Congress helped create structures that eroded our civil liberties: Mukul Kesavan

Congress governments have pioneered illiberal laws or were liberal when it came to oppressive precedents authored by others, said Kesavan.

The Congress, which has been accusing sections of the ruling establishment of creating an atmosphere of intolerance and fear, on Friday came under attack for its own “dismal record” in defending civil liberties. The remarks were made by speakers during a conference organised by the Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies.

“In this current political crisis, when anxious citizens look to political allies to defend their freedom, how likely are they to look to the Congress? Not very likely. Because the Congress in its decades in office has helped create the legal and administrative structures that eroded our civil liberties,” said author and academic Mukul Kesavan during a panel discussion moderated by senior Congress leader Anand Sharma.

This was minutes after former PM Manmohan Singh, in his address, said the nation was deeply concerned at recent instances of “blatant violations” of the “right to freedom of thought, belief, speech and expression by some violent extremist” outfits.

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Congress governments have pioneered illiberal laws or were liberal when it came to oppressive precedents authored by others, said Kesavan. He said while Congressmen “rightly condemned” the Dadri lynching and denounced the BJP, it was Congress governments that had passed the first cow protection Acts in several states.

He referred to senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh’s promise to support a nationwide ban on cow slaughter and wondered “how does a party condemn hysterical mob violence over cow slaughter one moment and press for a general ban the next. ”

On the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Kesavan said, “Sikhs in Delhi had neither peace, nor freedom nor even the right to life… We know the issues that define the BJP. What does the Congress stand for? The Congress’s record in the matter of defending civil liberties, our fundamental freedoms is dismal.” He was also referring to the imposition of Emergency and continuance of AFSPA.

Activist Teesta Seetalvad, too, said she was disappointed that the UPA government did not repeal AFSPA. However, she said she would not pinpoint where the Congress has gone wrong, and instead focused on the present ‘environment of intolerance’. She did, however, ask the Congress to return to the fundamental ideals of the Constitution.

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Responding to the comments, Sharma defended his party, saying that its ideology was for respecting individual freedom.