Author: Editorial
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: November 19, 2001
The Congress's decision to oppose
the ratification of the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO) in Parliament
deserves the severest of condemnation. The argument advanced in defence
of this deplorable decision, that the legislation "is undemocratic, suffers
from serious legal infirmities and is liable to abuse", is breathtaking
for its sheer hypocrisy. The party's concern for democracy and prevention
of abuse of power would have been credible had it itself not enacted, during
the prime ministership of the late Indira Gandhi, the draconian Maintenance
of Internal Security Act (MISA) whose rampant misuse during the nightmare
of the Emergency, has been one of the most disgraceful features of India's
post-Independence history. Even otherwise, the party, when in Government
has never displayed the slightest hesitation to use the powers of preventive
detention vested in the Government by the Defence of India Rules (DIR).
Nor has it ever balked from resorting to the harshest of police repression
and resorting to extra-judicial killings when such measures suited it'.
Witness, for example, the manner in which state governments controlled
by it sought to crush Naxalites in Andhra Pradesh in the 1970s and 1980s,
and Naxalites and activists of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in
West Bengal in the 1970s. The CPI(M), which now considers the Congress
as a lesser evil than the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), had then complained
bitterly of the "semi-Fascist terror" the Congress had unleashed in West
Bengal, killing more than 10,000 of its members and supporters.
That the Congress's opposition to
the Ordinance cannot be attributed to a genuine concern for democracy,
is further indicated by the fact that at least two of the States where
it is in power Karnataka and Maharashtra-have anti-terrorist and anti-crime
laws that are no less severe than the POTO. According to reports, the Chief
Minister of Karnataka, Mr SM Krishna, has argued that the law in his state
was enacted specifically in the context of the need to apprehend the brigand
Veerappan and that the state Government was prepared to review any harsh
provision it might contain. The Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Mr Vilasrao
Deshmukh, has argued that though the state law was not enacted by the Congress,
he was prepared to make amends if there were complaints. Their statements
might have been taken seriously had these not almost coincided with the
Congress's final declaration of its intention to oppose POTO's ratification
and had the state Governments concerned not used the laws in question.
Coming at the present juncture,
the statements by the two Chief Ministers appear as attempts to deflect
the criticism the Congress is liable to attract for its duplicitous stand
on the POTO, the need for which can hardly be over emphasised at a time
when India faces a serious threat of Pakistan-sponsored cross-border terrorism.
Some of its provisions are doubtless harsh; but so is the the anti-terrorist
law Britain enacted last year and the one the United States passed after
the September 11 terrorist strikes against it. Nowhere has terrorism been
defeated without harsh laws; to oppose the enactment of the latter would
in effect be tantamount to supporting terrorists. Those who oppose POTO
should remember this.
