Public order and public interest : Complementing each other
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: October 31 2011 -

Jan Karwan Members Detained by Police at Imphal Porompat on October 28 2011

Public order is probably one reason the Government will spit out for refusing to grant permission to the members of National Alliance for People's Movement to meet hunger striker Irom Sharmila at the security ward of JN Institute of Medical Sciences on October 28.

This is a convenient tool that the Home Department of the State Government may brandish, whenever it feels incompetent to handle a situation while turning a blind eye to the fact that what disturbs public order is the boorish behaviour of their men in uniform on the streets of Imphal.

The stand of the Government perfectly complements the numerous instances of sundry JACs and groups of people coming together and imposing a bandh or blockade in the name of public interest and this has led to a competition of a sort between public order and public interest.

If the JACs can do it, we can do it better by floating our own version, seems to be the reasoning of the Government. Meeting Sharmila cannot be a crime.

Nowhere does Section 309 of the Indian Penal Code, under which Sharmila has been kept under custody, say that no one can meet the detainee but the State Government in all its wisdom decided that allowing the campaigners to meet the hunger striker would lead to a breach in public order.

Given the fact that at no point of time has public order been breached on account of the 11 year old hunger strike launched by Sharmila, the Government has absolutely no basis to fear the worst.

At best it is putting up a defence against a shadow created by its own myopia and at worst it is yet another instance of the Government riding rough shod over the sensibilities of the people.

Nowhere in its long march, starting from Srinagar, did the campaign kick up any trouble and the incident at Delhi University was triggered by right wing Hindu extremists, who have come under the impression that it is their birth right to monopolise Nationalism and define who is a Nationalist. It had nothing to do with the rallyists.

Given this fact, the Government must either have a weird understanding of public peace or arrogance has blinded it to such an extent that it sees nothing wrong in indulging in a bout of muscle flexing exercise against a group of peaceful protestors who had come all the way from Srinagar to demonstrate that they do care for the people who have been at the receiving end of a draconian Act which offers a blanket cover of immunity to the security personnel.

The Congress led SPF Government has been in power for the last ten years, that is it has been in power for two consecutive terms, something which has never been seen in Manipur.

Not only that, the Congress managed to cross the magical figure of 30 in the 60 member Assembly, again something which no political party has been able to achieve in all these years.

In the process, Mr Okram Ibobi has already scripted history by not only becoming the first Chief Minister of the State to complete a full term in office but also in about to complete a second successive term. Amazingly the uninterrupted stint of ten years in office has also coincided with the uninterrupted ten years of fast by Sharmila.

The SPF Government came to power after the Assembly election sometime in February 2002 and Sharmila launched her indefinite fast on November 4, 2000 after the Malom incident in which ten civilians were mowed down in indiscriminate firing by Assam Rifles personnel on November 2 of the same year.

This means that out of the 11 years that Sharmila has been on fast, the Congress has been heading the SPF coalition for nearly ten years now. A gap of less two years divide the launch of the indefinite fast and the coming to power of the Congress led SPF Government.

The natural question that follows is whether the SPF Government has deemed it fit to even conduct a cursory study of the case highlighted by Sharmila. The lifting of AFSPA from the seven Assembly Constituencies of Imphal Municipal Council came on the brutalised, mutilated and bullet riddled body of Th Manorama in 2004 and herein lies a tale.

In Delhi it was the handiwork of some extreme Hindu right wing activists who attempted to derail the rally and in Manipur it is the State Government which is hell bent on forcing the rallyists to beat a retreat.

It would have been so much more constructive if the present dispensation had the sense that meeting Sharmila has nothing to do with public order.

What disturbs public order is the highly arrogant and insensitive conduct of the political class such as letting loose its cops to deflate the tyres of vehicles parked over night in front of petrol pumps.