laws like Disturbed Area Act (DAA) 1990, Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) 1990 and Public Safety Act (PSA) 1978 were imposed. The purpose of the paper is to examine the concept of Torture in Kashmir.

Living with Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) as everyday life

Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), a legislation of the Government of India promulgated in the ‘disturbed areas’ of India’s North-East since 1958 and in Jammu and Kashmir (JK she was on her world’s longest fast for 16 years (since 4 November 2000 demanding revocation of AFSPA) until 9 August 2016. The key findings demonstrate that the ‘sense of alienation’ created by AFSPA is one of the major causes of disturbance in the regions, where the people desperately crave for peace to be restored.

The Naga National Struggle, ‘Framework Agreement’ and the Peace Prospects

The signing of the ‘Framework Agreement’ between the Government of India (GOI) and the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isaac-Muivah) on 3 August 2015 that pledges to restore ‘pride and prestige’ of the Nagas takes place after more than six-and-a-half-decades of violence and militarisation of the Naga society. The Agreement has been signed at a moment when the Naga society is marked by enormous fragmentation from within. While, the GOI through the creation of the state of Nagaland in 1963 and other initiatives created a local ruling class opposed to long-cherished Nagas’ demand for sovereignty; on the other hand, the tribes-centric proliferation of various insurgent outfits has created hostilities within the Naga society. The continuance of security apparatuses like Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA), 1958 and that of the top-down development paradigm has been in contrast to the social and cultural dynamics of the Naga society. The recent Accord, which has remained silent on those issues, however, has shifted the Naga national discourse from exclusive sovereignty of the Nagas in Nagaland to that of shared sovereignty of the Nagas within the Union of India. While, there have been celebrations of the Accord among the civil society forces in Nagaland spearheaded by Naga Hoho who for long have endeavoured to sustain ceasefires between GOI and the insurgent outfits in the state, there have, however, been serious reservations in regard to the efficacy of the Accord to restore peace, harmony and national pride among the Nagas.

Armed Forces in India’s Northeast

More than 60 years of de facto military rule through the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) 1958 in India’s northeast has engendered neither stability nor peace. Problems regarding the impunity of violence and crime, official corruption and the virtual collapse of the rule of law continue, but the Act remains in operation. This article attempts to reframe the debates on the AFSPA in terms of its necessity by turning the necessity argument on its head and arguing that the secessionist insurgencies which were originally used to justify the Act have actually long ceased to exist. Since the principle of existential necessity that provided a fig leaf to the Act no longer applies, its continued application needs to be re-examined. It is further argued that the Indian military’s increasing clout in internal security policy-making may have grave implications for Indian democracy itself, with negative impacts on the rule of law and in relation to safe inclusion strategies for India’s northeast.

A Gender Critique of AFSPA: Security for Whom?

Rape is a form of sexual violence against women perpetrated by individuals, community groups or personnel of state agencies and others to establish their power. All rapes cannot be bracketed into a single category because the identity of the rapist and the one who has been raped may vary. Also, while some rapes elicit strong protests, there are other cases which are tacitly supported by the dominant majority. Rapes in regions of India which come under the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) fall into the latter category. Most of such rapes are inflicted with impunity by the members of the armed forces because of the protective provisions included in AFSPA. Such incidents never attract widespread anger because the victims are often from minority ethnic or religious groups. The irony is that the majority of people who participated in protests after Nirbhaya incident in Delhi may not even be aware of the numbers of such type of cases that have occurred in the North-East or in the Kashmir Valley.

Kashmir: NGOs and Challenges with Special Reference to Orphans

Kashmiris have expressed their desire of what most of them call it a freedom struggle, by means of hostile aggression [armed resistance] four times in the form of revolt since 1947, in 1952 taking the shape of Home Front, 1966 they resorted to armed struggle in the form of National Liberation Front, in 1968 in the shape of Al-Fatah and in 1988 the re-emergence of another armed revolt which was high profile than of past ones and is still going on, to curb it, India has invoked some draconian laws like Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) as a cover [calling it a holy law], Indian security forces carried some of the inhuman acts which include, ‘Operation Eagle’, ‘Operation Shiva’, ‘Operation Catch & Kill’, and ‘Operation Tiger’, rapes [with a classical example of Kunan Poshpora], illegal detentions, unrequired raids to houses of common Kashmiris, at several occasions people were used as human shields by security forces, torture of children, massacres, fake encounters [unmarked graves], stress related suicides, illegal detention became an order of the day, as a result large scale human rights violations carried by both Indian security forces and militants, the ongoing violence has claimed more than 0.080 million lives in Kashmir, almost 0.008 million people mainly youth got disappeared in the custody of Indian security forces [although government version is quiet lesser in size] and some women married to them are called as half-widows, [over 1500] the abysmal situation in Kashmir has created the battalions of orphans, who need to be heard and taken care of, similarly, from 2010 youth uprisings, paramilitary forces in Kashmir have been using pellet guns to control mobs — such crowds normally comprise of youth especially teenagers — as per official reports, use of pellet guns by security forces turned two youth completely blind, 12 have lost eyesight partially and 165 received grievous injures, since the inception of this weapon — there is a constant demand from Human Right activist for banning pellet guns in Kashmir.

Women in Conflict Zones: AFSPA and Its Ill Effects

All the wars and crimes have put the most serious effects on women at all times. In some regions at India, security personals have extra-powers that is unconditional and give them benefit of impunity. Though even UN human rights committee put the question on this law named AFSPA (Armed Forces Special Powers Act), it is still continued in NE states and J&K. These regions are in situation of all time emergency and thus termed as conflict zones. Women of these zones are too vulnerable due to fear and lack of resistance. This paper throw a light on the conditions of women living in AFSPA affected regions.

The predicament of justice: fifty years of Armed Forces Special Powers Act in India

Militarisation and structural violence under the Armed Forces Specials Powers Act (AFSPA) is tied to a strong moral framework to proselytise recalcitrant citizens. Deploying Jacque Derrida's point that law is not justice, this paper highlights how the pursuit of justice within the framework of law is a challenging task. Interrogating the contentions around what constitutes ‘justice’ under the AFSPA, this paper exposes how states legitimise lawlessness through draconian laws like the AFSPA. In this manner, lawlessness is established as a precedent for states to reproduce forms of lawless regimes and undemocratic mechanisms. This paper proposes that along with the campaigns to repeal the AFSPA, we need to reflect upon what kind of justice we seek. Repressive and discriminatory regimes of law, government or practice survive even after they have been formally dismantled. Here, both the state and its citizens negotiate reality regarding the limits of justice in their own way. For the Indian state, it has had to constantly over-extend its coercive powers in order to control the situation. While for its citizens who live under the AFSPA, such a reality is not only a matter of concern but it also redefines their position as citizens/subjects, to the extent that they question the very foundations of democracy, the language of rights and the unsatisfied appeal of justice. Their negotiations are a reminder that the state apparatus' exercise of power has largely remained unchanged in Northeast India. Despite the framing of rights – be they as part of colonial edicts or postcolonial constitutions – there are spaces where the limits of this discourse are constantly questioned.