Get Rid of Colonial-Era Draconian Laws like AFSPA and Sedition
Indian Parliament promulgated the draconian Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act on May 22 1958 and passed it on August 18 the same year.
In the half century that has passed, the AFSPA has served as a tool of brutal repression and suppression, especially against the people of the North Eastern states and Kashmir. Irom Sharmila, the young woman poet from Manipur, has been on a fast-unto-death for the past decade, demanding that this abhorrent law, a blot for any democracy, be repealed. In 2004, women of Manipur staged an angry protest against rape and murder of a Manipuri woman by armed forces. This sparked off a renewed movement demanding repeal of the law.
But successive governments have continued to retain the AFSPA and trample on democratic rights of marginalised people. A law used by the colonial regime to subordinate and rule over the Indian people, is now used by the State in independent India to hold people seeking self-determination under military jackboots.
Under the AFSPA, even a non commissioned officer of the armed forces enjoys the ‘special’ power to kill on mere suspicion and get legal immunity from prosecution. It confers a sense of impunity on the armed forces, resulting in untold numbers of disappearances, outright murder and massacre in the name of ‘encounters’, torture, rape and sexual violence and a host of other horrific violations of human rights and civil liberties.
The law is sought to be justified in the name of curbing insurgency. But ever since 1958, insurgency has only grown with the choking off of democracy and with inhuman repression in the regions where AFSPA has been imposed.
In the wake of the powerful people’s movement in Manipur in 2004, the UPA-I had set up the Committee headed by Justice Jeevan Reddy in 2005 to review the AFSPA. The Jeevan Reddy Committee had recommended repeal of this law. The Administrative Reforms Commission headed by Veerappa Moily in 2007 also recommended its repeal. Internationally, the UN bodies including the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and recently the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders have consistently urged for its repeal. However the UPA-I and II is insisting on retaining this shameful law on the statues.
We join democratic forces all over the country in demanding that the UPA Government
Immediately repeal The Armed Forces (Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura) Special Powers Act, 1958 (as amended in 1972), and The Jammu and Kashmir Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1990
Refrain from inserting any part of the Acts into any other legislation granting unbridled powers to the armed forces of the union or the State police
Immediately work out and announce a phased, time-bound demilitarisation plan to withdraw the Army and other paramilitary forces from internal security duties in NE States and J&K.
Endorsing the call issued by human rights groups, we call for nationwide actions between May 22 and August 18, demanding a repeal of this draconian law. We also demand the scrapping of other colonial-era laws like the Sedition Law which is being used to politically persecute hundreds of activists and ordinary people; as well as other draconian laws like the UAPA, MCOCA and CSPSA.
Students and youth all over the country have launched a campaign against corruption and for democracy. While demanding anti-corruption laws and an end to the policies that facilitate corruption, they will also demand an end to the colonial-era repressive laws and draconian laws that are a shame for an independent and democratic country.
