Indian Defence Review

Human Rights

Human Rights is a recent phenomenon, but it has been the cardinal principal for engagement for the army for long when called in aid of civil authority, which demanded strict compliance to impartiality, minimum force and good faith. When one looks at the record of human right violations in the last century, it is appalling to read that in the face of emerging guerrilla activity in Boer campaign in South Africa, General Roberts ordered that houses in the vicinity of any railway lines, bridges and telegraph lines that had been attacked should be burned down or blown up. Collective fines were also imposed and Boer civilians were forced to ride on trains as a deterrent against attack.25 Indian Army’s record was more humane and practical in similar situation in Nagaland.

The insurgents exploited the collateral damage to civilian property and death or injury to innocent civilians in encounters with them to tarnish the image of soldiers as trigger-happy.

To avoid ambushes of vehicle convoys, 50 metres on both sides of main roads were cleared of vegetation and undergrowth, which gave road-opening parties a clear view and denied the insurgents ambush sites to hide. And yet, there were cases, fortunately few, when ambushed that resulted in death and injury, soldiers burnt houses, suspected to have sheltered the insurgents, and beat up innocent bystanders or used force that was not commensurate with the situation in the heat of the moment to avenge their dead comrades.

By the very nature counter-insurgency operations are restrictive and cause inconveniences to people and interfered with their daily chores. There was no way how vehicle searches, frisking of individuals, cordon and searches of villages or a group of houses, roadblocks and night curfews in selected areas could be avoided. It was possible to mitigate the inconveniences, but could not be fully eliminated. As the army gained experience, it did all it could to avoid inconvenience to innocent villagers. The insurgents exploited the collateral damage to civilian property and death or injury to innocent civilians in encounters with them to tarnish the image of soldiers as trigger-happy. In most cases the allegations of atrocities by soldiers were exaggerated, if not wholly false.

The Indian Army has come a long way since it was called out to meet the challenges of an extraordinary situation in Naga Hills”¦

This is how Verrier Elwin, who lived many years with the tribes of the North-east and influenced the tribal policy of Nehru, describes the situation: “From the very beginning the rebels made great play with the allegations of atrocities on the part of the police and other security forces. The booklet already quoted, which was issued in 1953 by the Naga Goodwill Mission to Assam, goes so far as to say that the government of India had instructed their Indian Armed Forces to rape Naga women whenever and wherever possible.”26 It also accuses them of stealing food and drink from Naga houses, fruit and vegetable from their gardens and grain from their fields and ‘violating the sanctity of our religion and our custom.’

The Indian Army has come a long way since it was called out to meet the challenges of an extraordinary situation in Naga Hills in 1956. In the early years human right violations, as we understand the term today, were committed not out of any hostility or antipathy towards the Naga people, but soldiers reacted under grave provocation to avenge the death of their comrades, which were invariably spontaneous and seldom pre-meditated.

As communications improved and North-east opened to the outside world and travel restrictions were relaxed, armys interaction with the media also became more frequent.

One of the former Chief of the Army Staff, late General BC Joshi, issued the Ten Commandments for troops employed in counter-insurgency operations in Kashmir and the North-east:

The National Human Rights Commission in its 1994-95 report noted: “The Commission welcomes the instructions of the Chief of the Army Staff and Corps Commanders as evidence of growing sensitivity amongst armed forces personnel to human rights matter…. the example of armed forces leadership (in the human rights matter) need to be followed at all levels.”