"In March 2004, I was a member of a people's tribunal on POTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act). Over a period of two days we listened to harrowing testimonies of what goes on in our wonderful democracy. Let me assure you that in our police stations it's everything: from people being forced to drink urine to being stripped, humiliated, given electric shocks, burned with cigarette butts, having iron rods put up their anuses to being beaten and kicked to death.
"Across the country hundreds of people, including some very young children charged under POTA, have been imprisoned and are being held without bail, awaiting trial in special POTA courts that are not open to public scrutiny. A majority of those booked under POTA are guilty of one of two crimes. Either they're poor - for the most part Dalit and Adivasi. Or they're Muslim. POTA inverts the accepted dictum of criminal law: that a person is innocent until proven guilty. Under POTA you cannot get bail unless you prove you are innocent - of a crime that you have not been formally charged with. Essentially, you have to prove you're innocent even if you're unaware of the crime you are supposed to have committed. And that applies to all of us. Technically, we are a nation waiting to be accused.
"... Today in Jammu and Kashmir and many northeastern states of India, the Armed Forces Special Powers Act allows not just officers but even junior commissioned officers and non-commissioned officers of the army to use force (and even kill) any person on suspicion of disturbing public order or carrying a weapon. On suspicion of! Nobody who lives in India can harbour any illusions about what that leads to. The documentation of instances of torture, disappearances, custodial deaths, rape and gang rape (by security forces) is enough to make your blood run cold. The fact that despite all this, India retains its reputation as a legitimate democracy - in the international community and among its own middle class - is a triumph."
-- Arundhati Roy, "Listening to Grasshoppers: Field Notes on Democracy"
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