People's Democracy

EDITORIAL

 Repeal POTA To Save Democracy

IT is now the turn of Ms Mayawati to invoke the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) to settle political scores. It is, indeed, an irony that the BJP, which bulldozed the POTA by resorting to a joint session of parliament in the face of stiff opposition whose strength in Rajya Sabha would have prevented the ordinance from being converted into an act, is now facing the music. Raja Bhaiyya, an independent MLA and former minister in the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh, has been arrested by the UP government under POTA.

Earlier, the Jayalalitha government in Tamilnadu had arrested the MDMK leader Mr Vaiko under POTA. Mr Vaiko was once a member of the Vajpayee cabinet and the MDMK is still a partner in the NDA.

By all means, those with criminal records must be proceeded against. But the invocation of POTA clearly demonstrates the apprehensions voiced by us when we opposed this draconian law, that it is liable to be misused more than effectively curb terrorism. There exist laws that could effectively have been invoked in both these instances. But the recourse to POTA demonstrates that a draconian law is easier for the authorities to handle and, importantly, it arms them with provisions that make the grant of bail impossible for at least a year. 

These instances prove that such draconian laws will be utilised or, to use an appropriate word, misutilised to settle political scores and severely curtail the democratic rights and civil liberties of the people. The experience of the erstwhile Terrorism & Disruptive Activities Act (TADA) amply demonstrated this. Despite this, the Vajpayee government steam-rolled the POTA more for partisan reasons and sought to dub all those who opposed it as being “anti-national.” At the same time, this BJP-led government seeks to arm itself with more such draconian measures in preparation for achieving its final objective of converting the secular democratic republic of India into a fascistic “Hindu Rashtra.”

The arrest and subsequent release of journalist Iftikhar Gilani is a case in point. People can be intimidated, jailed, tortured on whimsical grounds. Laws like POTA can only be the harbingers of institutionalising fascist intolerance and authoritarianism. The sooner such laws are repealed, the better for the secular democratic republic.