Tomorrow is the 125th Birth Anniversary of BR Ambedkar. With ‪#‎HandwaraKillings of an old woman and two young men in Kashmir by the Army in mind, we should read what he had to say against impunity for firings by police or Army. He said these words in the Bombay Assembly in response to a report justifying police firing on striking workers.
"Sir, I like to point out to this House that so far as the law is concerned, there is no difference between an ordinary citizen and a police officer or a military officer, and I would like to read for the benefit of the House a short paragraph from a very classical document which I am sure my honourable friend the Home Minister knows, namely, the Report of the Featherstone Riots Committee. In one passage it says:—
"Officers and soldiers are under no special privileges and subject to no special responsibility as regards the principle of the law. A soldier for the purpose of establishing civil order is only a citizen armed in a particular manner. He cannot, because he is a soldier, excuse himself if, without necessity, he takes human life....”
Ambedkar added that he was horrified by the argument of a retired British bureaucrat in favour of home rule - that home rule would ensure that instead of English police having to shoot Indians and be faced with protests, 'Indian Ministers would be able to shoot Indians without any qualms.' Ambedkar retorted :
' ... The only question is this: Whether, in maintaining peace and order, we shall not have regard for freedom and for liberty. And if home rule means nothing else as I am thinking, it can mean nothing else than that our own Minister can shoot our own people, and the rest of us merely laugh at the whole show or rise to support him because he happens to belong to a particular party, then I say home rule has been a curse and not a benefit to all India.'
Those who seek to justify firings in Kashmir, or on Dalits and adivasis and workers in India in on name of 'peace and order' should remember that the author of the Constitution said peace and order can't come by killing freedom and liberty.
The reason why most protests in Kashmir, be it against molestation or even for civic amenities, tends to turn into a protest for azaadi, is because civilian protests are met with this kind of Army brutality. And Indian citizens need to say, not in our name. Whether Kashmiris are demanding azaadi or protesting against the Army, or on any other matter, nothing can justify shooting civilians dead. Period.
With courtesy Facebook wall of Kavita Krishnan

Hastakshep