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| Scratch the surface... |
Suhas Chakma,
Director, Asian Centre for Human Rights |
The
BJP's accusation that the secularism of the UPA
Government is threatening national security is a
compliment neither the Congress nor its allies
deserve. Obviously, a country in which mythology
shapes the daily lives of the majority; and where
history was written by foreigners whether they be
Hsuan-Tsang, Fa-hien or Ibn Batuta, the history of
national security regimes is of little
importance. |
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The Congress is the
architect of all the national security laws. India is
the only democracy to incorporate preventive detention
in the Constitution under Article 22. The Armed Forces
Special Powers Act of 1958 remains the mother of all
draconian laws. MISA was another such law.
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Before the BJP
throttled down the POTA in a Joint Session of Parliament
in 2002, Congress-led governments in MP, Karnataka and
Maharashtra had already adopted the much-abused TADA of
1985 with different nomenclatures. Now, the UPA
Government has made provisions of temporary law, POTA, a
part of the permanent law, the Unlawful Activities
(Prevention) Act 2004. It was also the
Congress-supported Government that amended Section 197
of the CrPC in 1991 to give blanket immunity to
Government officials.
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The Left parties are
equally repressive. There is no difference between the
Left's Buddhadev Bhattacharjee and BJP's Arjun Munda or
his predecessor, Mr Babulal Marandi, in dealing with the
suspected Naxalites. The only difference is that while
Mr Marandi was rightly accused of abusing POTA, Mr
Bhattacharjee went scot-free for abusing the Indian
Penal Code by arresting suspects for waging war against
the state. He further blames the Telugus, an oblique
reference to the PW in Andhra Pradesh, for Naxalism in
Bengal. But from Amlasole to the Dooars, social
discontent among those who suffer the most - the
Adivasis - is all-pervasive.
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Secularism among the
present political class is skin deep. It was the
Congress which introduced in famous Religious Freedoms
Acts. Yet, nothing exposes pseudo-secularists more than
the issue of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
Recently, Mr Arun Shourie wrote a series of articles on
"The silent demographic invasion" in a national daily
and as expected, he made it synonymous with "Muslim
immigrants". But, more Hindus cross the border to India
everyday because of the systemic religious profiling of
the Hindu minorities under the Enemy Properties Act in
Bangladesh.
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According to the
Association for Land Reforms and Development, a
Dhaka-based NGO, an estimated 5.3 million Hindus
migrated to India between 1964 and 1991 as a consequence
of appropriation of an estimated 1.05 million acres of
land. Not surprisingly, the minority Hindus in
Bangladesh comprised just 9.2 per cent of the population
in 2001, down from 18.4 per cent in 1961.
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The migration of
these persecuted Hindus directly contributes to
insurgency in Tripura, Assam and Meghalaya thereby
creating national security problem. Like the BJP, the
CPI(M) too maintains silence. In Tripura, the Communist
Party is also known as the "communal party" by the
tribals. It is a contest between crude Hindu
fundamentalists and pseudo-secularists, that is,
sophisticated Hindu nationalists.
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