Punes Muthaliks

Azadeh Moaveni,an Iranian-American collaborator on Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadis memoir,refers to a survival technique most Iranians have internalised. Besieged by the regimes dos and donts,they adopt as if parallel lives within their homes. Here they assert their individual freedoms by acting as if senseless restrictions were not there. Yet,they know that at any time whatsoever the authorities can invade their privacy and shame them for letting down the Revolution.

You would have thought it would be different in India,a proud democracy founded on a liberal reading of individual freedoms. Think again. In Pune,young people out for a Friendship Day party this weekend,after dutifully obtaining permission from the college authorities to stay out beyond their gate-time,may not have thought they were on the other side of the law. But around 11 pm,the police gatecrashed the get-together,claiming to be acting on complaints of loud music disturbing the peace. And in the words of Punes superintendent of police rural,they seized the offending music system as well as hundreds of litres of alcohol. Soon medical tests were conducted on the 489 youths and the 80 deemed to have consumed alcohol were held. The Bombay Prohibition Act 1949 puts anyone having a drink without a licence in violation of the law; and the young people being herded away were seen covering their faces,as if they had been shamed.

There is some outrage that stigma should be attached to students on the charge of simply partying. But it needs to be louder. The Maharashtra police are known to play to the local gallery,enforcing an outdated and unreasonable law to feed responsive pools of conservatism. They are at it again. And it is time the law was stripped of its sillier provisions,so that the police are equipped to enforce order and not a bizarre sense of morality.