Salwa Judum Verdict: Options Available to States

India has its share of insurgencies in a fairly large area in different regions and for different reasons. The north eastern states, Punjab and J&K had their share of insurgencies and lately Maoist insurgency has spread to a fairly large area encompassing at least 4 states and is threatening to spread to other states as well. The people who were directly affected by these insurgencies are the ones who have paid the heaviest price often with their lives for no fault of theirs. I am not even mentioning the potential ones that are not on the national radar yet, the ones I am referring to are the ones that were more than a match for the police as well as the regular para-military forces available with the states and threatened to undermine all democratic institutions in those states until Armed forces were called in.

There are many in favour of the use of Armed forces in insurgencies that have gone beyond the control of para-military forces and also there are many who opine that Armed forces must not be used against insurgencies under any circumstances for whatever reasons, the merits and demerits of the arguments related to use of Army in insurgencies is beyond the scope of the topic, in any case it is for the Central govt to decide if and when they want to call the Army.

The state govts meanwhile have limited options of requesting the Centre for adequate para-military forces to counter insurgencies and at times when all the options available to states fail to protect lives, often they resort to unconventional ad-hoc measures to minimise the loss of lives in most cases by empowering the people by arming some of them, mostly volunteers, so that the people are not helpless and at least some lives can be saved. Such measures have been taken by almost all states that were affected by insurgencies like NE states, Punjab, J&K as well as those affected by Maoist insurgencies. Salwa Judum was one such measure adopted by Chhattisgarh as all other options available to it like Central para-military forces were failing.

Never was the constitutionality of such measures adopted by the states affected by insurgencies ever questioned until now and the Supreme Court in it’s wisdom have pronounced constituting and arming these SPOs as unconstitutional. Now the message that is conveyed is that the govt with all the legal experts at it’s disposal can also be unsure about the legality of the actions it takes and there can be a huge gap between the executive and the judiciary on what they perceive as permitted in the constitution.

Arming of SPOs, VDCs etc. were never considered to be a solution to insurgency, they were meant to enhance the security of the people living in insurgency affected areas and supplemented the state forces and Army. The SC has clearly said that it is the govts sole responsibility to protect it’s citizens and that the responsibility cannot be delegated to the people in any circumstance, which entails that the govt only have the option of deploying Armed forces and para-military forces during insurgencies. Despite the presence of Army and PMFs in J&K it was felt necessary to supplement them with SPOs and VDCs, now that option is not available to the govt or the people affected.

(Picture Courtesy Outlook)