By Seema Kazi Published: Sun, 21 July 2013 10:56 PM The outrage at Ramban by members of the Border Security Force (BSF) adds to Kashmir’s grim, gruesome and bloody history of unarmed civilians being shot dead by state forces. It is hard to fathom the anger and anguish of a people subject to oppressive control and bestial violence for decades on end. In true sarkari style, the deputy commissioner for Ramban has been transferred; the identity of the personnel guilty of murder is not, and may never be, known; the home minister has ordered an enquiry; and India’s vast garrison across the Kashmir Valley moves to enforce ‘law and order’ in a space and setting where the term has sinister Orwellian connotations. The nonchalance with which the Ramban operation was conducted exemplifies the deep, corrosive and perhaps irreversible decay of India’s institutions. This decay is not, as some would wish to believe, only the outcome of the rise of the Hindu right-wing or promulgation of the AFSPA and its attendant culture of impunity – both of which have certainly facilitated the decay. But the origin of the rot that has well and truly set in can be traced back to a Constituent Assembly that inscribed unto law a set of extraordinarily illiberal and authoritarian provisions borrowed directly from British colonial law. A ‘constitutional’ consensus and precedent for repression and coercion set in 1949 could not but translate into subsequent crafting and executive endorsement for repressive legislation and action by successive political orders who substituted their own lack of democratic legitimacy with excessive reliance on coercive force in order to maintain thestatus quo in regions where it was most keenly contested. Be that as it may, it is useful to recall the history and role of the BSF (and its partner-in-arms, the CRPF) in the grand project of maintaining ‘law and order’ in modern India. The BSF, whose members are guilty of the murder, among others, of Zahid Farooq in 2010, and the Bijbehara and Sopore massacres in 1993, was established under the aegis of Indira Gandhi for the purpose of securing India’s frontiers. Under her stewardship, however, the over 100,000 strong BSF came to be used for the maintenance of internal ‘law and order’ in thirteen states across India. In 1969, in Bihar, the BSF, in collaboration with the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), successfully crushed the movement for land reform; in 1970, in West Bengal, the BSF dutifully enforced ‘law and order’ orders from New Delhi by gunning for CPI(M) cadres in order to secure Congress interests during the state elections; in 1975, the BSF and the CRPF, did Mrs. Gandhi proud by terrorising local Muslims in Daryaganj and parts of Old Delhi, and helped break up major strikes against her government by postmen and railwaymen. Much in the colonial mould, and in keeping with the intent of its creators, the BSF reacts to and contains threats to the government but is not known for sensitivity to the security of citizens. In 1976, over 50 per cent of the BSF was deployed in border areas dominated by non-Hindu, non-Aryan minorities, including Jammu and Kashmir. Presently, according to independent estimates, out of a total strength of 180,000, nearly one-third of the BSF is deployed in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. In his excellent book on India in 1976 – also the source of much of the information in this article - Dilip Hiro sums up the exact intent of deploying outfits such as the BSF in Kashmir that is as valid now as it was when he wrote the book over three decades ago: “The government in Delhi has come to rely increasingly on paramilitary forces to check the political aspirations of the religious and ethnic minorities inhabiting the country’s border areas.” There would still be a flicker of hope for Kashmir if part of the political order in New Delhi were not firmly anchored to the general compact between the executive, the legislature and the judiciary to repress dissent by ethnic minorities. But the initial consensus for repression forged in fear in 1949 has be
Posted on: Sun, 21 Jul 2013 07:21:05 +0000
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