With the ongoing crisis of political and economic nature the state of Punjab in the last decade has witnessed rise of unprecedented unemployment, debt and discontent among the people. Consequently brave people and restless youth of Punjab have taken its anger to roads. This is so obvious from the sharp struggles of ETT, JBT, B.Ed, anganwari aspirants on the one hand and heroic struggles of peasantry in the recent past. And on the other hand Punjab State has continued its mindless, brutal repression on unarmed people and now it seems that it is missing its undemocratic, repressive powers which it enjoyed during the era of armed separatist movement of Punjab.
Due to these economic and political scenario, Punjab Deputy Chief Minister on the advice of his bureaucratic gang and police goons have taken a step to repress the democratic, genuine voice and mass movements which have already started taking a bold shape in the state. This has manifested in the efforts of Akali Govt. to approve a bill known as “The Punjab (Prevention of Damage to Public and Private Property) Bill, 2010.” Where very cunningly the bureaucracy has framed this bill and on the name of the recommendations given by the Supreme Court of India it has tried to murder democratic voices of all the sections of society. In the Statement of Objectives and Reasons issued by Deputy Chief Minister in the bill it justifies this action of the state and says that all of this is only “...after considering and accepting the recommendations made by the two committees set up by the supreme Court...” Hence recommendations are misinterpreted for its own favour and the whole idea is turned into an anti-people bill as the Akalis think it will help them in gaining order over the discontent masses and also political mileage in the eyes of Big Landlords and Industrialists.
HOW THE BILL IS UNLAWFUL WEAPON:-
How the bill is anti-people and undemocratic can be easily seen in its section 3. Sub-Section 1 of section 3 of the bill says “Whosoever, wants to organise a peaceful demonstration, march or procession, shall make an application to the District Magistrate or Commissioner...” and further Sub-Section 2 of Section 3 says, “..the District Magistrate or the Commissioner, may allow or refuse the permission to hold demonstration, march or procession, keeping in view the circumstances prevailing...” The points which are to be raised are:-
• That in the bill the meaning of ‘prevention’ has been deliberately misinterpreted and used as ‘permission’
which actually aims at prohibiting any individual or mass action against the state repression. Actually the
aim of recommendations of Supreme Court’s Committees was to prevent violence and damage of public
property but Akali govt. has moulded the bill which prohibits this fundamental Right altogether!
Moreover Article 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India spells out that people of India have :-
• Freedom of speech and expression
• Freedom to assembly without arms
• Freedom to form associations and unions
RATIONALE; WHY STATE NEEDS SUCH DRACONIAN LAW. –
• PEASANT MOVEMENTS: - As the burning question on the very existence of peasantry in Punjab has surfaced on
the top, it has forced whole of the Civil Society to enter and analyse the problems causing this sorry state.
Liberalisation, Privatisation and Globalisation in the year of 1991 triggered the blast of ever rising debts and
consequently ever rising suicides by peasantry. It has been estimated that in Punjab alone more than One and
a half Lac peasants have committed suicides. Hence the anger of poor peasants is genuine and this anger
manifested in a strong way when finally while following the Policy of LPG State Govt transformed the Electricity
Board into a corporation. The organised and rising tides of peasant resistance to this decision compelled the
State Govt to come up with such laws which must put a check on this voice.
• YOUTH/STUDENT MOVEMENTS: - Further, in this last decade we have seen the educated youth of the State took
its protest to higher levels. Unions of ETT, B.Ed. and JBT are its evidence. Also the issue of ‘bus pass’ has been
able to attract mass of students allover the state. Leaders of these organisations have faced police repression
and often young men and women have even gone to the extreme steps of self immolations. The struggle to
regularise themselves is against the policy of State and Centre, so to nip this battle in bud State govt find it
convenient to come up with draconian laws than to regularise the jobs. And extract money from private
universities and colleges.
• REPLICATING GUJRAT’S FASCIST MODEL: - As Akalis being the part of Fascist gang of political parties of India-
NDA, so they dream to replicate the same fascist model of Gujrat which is based on black laws, repression of
democracy in most shameful manner. Gujrat’s Chief Minister is in his 3rd term now. What impresses the NDA
leaders is the fact that even after slaughtering thousands of innocent Muslims, even after economic crisis
collapsed the financial structure of the Gujarat, Narendar Modi still holds the office. How he was able to do it
becomes clear when we realise that he choked every big and small democratic voice in the state with his
communal politics and black laws. Hence this is the dream for which Punjab’s govt. aspires. And its 1st step
towards the same is this bill.
CHARACTER OF THE RULING CLASS PARTY IN POWER :-
Any ruling class party when is not in power or is young pretends to be pro-people and do sometimes entre in mass struggles, agitations on genuine issues of people. Be it congress during pre 1947 era or Akalis in Punjab. It is a well known fact that Akalis in late 70s and early 80s have represented the genuine problems of the peasant masses of Punjab as well as took democratic stand ( to some extent ) on the federal structure of India which is known as ‘Anandpur Resolution’. Their agitations were full of violence, sacrifices, police repression and backlash of masses. Under the name of ‘dharma-yudh’ many morchas were organised and Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal burned the constitution of India in Delhi in 1985 and went to jail many a times. Also hundreds of peasants were killed in such struggles which do express as if Akalis were the true representatives of peasants. But as was with congress at centre, the same happened with akalis as soon as they came to power. Their party experienced a transformation and witnessed the same vulgar ruling class politics to remain in power. Today we all know that this party do represents only big landlords and businessmen and all the posterity earned during struggles have been washed in dynasty politics, heights of corruption, direct dealing of drugs, and nude expression of feudal authority in elections be it panchayat or assembly. Rather this is not the only party who has undergone this change consider Congress(I), Lalu’s RJD, Mulayam’s Smajwadi Party or CPI and CPM. When they are not in power these parties wage struggles and when in power they destroy the same forces to maintain their office. Hence this bill is result of the same process. Probably these Akalis have forgotten the amount of sacrifices that peasants have given to bring them in power, now these same peasants to them are ‘naxalites’ or even ‘terrorists’ since they are still fighting on same issues.
APPEAL :-
So, we as SFS appeal to all the educated masses, students, intellectuals and whole of the civil society to support us against this anti-people, undemocratic, uncivilised, unlawful and vulgar effort of State govt of Punjab. We to our best capacity will propagate, organise and agitate against this bill, all the draconian laws and any such act of State which intends to repress the democratic voices and genuine issues of the masses.
SFS 2nd Conference
