Maharashtra Special Public Security Act: Not Public Security, Special Security to Autocracy
Ajit Nawale
THE BJP-led Mahayuti state government finally got passed the infamous Maharashtra Special Public Security Bill on July 10, 2025 in the legislative assembly and on July 11 in the upper house of the state, despite staunch opposition by democratic forces.
The ruling BJP and its lapdog allies claim that the Bill was necessary to curb what they term “Urban Naxalism”. The state government’s claim is being roundly criticised by various sections of public opinion which have highlighted the government’s true intention of crushing every voice raised against the anti-people and pro-corporate policies of the union and state governments.
The Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis, who also holds the Home portfolio, claimed in his speech while placing the Bill in the House that Naxalite activities are now confined to only two tehsils in the state. The Union Home Minister Amit Shah too has claimed that Naxal activities are now curbed to the extent of 72 per cent. This is sufficient proof, by the government’s own admission, that the existing laws are enough to control Naxalism. Therefore there is no rhyme or reason to bring in more draconian acts to combat a so-called ‘waning menace’. This very question is being raised in the state. Apart from the state-specific Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), Central acts like the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) are being used in the state against the Left and Centre (turning a blind eye to the anti-national, violent and disruptive activities of the Right!). In this scenario the government’s specious claim of the need for another draconian law reeks of its authoritarian intentions. It is obvious that, raising the bogey of Naxalism, it is actually preparing to target democratic dissent.
REAL TARGET
The government claims that the Special Public Security Act (SPSA) is targeted at organisations and their members who are involved in “unlawful” acts. This Act gives the state government the power to ban such organisations and severely punish their members. The term “unlawful act” is deliberately loosely defined to cover any act that the government perceives to be detrimental to public order. Even a simple opinion criticising the government can be construed as unlawful. The government has arrogated to itself the right to declare organisations and their members as unlawful. Participating in their activities, collecting funds for or donating to them, spreading and publishing the views of such banned organisations, and even to encourage these acts is termed as ‘criminal’. The punishment for such acts is imprisonment ranging from two to seven years, plus fines ranging from two to five lakh rupees. Personal property, even private belongings of persons and organisations can be confiscated.
The definition of an unlawful act has been intentionally kept ambiguous. Consequently, any views, spoken or written, and/or gestures criticising the government can be construed as ‘harmful to public order’ and hence ‘unlawful’. A social media post, cartoon, story, poem, joke, pamphlet or even a reaction could be branded as ‘unlawful’. Similarly, obstruction to the duties of a government servant, or civil disobedience becomes unlawful. Opposing land acquisition by the government or opposing a corporate-driven project will be termed unlawful. Already, thousands of peasants walking with bloodied feet, in the historic AIKS-led Kisan Long March, the defenders of the Constitution and the truth-seeking followers of Mahatma Gandhi have been castigated as ‘Urban Naxals’. They will now be lawfully so.
WHY? FOR WHOM?
Why and for whom has this Act been passed? The state has been witnessing a flurry of so-called development projects by corporate profiteers like Adani and Ambani. This is payback time for the money used to topple the earlier MVA government, the unprecedented money used to hijack the last assembly election and the money anonymously donated to the RSS/BJP. The new Act is aimed at deftly and easily removing any democratic and constitutional opposition to the corporate loot in the form of Shaktipeeth Expressway, Wadhvan Port, large corporate projects in Gadchiroli and other districts, and the takeover of Asia’s largest slum Dharavi in Mumbai by Adani, all this by displacing tribals, peasants, fisherfolk, and unorganised workers who are slum-dwellers. The Act will be freely used to browbeat mass organisations fighting for the rights of workers, farmers, farm labourers, women, youth, students and their democratic aspirations.
As is now amply evident, the RSS/BJP are proceeding to force a Hindu Rashtra in place of the Constitution which has stood as a bulwark protecting our multicultural, multilingual and multireligious country. They want to foist a dictatorship based on communal hatred. The very being of the Hindu Rashtra is constituted by unidimensional structures such as One Nation One Election (ONOE), one religion, one language and one culture. The core of this project is to install a beastly, inhuman, backward looking and unequal society. The main obstacle to this project is the Constitution that guarantees democracy, secularism and basic human rights. The new Act is one of more means to attack the Constitution.
