The partial withdrawal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) from Assam, Manipur and Nagaland soon after the formation of a new government in Imphal is very welcome. This law, which allows the Centre to suspend civil liberties and the armed forces to override the civil administration, has been a fraught issue in the Northeast for years. Calls for its suspension were heard in the campaign in the recent assembly polls in Manipur. Successive governments at the Centre, however, had held out against pleas for the removal of the Act, citing the security situation. Now, the Union home ministry has credited the “improved security situation”, itself a result of “fast-tracked development” and agreements with insurgent groups, for its decision. Hopefully, this is only the beginning and more areas of the Northeast will be taken out of the AFSPA’s ambit: The law continues to be in operation in nearly 75 per cent of Nagaland, all of the hill districts in Manipur and 40 per cent of Assam, mainly the districts bordering Manipur and Nagaland.
The Act in its present form was first imposed in Nagaland to battle the Naga nationalist movement that gained ground in the 1950s. As Naga nationalism acquired the character of an armed insurrection, the Act was introduced in Manipur’s hill areas, which are home to Naga tribes. The insurgency has survived multiple splits in the Naga nationalist movement and various accords that the Centre signed with different insurgent groups in the 1970s. As Naga nationalism influenced the rise of similar nationalist movements in neighbouring states, including in Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura and Assam, from the 1960s onwards, the government moved in the army and central para-military forces to the region. The AFSPA provided operational cover for these forces, not trained or mandated to operate amid a civilian population or to report to the civil administration. The contradictions emerging from this situation, wherein the local political leadership and civil bureaucracy have a diminished role in governance, alienated local populations caught in the crossfire between insurgents and the armed forces. The AFSPA also facilitated a climate of impunity and promoted a vision of a punishing state that was also a perpetrator of violence. Civil society has been leading the demand for its withdrawal, particularly in Nagaland and Manipur – Manipur CM Biren Singh has announced his government will honour Irom Sharmila for her long struggle against the Act.
Violence has been a feature of ethnic nationalist movements in the Northeast. However, these nationalisms are not merely armed insurgencies, but also movements born of civic anxieties associated with state building. Since the 1970s, the Centre has recognised the importance of engaging with the aspirations present in the separatist movements and promised to accommodate them within the federal rubric. Its outreach has been successful in Mizoram, Tripura and Assam, and a tenuous peace with the NSCN-IM has held up for nearly three decades in Nagaland. The challenge for the Centre now is to build on the promise of Wednesday’s announcement and slowly restore the primacy of the civilian administration in the areas still under AFSPA. It is a process that demands great patience, negotiation and accommodation.
This editorial first appeared in the print edition on April 2, 2022 under the title ‘After AFSPA’.
