Dr Syeda Hameed
New Delhi
Two weeks ago, AFSPA unleashed its terror in the most beautiful and gentle state in our land. This time it was the innocent miners returning home to Oting from hard labour in the Tiru mines. The mini van in which they were travelling was sprayed with bullets. No warning, no alarm, just lethal shots. Six were killed on the spot. Two were badly injured but not dead; they have lived to tell the story from their hospital beds at Assam Medical College, Dibrugarh. When crowds from Oting came out to inspect this heinous kill there was more shooting by the forces. Seven youth were shot in the mayhem; plus one of the assailants also fell, taking the total to 14. Stories started pouring out. One youth had been married a few days ago; the ceremony was held very close to the death spot. Families were inconsolable. Authorities spoke standard cliches, ‘we will investigate, culprits will not be spared’. CM Nagaland woke up and asked for repeal of AFSPA. Candle light vigils were held in a few places including before the Nagaland House in New Delhi.
‘Like in Kashmir, here too, locals fear coming out of their houses after dark lest they be taken by security for questioning.’ I wrote this line in my book Beautiful Country Stories from another India which I had co-authored with Gunjan Veda in 2012. I was writing about Nagaland over three visits from 2004 to 2007 during my Planning Commission term. Kashmir is my Janambhoomi and Nagaland was becoming my Karmbhoomi during my two terms as Member. Today, seventeen years later, the violence wreaked on innocent miners in the Mon district of Nagaland is another example of the downward spiral of human rights in what I then called my ‘Beautiful Country’.
My first visit was in 2004 to Chizami in Phek district where I had gone for the inauguration of North East Network Resource Centre on the invitation of my lifelong friend Dr Monisha Behal. What I witnessed there was a fine example of self reliance in local women creating products which could compete in any market. Returning to Kohima I went to landmark places like the Naga Heritage Complex at Kisama where the Hornbill festival is held in December every year; in 2004 while looking at the Morungs constructed there by each of the sixteen principal communities I could never imagine what would happen in seventeen years later which would lead to the cancellation of the Festival. As we went from hut to hut our young guide told us about the communities. I had heard earlier about Konyak tribe and now I learnt they were stars of the Hornbill Festival. Another landmark was Khonoma, birthplace of A Z Phizo, the tallest nationalist leader of Nagaland. A huge rock pillar I saw there was inscribed with words asserting the fierce independence of Naga people.
In 2007 I returned, this time to Mokokchung, abode of the Ao tribe. The occasion was 25 years of Watsu Mungdang, the highest Ao women’s organisation. Never have I experienced better hospitality as the two days I spent here with Ao women. Every detail was looked after. From the linen, the meals, the aesthetics coupled with modesty and humility of young girls who looked after me; it was exemplary.In 2010 I returned for a Seminar on Women's Representation in Decision Making Process organised by North Eas tNetwork in Kohima. This time while I formed deep connections and friendships with Naga women- poets, writers, lawyers, activists, I was also able to visit sectors which had been assigned to me in Planning Commission. Health, Women and Children and MSME (Medium and Small Enterprises). I wrote about the Anganwadi Centre at Keziekie, Women's Development Programme at Meriema, and Naga Civil Hospital in Kohima.
Gunjan told me that back in 2001 when she was a college student, she missed a lecture. So she was assigned to study a state which no one had chosen. That was what began her ‘love affair with Nagaland’. When she arrived there not knowing anyone, she felt exactly the same as I did. Warmth, hospitality and being intensely cared for. Being a vegetarian was an unusual predicament in a meat eating land; so the young people she had befriended made sure she was well supplied with fruit and vegetables.
I recalled my own love affair with Nagaland in the above paras in order to place my anguish in context of my experience when the Dec 5 horror struck.
AFSPA the draconian law of British origin has been a Damocles sword over North East and Kashmir. Besides Nagaland it is clamped in Assam, Mizoram, Manipur parts of Arunachal and also in my birthplace, Kashmir. It has claimed thousands of victims. In Manipur after the rape and killing of Thanjam Manorama, Irom Sharmila went on a 16 year hunger strike which became the world’s longest protest. Justice Jeevan Reddy Report recommended repeal as did Veerappa Moily Administrative Reforms Commission. But when it came to power the NDA government quickly rejected these recommendations. ‘Power flows from the barrel of the gun’. ‘Impunity is the way to raise the morale of armed forces’. ‘Ballot box is servile to the power enshrined in this AFSPA instrument’, is the drivel one hears.
In 2011 I had met the CM Neiphiu Rio and apprised him about our findings, including AFSPA. He said what CM’s throughout the country say, ‘I will look into the matter’. Today, ten years later, post-Mon carnage, he has said ‘AFSPA should be repealed’.It was my meeting with Niketu Iralu, Chairman of Naga Reconciliation Committee in 2010 which inspired and gave me hope. After reading his writings on the Mon killing, I wrote to him. I told him that my organisation Muslim Womens Forum stands with the Naga women and men at this critical juncture. He offered to link us with NMA, women who have put up a relentless fight for dignity.
Since 1997 when I entered public life, I have traversed almost every part of my country. Today I have collected enough evidence to denounce this draconian relic of our colonial past which every shade of government has retained. I call the women-the Meira Paibis, the Naga Mothers, the Shaheen Bagh, women from all religions all castes and all classes and likeminded men to take a lesson from the Kisan Andolan and rise like a massive Tsunami to expunge forever the brutal, repressive AFSPA.
The writer is the Chairperson of Khwaja Ahmed Abbas Memorial Trust. She is the biographer of Maulana Azad, the first Education Minister of Independent India, and is a former Member of India’s Planning Commission
