Pushing the POTO

By Kuldip Nayar

I THOUGHT we had closed the chapter on the right to stay free. The ousting of the British had registered our determination and the Constitution had enshrined the resolve. The challenge came during the Emergency (1975-77) when one lakh people were detained without trial. Yet, we were able to roll back the misrule by ousting all those who were part of the oppressive machinery. The Congress Government again revived the MISA of Emergency-fame in the shape of the TADA in 1984 in the wake of the happenings in Punjab. But the measure did not stay for long because its misuse had killed thousands of innocent people and put some 75,000 men and women behind bars, only one per cent of whom were convicted.

After a lapse of several years, the BJP-led Government has promulgated the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO). The Union Home Minister, Mr. L. K. Advani, has thrown down the gauntlet. It is for the people to pick it up. They are the ones who will be picked up on mere suspicion.

The history of preventive detention is littered with examples of state terrorism. The measure will be used once again against trade unionists, human rights activists and members of minorities rather than against the terrorists. Once again it will be a reign of terror. The National Human Rights Commission's repeated advice has had no effect on the Government.

The existing laws are good enough to fight terrorism. Leading jurists have also pointed out that there is no need for special legislation and that the administration has enough powers to deal with any untoward situation. But the Government's purpose is not to challenge the terrorists but to chastise those who oppose saffronisation and are committed to civil liberties and human rights. The craze for power has made the Government go beyond the proposals of the Law Commission which set the ball rolling. The Government did not send the ordinance to the Parliamentary Standing Committee of Home Affairs for its opinion.

Mr. Advani appears to have made the ordinance a matter of prestige. He has gone to the extent of saying that those who oppose the ordinance are supporting terrorism. In the face of such a statement, what do the safeguards against the misuse of the POTO mean? It is going to be the same old game: them against us, the rulers against the critics. And the police will see to it that the will of their political masters prevails.

No one is opposed to the fight against terrorists. People all over the country suffer at their hands. But the suffering at the hands of the police is no less. There is no rule which is not bent and there is no excess which is not committed when word comes from the top to fix someone. What remedy does the common man have against state tyranny? Even the power of law courts has been curtailed. If it is power, the Government has already too much for the liking of civil society. The National Security Act, the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, the Disturbed Area Act, the Special Court Act and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act - all of them are special laws. Ordinary laws are no less severe. Rajiv Gandhi's killers were sentenced to death under the ordinary law, not the TADA.

On top of it, the security forces indulge in encounters. The disappearance of civil liberties activists is common. Till today, the police have not produced human rights activist Khalra of Punjab despite the Supreme Court's order. The POTO will be yet another instrument of oppression. The Government seldom pursues real terrors for political reasons. Those who committed terror and killed thousands in Delhi in 1984 and Mumbai in 1993 have yet to be brought to book.

In any case, Mr. Advani is the last person who should be telling us what terrorism is. He has been charge-sheeted in the Babri Masjid demolition case. He is the one who should answer whether such an act amounted to terrorism or not. It is, however, intriguing that the POTO, unlike the TADA, does not say that alienating people or affecting the harmony among different sections is a terrorist act.

Never has independent India been subjected to warrantless electronic surveillance. This is the worst kind of attack on an individual's liberty. What differentiates democracy from dictatorship is personal freedom; the first guarantees it and the second fetters it. I recall that the Congress Government once brought a Bill to intercept mail. Parliament passed it. But the then President, Giani Zail Singh, refused to sign it because he considered it interference in a citizen's privacy. When we have fought terrorism for more than a decade without resorting to what America and Great Britain are doing, why should we now introduce such draconian measures which are bound to be misused as has been the experience? Even then there is no provision in the latest U.S. measure to detain any national even for a day. The POTO, on the other hand, gives the police the power to hold anyone for six months without trial. And it is the suspect who has to prove that he is not a terrorist.

Had the POTO been there in 1987, I could have been hauled up as a journalist. I had gone to the Golden Temple, Amritsar, to collect information on Operation Bluestar. Three young Sikhs recognised me. They took me to a room within the temple premises. They discussed with me the pros, not cons, of the demand for Khalistan. When I asked them how they would achieve their objective, they said Pakistan and China had promised to help. I laughed at their naivety. I did not ask their names because I did not consider it relevant to what I thought I would write. In my article I wondered how many from among the Sikh youths had been brainwashed into believing something which even on the face of it was preposterous. Some in the police must have read the article but none bothered me.

Again were I to go to the Northeast and publish today an interview with some of the militants who wanted independence, I would probably be hauled up. One, such an article may be considered a pat on the back for the terrorists. Two, the authorities would ask me the names and whereabouts of those militants. If I were to disclose their identities, I would block the avenues of any contact in the future with such people. Nations no longer lose freedom to outsiders. The danger is from insiders who, in the name of security or protection, curb an individual's say. Individual or organised terrorism is bad enough but state terrorism is worse. It squeezes out all that is good in a nation with the sanction of law.

Take the one-year-old State of Chhatisgarh. The incident took place at Nagarnar the other day. The Government decided to set up a steel plant there. Records were fabricated to show the consent of the gram sabhas concerned for land acquisition for the site. Even the Home Ministry's guidelines (1974) on the establishment of big industries were flouted: an alternative means of livelihood on a permanent basis for individuals directly displaced and indirectly affected in the zone of influences needs to be provided. Some Nagarnar people gathered to voice their protest. But they were lathi-charged and tear-gassed. Forty-five people were seriously injured. The authorities are not repentant.

The human rights activist, Mr. B. D. Sharma, visited Nagarnar to assess the situation. He was aware about the developments since the villagers had filed a serious complaint alleging fabrication of records with the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. It was clear to him that the police action was largely to teach the villagers a lesson for the complaint made by them. If the POTO becomes a law, the Chhatisgarh Government may declare leaders of the area terrorists.

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