Nepali Times

In this season in India of election and hunting for allies, it is possible to empathise with the decision by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh not to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Colombo. But what is difficult to comprehend are the reasons a section of the media and Tamil Nadu politicians have cited to endorse Singh’s decision.

It is time, they said, New Delhi expressed its anger at Colombo’s continued concealment of horrendous human rights abuses during the last few months of its war against the LTTE, its stonewalling of the demands to implement the 13th Amendment that provides for devolution of powers to provinces, its brazen attempts to dilute these powers, and its reluctance to initiate a reconciliation process which could assure Tamils of their equal status in a society from which they remain alienated. Singh’s call to cancel his trip was touted as just the reprimand the island nation needed.

Before hailing New Delhi for admonishing Colombo, however, they should have scrutinised India’s alleged violation of human rights in handling secessionist movements. As is true for most societies which have undertaken the project to become modern nation-states, India’s history too is blood-soaked. Might not Indians one day discover more powerful nations lecturing them on the need to respect human rights and for melding a diverse society through measures other than guns and bullets and draconian laws?

No doubt the Sri Lankan army was ruthless. Anyone who has seen the documentary No Fire Zone will recoil in horror at spine-chilling scenes of brutality. The country’s civil war registered an unconscionable death toll: the United Nations believes 80,000 to 100,000 people died between 1982 and 2009. Others say it was closer to 130,000.

It’s morbid to compare death tolls in different secessionist movements to grade the dangers they posed to the respective states battling them. Nevertheless, considering the applause that has greeted New Delhi’s berating of Colombo, might we not ask: what has been the death toll in the 23 years of secessionist violence in Kashmir? Kashmir’s chief secretary, SS Kapur, said in 2008 that about 20,000 civilians, 7,000 security personnel, and 20,000 militants had died in the violence.?

Before Kashmir, Punjab and India’s Northeast suffered major loss of life. The book Reduced To Ashes: The Insurgency and Human Rights in Punjab by Ram Narayan Kumar and three others, is a chronicle of disappearances, extra-judicial killings, and mass cremations in the state’s brutal response to the proponents of Khalistan.

Separatists in Northeastern India were similarly crushed. The Indian Air Force strikes in Aizawl during the uprising of the Mizo National Front in 1966 are most telling. Yet the embers of secessionism still smoulder. According to South Asia Terrorism Portal, 3,093 people died between 2001 and 2013 in Manipur, a casualty figure quite high for a state which has a population of just 2.6 million.?

India has weaned away parts of the Northeast from secessionism through negotiations. Mizoram is an example, yet critics would say the state is averse to opting for the softer, humane touch in its handling of alienated sections of the population. Why else, they would ask, has it stubbornly refused to withdraw the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA)?

Enacted by the Indian Parliament in 1958 to tackle the Naga movement, the AFSPA has been extended to other parts of the Northeast and in Kashmir. It allows security personnel to arrest any person on mere suspicion that they are planning a terrorist attack and grants immunity to security forces from criminal prosecution for use of force, even when it causes death. The Act has become an instrument to protect men in uniform resorting to actions not linked to combating terrorism, but which are blatantly criminal in nature.

The demand for repealing the AFSPA has been recommended by five different committees over the years. The last of these - Justice JS Verma Committee (2013) - thought it was ridiculous to invoke the law to claim impunity for acts such as rapes, which only the perverted can consider as an appropriate measure to tackle terrorism. Indeed, the Tamil Nadu State Assembly’s concern for human rights can be taken seriously only if it were to pass a resolution demanding a repeal of the AFSPA.

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