The UPA Govt. has successfully been keeping secret the recommendations of its own high level official committee whose task was to review the provisions of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act 1958. The Justice Jeevan Reddy Committee was set up in Nov. 2004 by the Prime Minister and since June 2005 when it submitted the report, the Govt. has been sitting over the contents while implying that it has called for transfer of all provisions of the AFSPA (1958) to the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967.

People's movements in the NE States, where the provisions of the AFSPA (1958) apply, have been continually on at various levels. In 2004, the movement flared up in Manipur under the Apunba Lup, an umbrella of various mass organizations. In 2004, its student representatives met the Prime Minister following which the committee was instituted.

On 6th October, Irom Shormila, Manipuri poetess, who has been on hunger strike since 2000 demanding lifting of AFSPA and who has shifted her protest to Delhi, demanded from the Home Minister Shivraj Patil that the recommendations of the Committee be made public. While the Minister again shielded himself behind ‘not before presentation to Cabinet’, the recommendations have been made public through sections of the media.

Repeal AFSPA

Quite contrary to UPA Govt. propaganda and making it criminal that the Govt. should have sat over such recommendations, the Committee in its 147 page report has called for repeal of the Act. Terming it “too sketchy, too bold and quite inadequate in several particulars”, it further says “The Act, for whatever reason has become a symbol of oppression, an object of hate and an instrument of discrimination and high handedness."

The five member Committee consisted of Justice Jeevan Reddy, Lt. Gen. (Retd.) V.R. Reghavan, P.P. Shrivastava (former special secretary in Home Ministry) Dr. S.B. Nakade (Former VC, Marathwada Univ.) and Senior Journalist Sanjay Hazarika.

The Committee has turned down the submission of the Army that the Act was necessary for soldiers ‘acting in good faith’ (read right to fire and kill freely) saying that such a protection already exists under Sec. 49 of Unlawful activities (Prevention) Act  1967 which extends to whole of India. Quite contrary to Govt. propaganda, it then recommends four clear issues on which the provisions of the 1967 act should also be tightened. For example it  calls for immediate turning in of prisoners to police stations, restricts right to open fire on crowds and individuals, presence of women personnel for arrest or search of women, and for setting up of Grievance cells with members of civil administration.

Being a Governmental Committee, it has of course found a mythical ‘overwhelming number’ in North East who have an ‘overwhelming desire’ for presence of Army. But it is quite unequivocal on the need to repeal AFSPA. It has pointed out that though the Supreme Court has upheld the constitutional validity of the Act that is no comment on the desirability of having this Act.

The unequivocal call for repeal of the Act ‘scrapping AFSPA will help erase feeling of  alienation, discrimination in North East’, makes the silence of the UPA Govt. for over a year even more criminal considering the continual binge of wanton killings by Army in NE over the past year.

Several civil rights groups have criticized that the Committee has actually called for transfer of clauses of the AFSPA to the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act 1967. Vigilance and struggle alone can ensure that the old wine is not poured into new bottles.