Purportedly, the army had secret intelligence of a terrorist strike. On the other hand, eight young mine workers were returning on a truck after work. The army blatantly opened fire on the truck and killed them without verifying, simply on the basis of suspicions. Six workers died on the spot, two were grievously injured. Villagers rushing to the spot upon hearing gunshots found that the army was busy removing dead bodies. Incensed by this heinous crime, the villagers burst forth into anger against the army. The army personnel opened fire again - this time the victim were eight innocent villagers, about twenty more were injured. This incident occurred in Nagaland's Mon district this early December.
Amit Shah, who became the Home Minister after taking a constitutional oath to protect the safety of the citizens, sided with this heinous act of the army in Parliament saying that the army had asked the truck to stop, but the truck, instead of paying heed to the warning, tried to speed away. Seemingly, left with no choice, the army had to fire suspecting them to be terrorists. But two of the workers who survived, rubbished these allegations of the army and government, saying that the army had directly fired upon them without any warning. Which means while defending the army, Amit Shah practically recognized this right, that the army can open fire on civilians simply on the basis of suspicions. Kudos to the leader in charge of the internal security of the country! Though a SIT investigation has been ordered, that the outcome of the investigation is predestined can be judged from the very reaction of the minister himself.
Such a genocide in Nagaland is not an exception. In 2014, paramilitary forces detained two teenagers, aged fourteen and fifteen and tortured them brutally - scalding them with burning cigarettes, forcing them to lick their own blood and even peeing on their faces! In the same year, a BSF personnel raped a sixty year old woman.
Why only Nagaland? Do you remember the naked protest demonstration of nine Manipuri women in front of the headquarters of Assam Rifles with the banner "Indian Army, rape us". Images of this protest shook the whole world. News of the inhumane torture, rape and consequent murder of Thangjam Manorama instigated severe protests throughout Manipur, an extreme manifestation of which was the naked protest demonstration of Manipuri women in front of the Army headquarters at Kangla fort.
Looking further back, on 2nd November, 2000, a battalion of Assam Rifles open fired in Malom Tulihal village of Manipur, killing ten innocent villagers, among them a sixty year old woman. In protest against this, Irom Sharmila went on a hunger strike for a long 16 years.
Similar incidents have been reported from Assam too. In 1994, Army picked up nine innocent youths from Dhola village in Tinsukia and inflicted inhuman torture on them. Later, though four villagers were released, the remaining five were shot to death while being transferred across a river.
A singular aspect of all these massacres was that they were all committed by military and para-military forces and practically none had been punished or convicted so far. Time and again the Indian State orders a perfunctory judicial probe but in vain. Up till now there has been no incidence of conviction or punishment of those army officers or personnel responsible for such atrocities of firings, killings, tortures and rapes. Which is why no matter how much Amit Shah and Co. shed crocodile tears ( that too probably because as their party is in power in Nagaland and voices for withdrawing AFSPA are growing louder pushing and even the chief minister is compelled to call for a repeal of AFSPA), such crimes committed by the military forces will keep creating headlines in the future.
Why do the military enjoy such unbridled power in these regions? Actually despite the large veil of democracy of the Indian State, there exists a host of black anti-people laws. Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) is one such Act. With the objective of suppressing the Naga people, the then Congress government in 1958, brought into force the British black law -- Armed Forces (Assam and Manipur) Special Powers Act, 1958. With this Act, the government held the power to declare any region as 'disturbed' and gave special powers to the army to do whatever they deem fit on the pretext of restoring peace. This was the beginning. Though this law was valid in Assam and Manipur, in reality, it extended to the whole of North East except Tripura as the entire North- East other than Tripura and Manipur fell under Assam at that time. With the passage of time, some regions were declared centrally administered territories/union territories. Then, after the formation of separate states, all of them were brought under the purview of this Act. The name of the Act was amended to "Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958", in short AFSPA. Then, Punjab in 1983, and Jammu and Kashmir in 1990 were also brought under this Act.
Empowered by this Act, the central government can declare any region as "Disturbed", handing over the region to military and para military forces. The army then possesses special powers to search any premise or arrest any individual/s without a warrant and even open fire. The most important thing is that these unbridled power of the forces cannot be challenged nor any military personnel be prosecuted for any atrocities.
Voices for repealing AFSPA has been growing louder and louder in bourgeois newspapers in recent times. Not to forget, at one time they were the strong spokespersons for implementing this Act in these regions on the pretext of fighting 'separatists'; and 'terrorists'. All along they have consciously suppressed the fact that the primary cause for the rise of terrorism in these areas was the prolonged terror and torture inflicted upon the hapless citizens of these regions by the Indian ruling class in direct collusion with the Indian State in order to keep these regions occupied forcibly. Perhaps, they are not threatened by terrorists as much now and hence all these clamour now for withdrawing AFSPA.
Is AFSPA the only black law in our country? We have seen how Sudha Bharadwaj has been forcibly kept imprisoned for over three years without any trial or bail by the Indian State by using UAPA. Meanwhile, this black Act claimed another victim's life, Stan Swamy, who was critically ill. People like Anand Teltumbde, Soma Sen, Gautam Navlakha are still rotting in jail without any trial. They were implicated illegally under UAPA in a completely fabricated case simply because they were persistently vocal against the current BJP regime raising their voice for democracy. In a similar fashion, another fearful black act, TADA was in force till sometime back. All the previous governments had retained these completely undemocratic black acts. That the current Modi regime desires to implement such acts vehemently became apparent in one of Modi's speeches in Chattisgarh before the Lok Sabha elections of 2019. Modi made it clear in no uncertain terms that the army needs more power to create a strong and stable India. For this reason, opposing AFSPA implies a conspiracy to weaken the country from inside.
Does this mean that implementing one black act after another implies curtailing Indian democracy? In fact, true democracy does not only mean such simple democratic rights as right to vote or right to form organizations. True democracy is not some ceremonial or formal equal rights of people. It implies equal rights in the true sense. True democracy means democracy for the exploited masses, as they are the majority of the people of any country. Leave alone true democracy, even the limited rights of bourgeois democracy has been greatly curtailed and curbed from the beginning since 1947. The rights bestowed upon the citizens in the different clauses of the Constitution have been snatched away by other clauses in the same Constitution! Over the last 75 years, this limited bourgeois democracy is being continuously weakened further by implementing these black acts one after the other by the Indian ruling class.
At the same time, Indian democracy has been curtailed and curbed in another way. Even today, the country not only stands divided on the basis of religion and caste, but different types of discrimination and oppression is still prevalent widely. Being a multi-national country, India still has numerous oppressed nationalities whose democratic rights and demands are being forcibly repressed by police—military terror. Still today, the Adivasis are at the bottom-most rung of the society, women are still second class citizens. In short, the majority of the Indian people are subdued and oppressed in a host of pre-capitalist undemocratic environment.
In such a scenario, there is no doubt that we not only have to protest vehemently against the Nagaland killings, but also strongly demand exemplary punishment of the murderers. More importantly, we have to be strongly vocal for the repeal of black acts like AFSPA, UAPA, etc. We have to demand for a complete stop to all the police-military repressions and torture on people's democratic movements on the pretext of fighting terrorism or protecting country's security. But as long as these struggles for democracy keep revolving within the present undemocratic ruling structure, attacks on the democratic rights of workers-peasants along with the oppressed common masses will continue to prevail. For this reason, the struggle against the attacks on democracy, movements for the extending of democracy has to be seen in connection with the movement for establishing true democracy.
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