The bluntly stated objective of this SPSA is to target extreme left and ‘similar’ organisations. It is beyond comprehension how a person holding an ideology can be treated as criminal. This understanding of our Constitution is starkly against its core values. The more crucial point is why the left organisations alone? The current reality is diametrically opposite – in recent years it is the right-wing extremist organisations that have murdered public intellectuals like Dabholkar, Pansare, Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh, violently attacked minorities, especially Muslims and dalits in the state. It is Hindutva extremism that is fomenting lawlessness against the state. It is against this reality that the BJP-led state government is using unconstitutional means and enacting anti-democratic laws, to suppress political opposition.
The extreme Left organisations, in the purview of this bill, are supplemented with a weird expression "and similar organisations", leaving out any specific definition of them. Which are these similar organisations? It is deliberately and cunningly left ambiguous. This categorisation gives blanket powers of suppression to the government of any element perceived to be detrimental to the realisation of the sinister projects conceived and hatched by the RSS and the BJP. The government claims that the Act is aimed at Left extremist organisations. What are the criteria for determining the ideology of an organisation or a person as 'left'? How will its degree of extremism be measured – in terms of generally left? moderately left? extremely left? In short, the government will call an organisation or act 'unlawful' when it finds the latter to be politically inconvenient. The net result will be destruction of democracy and consolidation of authoritarianism.
The Act proposes to appoint a committee comprising a retired High Court Judge, a retired District Judge and the government pleader in the High Court for deciding the criminality of an organisation. It is beyond any doubt that these personnel will be those who will be only too willing to please the government. Our recent experience of the functioning of the ED, CBI and even the ECI and the Judiciary proves that they can be partial in this respect.
The punishment proposed in the Act too is extremely draconian. There is no provision for granting bail. An appeal can be made only in the High Court or the Supreme Court. This is an onerous condition put on those who choose to fight for poor tribal people or toilers of various kinds. Those arrested will be destined to rot lifelong in prisons without bail.
GROWING RESISTANCE
The CPI(M) has been in the forefront of the struggle against this Bill right from the beginning and has demanded its withdrawal. It launched its struggle in a planned manner. A statewide awareness campaign was conducted as soon as indications of the government's intention of introducing the Bill were detected. A campaign of collecting lakhs of signatures, following the true message of launching struggles with a mass line, was planned and the district committees executed the decision with enthusiasm. The Party state committee took the lead in conducting a joint meeting of all Left and secular parties and mass organisations on March 28 in Mumbai. The meeting decided to take the struggle all over the state.
Large and militant joint demonstrations by the Left parties were held on April 22 in which over 50,000 people participated all over the state. The CPI(M)'s participation was 35,930. Party leaders met all the top leaders of the MVA in an effort to rope them in the joint struggle. As the Bill was under the consideration of the house joint committee, more than 12,000 objections were submitted to it. Of these, there were more than 9,000 objections, spearheaded by the CPI(M) and social movements, clearly demanding not amendments but the entire scrapping of the Bill. On June 30, on the first day of the State Assembly session, a large dharna of Left parties, social organisations and MVA leaders was held at Azad Maidan in Mumbai to condemn the Bill.
Finally, the Bill was introduced by CM Devendra Fadnavis on July 10. However, despite consistent efforts by the CPI(M) and Left parties, other parties of the MVA did not oppose the Bill on the floor of the Assembly. The CPI(M) MLA Vinod Nikole, newly-elected Central Committee member, was the sole member of the Vidhan Sabha who spoke and clearly put on record his opposition to the Bill. This was widely reported in the print and electronic media. As a consequence, the Bill was passed not unanimously but with a majority. Our disapproval of the MVA position was communicated to them on July 10 itself. This, and the adverse criticism from several quarters, forced them to oppose the Bill when it was taken up for consideration in the Legislative Council the next day, and hence MVA MLCs staged a walk-out from the House in protest against the Bill.
Thus, it is more than clear that the MSPS Act is being enacted, not to curb Naxal and Left extremist activities as is being claimed, but to decimate all opposition to the ruling dispensation in the state. It will also be used against all those who stand in the way of foisting authoritarian, communal and casteist rule on the nation. There is an urgent need to intensify the struggle to squash this anti-Constitution, anti-democratic Act. The CPI(M) has called upon the people of the state to intensify the popular struggle opposing this authoritarian Act.
