The Supreme Court of India’s directive to the Chhattisgarh government to disband and disarm 6,500 special police officers (SPOs) engaged in anti-Maoist operations is a slap on the latter’s face.
On Tuesday, a Supreme Court bench ordered the Union government “to cease and desist, forthwith, from using any of its funds in supporting, directly or indirectly the recruitment of SPOs for the purposes of engaging in any form of counter-insurgency activities against Maoist/Naxalite groups”.
SPOs, also known as Koya Commandos, are mostly tribal youth recruited by the Chhattisgarh government to fight the Maoists. The government had earlier armed tribals to create an anti-Naxalite militia known as the Salwa Judum, which enjoyed the support of both political and business classes.
The court voiced its concern over gross human rights violations in its 80-page order. It said: “The appointment of tribal youth as SPOs, who are barely literate, for temporary periods, and armed with firearms, had endangered and will necessarily endanger the human rights of others in society”. The court did not condone the acts of violence by Maoists, but emphasised that the genesis of the problem lay in the flawed socio-economic policies of the governments.
The observation is a severe indictment of the state government, which has long been accused of serving the interests of industrialists and the mining mafia than that of the people. The bench went on to say: “The policy of privatisation has also meant that the state has incapacitated itself, actually and ideologically, from devoting adequate financial resources in building the capacity to control the social unrest that has been unleashed.”
The court also came down heavily on the government’s policy of divide-and-rule: “To employ such ill-equipped youngsters as SPOs engaged in counterinsurgency activities, including the tasks of identifying Maoists and non-Maoists, and equipping them with firearms, would endanger the lives of others in the society. That would be a violation of Article 21 rights of a vast number of people in the society.”
The bench trashed the state government’s contentions: “We note with dismay that the affidavit filed by Chhattisgarh appears to be nothing more than an attempt at self-justification and rationalisation, rather than an acknowledgment of the constitutional responsibility to take such instances of violence seriously. The affidavit is itself an admission that violent incidents had occurred in the three villages, and also that incidents of violence had been perpetrated by various people against Swami Agnivesh and his companions.”
It also asked the Central Bureau of Investigation to launch a probe of the incidents of violence alleged to have been committed against social activist Swami Agnivesh and his companions in March when they went to provide humanitarian aid to victims in certain violence-hit villages of the Dantewada district.
