The Hindu : From POTO to POTA

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Mar 28, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - Editorials

From POTO to POTA

THE PASSAGE FROM POTO to POTA was never going to be smooth, but there was never any doubt, given the prevailing parliamentary arithmetic, about which way the vote on the new terrorism bill would go. The Government majority, by a comfortable 129 votes, may be a victory for the NDA's parliamentary managers, but the marked hostility and recrimination which underlined the 10-hour parliamentary debate was a clear demonstration of the inappropriateness of convening a special joint sitting of the two Houses to ram through a controversial law, which is liable to misuse and which — in these fractious and communally charged times — is likely to sow the seeds for further suspicion and mistrust. Even if it consumed a little more time, a more patient and earnest effort to try and forge a political consensus around the controversial legislation would have hurt neither the NDA nor the nation. After all, by itself, the enactment of an anti-terrorism law, as the Law Commission itself has noted in its report on POTO, will not subdue terrorism. On the face of it, the BJP-led Government's oft-repeated argument that it is imperative, in the interests of curbing terrorism, to quickly put an anti-terrorist law in place, may have a tough-minded ring about it. But it is mistaken in emphasis (the measures required to combat terrorism are myriad and go well beyond mere legislation) and disregards the country's recent history (if a draconian legislation such as TADA did not help at all in arresting the scourge, how will a less stringent POTA achieve this purpose?).

On a subject as vital to the future and well-being of the country such as terrorism, the nation would have been better served with the forging of a political consensus rather than the assembling of a parliamentary majority through the admittedly constitutionally-sanctioned but nevertheless extraordinary provision of a joint parliamentary session. Apart from this, there is a solidly pragmatic reason why political consensus should have been preferred to parliamentary majority. About 20 States in the country are ruled by parties which have declared their opposition to the new terrorism law in no uncertain terms. This is a practical constraint on the use of POTA. One Opposition party has already announced it will not use the law in the two States it rules. It may not be surprising — in fact it will be only logical given the position the Congress has staked out on POTA — if the Congress-ruled States also decline to use the law which its leader, Sonia Gandhi, has said "violates the basic human rights of individuals". Given this, it is hard to see — even from the BJP's myopic perspective — what possible merit lies in a terrorism law that the majority of the States are unwilling to invoke. At the same time, recent developments have strongly underscored the need to maintain an extremely watchful eye on the manner in which POTA is used by its proponents. If the Gujarat Government chose to withdraw the charges under POTO against those accused of the carnage of Godhra, it was only because it came under pressure from those who exposed its essential duplicity. The enormous irony of having invoked the new terrorism law with alacrity against the perpetrators of Godhra while having employed (and that too reluctantly) the provisions of ordinary criminal law against a few members of the crazed mobs responsible for the ensuing bloodbath was a disgrace. The vote to prevent POTO from being legislated may have been lost. But the battle to prevent POTA from being employed in an insensitive, cynical and selective manner must continue. It is imperative that POTO is not allowed to be misused and exploited in the manner that TADA, its unmourned legal ancestor, was.

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