The Prevention of Terrorism Act 2002 (Pota) polarised the country, not just by the manner in which it was pushed through by the NDA government through a joint session of Parliament but by the shabby and often biased manner in which it was enforced. The detention of Vaiko for over a year is a case in point. As a consequence, the law became a flag to wave or wave down, depending on which side of the political divide one was situated.Knee-jerk political positions of whichever persuasion always extract a price. As reality gets rendered into black and white, the shades in between don’t figure. The point is that this country does need an effective legal instrument that can address the new dimensions of terrorist crime without, at the same time, perpetrating criminal injustice in the name of the state. In other words the answer lies not in mindlessly doing away with Pota or a Pota-like law, but in ensuring that there is no scope for such legislation to be misused. If this Congress-led government was not so driven by its own political compulsions and that of its political allies like the DMK and the left parties, it may have approached the issue with more circumspection and discussion, rather than rushing in with an ordinance in a gesture that mimics that of the BJP when it promulgated the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance in 2001. Positions may be taken for electoral considerations or to score a political point against a rival, but they do not usually translate into sound policies of governance. Yet, that is precisely what the UPA government is now attempting to do. If, for instance, there is a terrorist strike of the magnitude of the attack on Parliament in December 2001, it may well find itself in the dock.We would therefore advise the UPA government to move more slowly on this issue. Because it is not just the requirements of Security Council Resolution 1373 that demand an effective legal instrument against terrorism but the security of the country.
