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Kerala Draconian Law: Vijayan Forced To Junk It

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2020-11-25 14:35:05

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.

The LDF government in Kerala has finally decided to do away with the controversial amendment to the Kerala Police Act by inserting a new section that would have given arbitrary and draconian powers to the police to arrest people on the assumption that what they had produced or published would have "threatened", "insulted" or "harmed" anyone. Although chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan tried his best to keep the section on the statute books by instructing the police not to enforce it, he was forced to take action to rescind it after protests from the media and civil society and immense pressure from the central leadership of the CPM.

The mischief that could have taken place if the section was allowed to remain live was proved in just one day it was there. The Nattika assembly segment committee secretary of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), P A Fahad Rahman, filed a complaint under the new section alleging that a person had posted content that defamed IUML Youth League state general secretary P K Firoz. The police had registered the complaint. It is another matter that Rahman had to withdraw the same on the advice of the IUML top leadership, including Firoz.

The LDF government has now decided to bring in a new ordinance that will repeal the new section 118A. It is sad that politicians in India do not learn from past mistakes. The Kerala government had earlier introduced a similar section in the same act that was struck down by the Supreme Court. That section was much milder than section 118A that was now inserted. Then how did the government think that it would have passed the judicial test? Needless controversy was generated and the Vijayan government earned itself a bad name as foe of free speech and dissent. This is huge victory for the media and the civil rights activists who opposed the new section vehemently. The CPM central leadership must also be lauded for listening to the critics and forcing their state satrap to rescind the draconian section. 

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