Hello, we are @guneetkaurahuja and @aimanjkhan, yesterday we looked at the evolution of anti-dissent laws pre UAPA, and today we will focus on developments post the 16th Amendment to the Constitution. 1/n
Wartime emergency provisions of Defence of India Act, 62' were made permanent through the enactment of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967. It allowed central govt. to ban organisations. for 'unlawful activity', a power that was reserved with the state govts. till then.2/n
The government does not have to give reasons for banning the organization, just declare them an “unlawful association”. The only review mechanism against the ban was a government-appointed 1-judge tribunal. 3/n 
"Unlawful activity" was vaguely defined to include any act-physical/verbal/artistic- that intended/supports any claim/incites to bring cession/secession or that disclaims/questions/disrupts/intended to disrupt sovereignty & territorial integrity of India. 4/n
1967-Indira govt. had cast its net wide to be able to neutralize outrage amongst political minorities, who were aggrieved by discrimination & lack of adequate powersharing by an increasingly majoritarian political structure. However, the UAPA remained a silent law till 2004. 5/n
A cocktail of other repressive laws like MISA, Defence of India Act, various Disturbed Areas Acts, & state preventive detention laws was used to otherize & criminalize political agency of minorities. (See: Challenging the Rule(s) of Law, ed. Kalpana Kannabiran & Ranbir Singh) 6/n
Marginalized communities encountered dehumanization & mass violence in the years since. Targeted violence against minorities continues to date and India’s security paranoia has only snowballed since ‘67. 7/n
Remember the #JallianwalaBagh legacy of otherization, criminalization, paranoia & dehumanization leading to mass atrocities? Yet, the lessons have been forgotten with each security law strengthening absolute state power & obscuring the purpose of our freedom struggle. 8/n
In 1985, Independent India’s democratic government decided to borrow Rowlatt-coined, colonial repressive labels of “terrorism” as a tool to repress people’s movements through the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA). 9/n
A "Terrorist Act" was defined based on intent. IPC already covers the offenses these ‘terror laws’ supposedly refer to. Under TADA, & similar Anti-Terror Laws, “intent” is the basis for hyper criminalization, diluted procedural safeguards & denial of fundamental rights. 10/n
Contours of such ‘intent’ were vaguely worded- “overawe the Government...alienate any section of the people” & these contours get murkier in subsequent legislations. 11/n
Additionally, TADA provided for the prosecution of “disruptive activities” which was defined in an all-embracing manner to potentially include any direct or indirect act of demanding political accountability. 12/n
TADA allowed confessions to police as evidence & allowed up to 60 days of police custody. This facilitates torture which is rampant & brutal within police custody in India. An innocent could be jailed for up to 1 year, subsequently reduced to 180 days without formal charges.13/n
We'll elaborate more on the erosion of a person's right to life, liberty & equality through torture in extended police custody & long pre-charge detention on 19th & 20th when we look at similar provisions in UAPA. TADA also allowed secret trials and secret witnesses. 14/n
Over 76,000 people were arrested while TADA was in force. The conviction rate for these arrests was less than 1% percent, despite the denial of a fair trial to the accused. 99% of arrested (mostly minorities & marginalized) were wrongfully denied their liberty & dignity. 15/n
After multiple extensions & thousands of human rights defenders & innocent minorities wronged, TADA was allowed to relapse in 1995 due to growing criticism of excessive misuse. 16/n
TADA was followed by Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), which was passed in 2002. POTA used a similar definition of a terrorist act as under TADA. However, the TADA definition was restricted to an act or thing by use of explosives or weapons or hazardous substances. 17/n
In the POTA definition of terrorist activity, words “or by any other means whatsoever” were added in addition to use of explosives, etc. These words were wide-enough to cover any political activity. 18/n
On the other hand, words “adversely affecting the harmony among different sections of the people” as one of the enlisted intents behind the terrorist act, were dropped from POTA. Remember, POTA was passed in March 2002, a month after the 2002 anti-Muslim Pogrom in Gujarat. 19/n
This gives away the state's insidiousness. It promotes laws with vague definitions & wide powers of arrest & seizure, executed often against political & religious minorities while acquiescing to crimes against humanity targeted against the same groups. 20/n
POTA allowed for up to 180 days of detention without a charge sheet. It allowed confessions to police as evidence. It allowed for secret witnesses. The government could add or remove any organization from the schedule of ‘terrorist organizations’. 21/n
An organization could be deemed to be involved in terrorism if it “promotes or encourages terrorism.” An overly broad definition of "terrorist act" that potentially criminalized all dissent, was complemented by even more obscure phraseology of promotion/encouragement. 22/n
Members of the organization could be prosecuted as “sympathizers”. This was a carte blanche for state governments to target minority voices, political opponents, marginalized groups, and human rights defenders and they did exactly that. 23/n
POTA review committee reported in June 2005 that 11,384 persons were wrongfully charged under POTA. This is just three years after POTA came into existence. The selective targeting of minorities was blatant in Gujarat. 240 people charged under POTA- 239 Muslims & 1 Sikh. 24/n
After Gujarat anti-Muslim Pogrom, govt. charged many Muslim men under POTA. We will look into the repeat of this Gujarat model of obfuscating facts around mass violence, & gaslighting minority communities through the use of anti-dissent laws (then POTA, now UAPA) on 22/6. 25/n
POTA was repealed in 2004. Some of its provisions were absorbed into UAPA, followed by a series of several UAPA amendments. Tomorrow we will discuss how each amendment furthered state power, crumbling freedom of speech & association. 26/n
This will be followed by a conversation on the arbitrariness of the process of banning organizations under UAPA. That discussion will be curated based on notes and research done by Advocate Sahana Manjesh. Thank you for joining us today. 27/27
