Statement from PUDR on banning of CPI(Maoist)
In 2004, when the Congress led UPA government came to power it repealed the
POTA, which it admitted had been grossly misused. It simultaneously amended an
existing law, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act 1967 (UAPA), siphoning
into it some of extraordinary provisions of POTA, including those pertaining to
banning of terrorist organizations. The conditions of banning under the amended
Act no longer require a statement to explain the reasons of issuing a ban, a
gazette notification merely adding an entry to the Schedule of the Act is
sufficient, and there do not exist any provision for judicial redress.
On 22 June 2009, the CPI (Maoist) was added to the list of banned organizations
in the Schedule of the UAPA. The Home Minister has claimed that the
notification banning the organization was made necessary to remove
ambivalences. Indeed, the CPI (M-L), PWG, and the MCC, which later merged to
form the CPI (Maoist), were banned organizations since 5 December 2001. Apart
from the futility of banning, the notification shows the total disregard the
government continues to have towards people's movements around issues of
livelihood, dispossession and alienation that have accumulated and aggravated
over the last several years of the unleashing of neo-liberal policies on
unsuspecting tribal populations and the rural poor.
It is indeed ironical that a month back, this government had claimed to have
returned to power on the weight of its social policy programmes. The politics
of banning is indeed reflective of a regime which despite its electoral
victory, has but a truncated social base. Banning the CPI (Maoist), is
therefore, not just arbitrary, it shows that the UPA government has lost the
political courage to address the substantive issues of land and livelihood that
the adivasis have been raising across the country in Chhattisgarh, Orissa or
West Bengal. While banning itself is undemocratic and constrains the
ideological spaces of freedom, in this case, it seems to also send across the
message that like the government of any authoritarian state, this government
too would prefer to use the law to suppress dissent violently. Much has been
made of Maoist violence in the press. Without condoning this violence, PUDR
would ask the Home Minister to note the extremely
debilitating socio-economic contexts which has precipitated the adivasi
movements in the country, and use the electoral mandate it has received to
direct attention where it is required most, and in a way which is conducive to
democracy through long term social programmes addressing issues of economic
disparity.
Moushumi Basu
Gautam Navlakha
Secretaries
PUDR
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