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| File picture of policemen displaying arms recovered from Lichu Bagan in Guwahati at Dispur police station last year |
September 13 is observed as the Global Arms Control Day. In India the Control Arms Foundation of India (CAFI) and Oxfam have campaigned extensively against the proliferation and unregulated use of unlicensed small arms which are used by militant groups and criminals across the world. Sadly, this day passes off uneventfully in the Northeast where human life is dispensable and firearms are used to intimidate and extract compliance from victims of extortion. Improvised explosive devices (IED) are used by militants to kill several people at one go. Between 1992 and 2001, 9,544 people have succumbed to gunshots and bombs in six states of the region. This figure does not include those who are shot by criminals and extortionists. We have no records of deaths due to armed violence in Tripura, a state, which is also virulently affected by militancy.
The dead have become mere numbers in statistical data. But those who are maimed and tortured or forced to flee their homes because of the fear of the gun have their story to tell. Javed, a young man from Kashmir, was shot at by militants who entered his uncle’s home. Although he stayed put at one place, the random firing saw a bullet go right through his spine. Javed is crippled for life. He moves around in a wheelchair campaigning against the proliferation of small arms. Javed shared his testimony at the protest day programme in New Delhi. There are thousands like Javed who are appealing to governments, organisations and individuals to stop the arms race. But it requires a sustained campaign that should be widespread for the Centre to sign the international arms trade treaty, which would bring in accountability, in the supply and use of arms.
In the Northeast, we have created a generation of widows, orphans and widowers who undergo extreme psychological trauma but have no support system whatsoever. Of those killed, many are women who are either accused of being in league with militants or alleged to provide shelter to extremists or accused of being informers for the army. Even in Nagaland where the ceasefire between the NSCN (I-M) and the Centre is in currency, fratricidal conflicts carry on unabated. This has compelled the Church to protest against the utter lack of respect for human life.
Almost every week, one faction of the NSCN kills someone from the other faction. The killings have become unstoppable. The horrible part is that killings are legitimised as a part of the ongoing struggle for Naga sovereignty. The government is just a passive, helpless onlooker. The family members of the dead wallow in pain and anguish. Civil society wants peace but we are contending with a dreaded gun mafia within our own country and beyond our borders, who will not allow peace to prevail. Their trade will be hurt if people no longer buy arms.
The Northeast is already marginalised economically. Protracted armed conflicts in at least four of the seven states make it difficult to start or sustain any economic activity. Militants use arms to pulverise a terrified citizenry. They extort money at will, more so from the business community. Those who can survive by raising the prices of every essential commodity sky high, continue with their businesses. Others are forced to close shop. The only kind of businesses that survive cannot generate employment because they are small-scale enterprises.
We in the region live in a vicious cycle of violence. To curb violence, security forces procure more and more sophisticated arms. The AK-47 has graduated to the AK-56, AK-74 and so on.
The more armed the state forces are, the more likely they are to create in the militant groups a demand for equally sophisticated weapons. If they have money, there is no dearth of weapons coming in from the porous borders of Myanmar, Bangladesh and other Southeast Asian countries.
Secretary general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, rightly observed, “The small arms issue is grave. In a world awash with small arms, a quarter of the estimated $ 4 billion annual global gun trade is believed to be illicit. Small arms are easy to buy, easy to use, easy to transport and easy to conceal. Their continued proliferation exacerbates conflicts, sparks refugee flows, undermines the rule of law and spawns the culture of violence and impunity”.
In India’s volatile northeastern periphery, the gun culture is as real as malaria and HIV/AIDS. Drug cartels use guns freely to bully the vulnerable and force them to be a part of their sleazy commerce. Drug abuse is directly linked to heightened sexual behaviour, which, in turn, leads to promiscuity and HIV/AIDS. In a region that is so heavily reliant on central funds for development and little or no alternative sources of income, the proliferation of small arms can have a big impact on causing a setback to even the existing economic activities.
Small arms are like poison to democracy. Because of them, dissent is firmly suppressed. Elections are rigged and the bullet decides what goes into the ballot box. People are too frightened to protest against violence and cruelty of armed groups. Today people believe they can resolve their personal and societal problems through the barrel of a gun. This is a misnomer. Violence begets more violence and to think that violence can be controlled by the gun is a perversion which gun merchants would like us to believe.
The cinema as mass media has been to a large extent an indirect proponent of violence. Violent movies spark a flow of adrenaline in the audience. When a villain is shot by the hero, the audience heaves a sigh of relief. But this is a false escape route from the realities of day-to-day living where evil men hardly ever become victims of their own vile machinations. The reality is that there is no alternative to non-violence. In a world where even toyshops display sophisticated laser guns and every kind of weapon to inflict injury, preaching non-violence might sound unrealistic and naive. It sounded naive even when Mahatma Gandhi propagated this doctrine. Yet that was the strategy that delivered us from the imperial might of a nation whose fire power was legendary. I believe Gandhi’s philosophy stands tall even today. The tragedy is there are too few practitioners and too many who pay lip service to this great soul.
But how long can we go on like this? Can we allow the next generation, too, to have guns as their toys and brandish those guns each time they want to have their own way? Only weaklings and cowards deceive themselves that guns bring safety. Parents and teachers need to teach by example the virtues of non-violence to kids and adolescents.
Violent movies, news reports that zoom in on brutality and carnage need to be blacked out and censored within our homes. Let every right thinking citizen exert pressure on their own state governments and the Centre to put a stop to the arms race and sign the international treaty on arms control.
On our part, we need to take responsibility to campaign against the free use of small arms. Let us make our voices heard before we all become victims of small arms. The time to do so is now. Women have a bigger stake in raising awareness against the free flow and irresponsible use of firearms. Women give birth to new life. How can they sit back and watch someone taking away that precious life?
The arms trade is truly spiralling out of control. It is a humungous billion-dollar trade. As of today, there are two bullets for every person on this globe. In the context of the Northeast, small arms have become the weapons of mass destruction.
