Maharashtra, once flagged as a progressive and reformist state with a long tradition of movements for justice and liberty, seeks to join the cabal of states that have enacted draconian laws to, among other things, crush dissent in the name of upholding law and order. The government tabled in the state Assembly, on Thursday, the Maharashtra Special Public Security Bill, 2024 which seeks to counter “the menace of Naxalism” which “is increasing in urban areas” through frontal organisations. The Bill proposes jail term even if an individual on the radar is not a member of an unlawful organisation but “contributes/receives/solicits any contribution or aid or harbours it members…or promotes or assists in promoting a meeting” of such groups. The Bill grants authority to the state to declare an organisation “unlawful” and proceeds to define unlawful activity which, by an interpretation, could even mean merely being present at meetings in which issues or laws are debated.
To be sure, Maharashtra will not be the first state to enact such a law if this Bill comes to be passed in both houses of the state legislature and receives assent by the President of India. It was, in fact, drafted on the template of the Public Security Act which is currently in force in at least four states – Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Odisha. That a handful of other states have such a law in no way justifies Maharashtra government’s desire to arm itself with a law to take on the bogey of “urban Naxalism”. What is this phenomenon anyway except manufactured realism by the rabid right-wing which was given legitimacy by the union government and popularity by a fringe filmmaker? How many “frontal organisations” in urban areas of the state were under the police radar for such “unlawful activities” anyway in the past five years?
This Bill appears to be the state’s response, condemnable at every level, to the spate of bails and releases of rights activists in the recent past, including those incarcerated in the Bhima Koregaon case. As rights advocates point out, merely speaking to a group of social activists about resistance and the constitutional duty to resist draconian measures of the State, or being in meetings where disobedience to the state is encouraged by peaceful or non-violent means to further human rights, could bring them under the dark shadow of this intended law. The Maharashtra government, on its way out to make way for a new Assembly, must withdraw this draconian Bill.
