The Reddy Committees report on the Armed Forces Special Powers Act,
submitted on June 6th 2005, though not made public officially, has
been available on the Hindu newspapers website since October 2006.
See http://www.hindu.com/nic/afa/
I have critiqued the report in my recent publication, Postfrontier
Blues. The following is from that publication:
The Reddy Committee makes a significant recommendation to create
grievance cells in districts where the army operates, in order to
ensure public confidence in the process of detention and arrest. It
acknowledges that there have been a large number of cases where those
taken away without warrants have disappeared, or ended up dead or
badly injured. Many in Indias security establishment are unhappy
about the Committees criticism of the security forces and its
recommendations of changes in the law. Apparently it is because of
the discomfort of the Army and the Ministry of Defence that the
government was reluctant to make the report public . . . . The Reddy
Committee, to its credit, recognizes that the law has become a symbol
of oppression, an object of hate and an instrument of discrimination
and highhandedness and it recommends the repeal of the law. Yet it
wants key elements of AFSPA to remain. So it recommends that some of
its provisions be incorporated into a pan-Indian counter-terrorism
law, in effect proposing a significant reform with one hand and taking
it away with the other. The stated goal of this self-contradictory
recommendation, quite incredibly, is to help erase the feeling of
discrimination and alienation among the people of the region. Even
this clever compromise, that would have had almost no practical effect
on the ground, is opposed by Indias security establishment.
As indicated earlier, a pdf version of my paper is available free of
charge. The link is below.
http://www.eastwestcenterwashington.org/
PS 33 Postfrontier Blues: Toward a New Policy Framework for
Northeast India
by Sanjib Baruah
PDF Format
The Reddy Committees report on the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, submitted
on June 6th 2005, though not made public officially, has been available on the
Hindu newspapers website since October 2006. See http://www.hindu.com/nic/afa/
I have critiqued the report in my recent publication, Postfrontier Blues. The
following is from that publication:
The Reddy Committee makes a significant recommendation to create grievance
cells in districts where the army operates, in order to ensure public
confidence in the process of detention and arrest. It acknowledges that
there have been a large number of cases where those taken away without
warrants have disappeared, or ended up dead or badly injured. Many in
Indias security establishment are unhappy about the Committees criticism of
the security forces and its recommendations of changes in the law. Apparently
it is because of the discomfort of the Army and the Ministry of Defence that
the government was reluctant to make the report public . . . . The Reddy
Committee, to its credit, recognizes that the law has become a symbol of
oppression, an object of hate and an instrument of discrimination and
highhandedness and it recommends the repeal of the law. Yet it wants key
elements of AFSPA to remain. So it recommends that some of its provisions be
incorporated into
a pan-Indian counter-terrorism law, in effect proposing a significant reform
with one hand and taking it away with the other. The stated goal of this
self-contradictory recommendation, quite incredibly, is to help erase the
feeling of discrimination and alienation among the people of the region. Even
this clever compromise, that would have had almost no practical effect on the
ground, is opposed by Indias security establishment.
As indicated earlier, a pdf version of my paper is available free of charge.
The link is below.
http://www.eastwestcenterwashington.org/
PS 33 Postfrontier Blues: Toward a New Policy Framework for Northeast India
by Sanjib Baruah
PDF Format
---------------------------------
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