In July of 2020, an encounter occurred which was labelled by the military killing 3 hardcore insurgents in the Shopian district of Jammu Kashmir. The families of the 3 men would proceed to file a complaint to the police and regarding the encounter to make it clear that the 3 men were not militants but labourers in the district, and were not affiliated with any separatist organisation. The investigation would later prove the families correct, and result in the prosecution of the captain who led the operation. However, this November many people nationwide were horrified when an army tribunal would bail the captain responsible for the death of the 3 men and suspend his sentence. While many have labelled this, injustice, journalists and legal experts have pointed to the 1958 law that legally pardoned the captain responsible, AFSPA (Armed forces special protections act).
Militaries have an obligation to protect citizens in times of conflict and to preserve territorial integrity. However, conflict shouldn’t mean that the military is above the law and robs citizens of their rights. Under AFSPA, not only are soldiers in cases of fake encounters excused, but it also leaves room for defending abusers in cases of sexual violence, and defends searching civilian properties without warrants with brute force. Pre-revocation of 370, many governments like then CM Omar Abdullah in 2011, pledged to revoke AFSPA. This July, Rajnath Singh (the minister of defence) pledged to revoke AFSPA after commenting on the success of controlling terrorist activities in other remote regions of the country.
According to The Quint, while government stats have indicated that local participation has dropped considerably with most captured and killed being Pakistani, this has not meant a cessation of insurgent violence. The recent targeting of police officers and migrant workers show that progress towards peace is slow, especially when it comes to villages. Under AFSPA, the military being granted negligible accountability has been a sledge hammer to citizen participation in counter-insurgency. Insurgents have carried the tradition of terrorising villagers, and instead of engaging with locals, AFSPA grants legitimacy for the military to not take proactive measures but through force.
The Military’s privileges has also granted the establishment of militias. In March 2023, the New York Times reported how the military was arming villagers which raised worries on potential sectarianism institutionalised. This also echoed a disastrous policy back between 2005 - 2011 in Chhattisgarh named “Salwa Judum” which established militias in an effort to halt communist terrorism in the state. By 2008, NDTV reported the impacts which were brutalisation and violence against adivasis that incentivised recruitment into the Naxal movement.
In a modern look of AFSPA, while it may have made sense in a time of emerging insurgencies, it’s roles in integration and modern India are to be judged by its consequences, and in the case of Jammu Kashmir, this means that in the long step to peace and integration, the first step is a more accountable military and the revocation of AFSPA throughout the state.
P.C. -
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