The new POTA

As happened in the USA after the 9/11, which many believe was a State conspiracy, the 26/11 which was the result of lapses by the Coast Guard and the Navy, has reduced the middle classes of the country to panic. The situation is cleverly being used by the ruling classes to institutionalize an Orwellian 1984. The Opposition and the Treasury benches have joined to pass laws that would make the State immune to any human rights violation. The new law will increase the period of detention of suspects by the police and the judiciary from 90 to 180 days and seeks to choke the financial pipelines of groups suspected of abetting terrorism. But the law also makes the signed confession of suspects in police custody inadmissible in court, a crucial deterrent against coercive methods often used during interrogation. It also gives the courts the power to decide on bail in some cases. All this in a country where custodial deaths and fake encounters; and thousands languishing in jails without trial is the rule even under existing laws and regulations, which are reportedly ineffectual that we need a new POTA!

The two most important democracies on the globe thus become dictatorships of the ruling classes. I weep for the thousands of teens and young men of this country that would now suffer renewed State brutality. The middle classes that applaud the new laws might feel otherwise when they would find their own hauled off by our corrupt State apparatus on whimsical grounds or no grounds at all.

UNCULTURED INCOMPETENCE BY NGO UNION AND KERALA GOVERNMENT

Whenever the CPM comes to power in Kerala, the NGO Union rules the State. The ministers leave it totally to the Union to administer the State and formulate policies, frame rules and implement them. Every Left rule in the State has thus been responsible for excessive bureaucratisation of the society.

At best only mindless agitators, LDF ministers and legislators have always lacked that something which makes good administrators. The consequence is that they have always been like Alice in Wonderland with in the Secretariat. They lean heavily on the civil servants’ unions affiliated to their parties and look unto them to suggest each minor step that the administration would take. Ideally, it is the bureaucracy that should look up to the elected representatives for initiatives.
The wily bureaucrats in their turn ensure that systems and procedures are so formulated and amended that the Clerk reigns supreme in all matters, with officials’ tentacles gripping each nut and screw in people’s lives. It has been seen that towards the end of each LDf rule, bureaucratic enthusiasm to suck the last drop of blood from the citizen opens up full throttle.

The Unions ensure that the intereference of the State is embedded more and more in each area of civil life. This is done to ensure perpetual bureaucratic supremacy even when the other Front comes to power. The majority of the bureaucracy is always the NGO Union men. Absolute mindlessness, with only motives of bribe deciding things, is seen in all projects and laws for the future during any CPM rule.

Feebleness of the mind by the NGO Union only caused the unnecessary and stupid controversy about the State government's ignoring the late Maj. Sandeep Unnikrishnan's bereaved family. The State ended up looking ridiculous and un-mannered. That the English media played up an innocent and usual Malayalam colloquialism used by the CM showed motivated media idiocy as well.

Had Maj. Sandeep's family been living in Kannur, his father would not have dared to give vent to his dissatisfaction in the way he did. CPM cadres of Kodiyeri would have set fire to the house after beating up the bereaved.