The proverbial adage goes like this “necessity is mother of invention.” The scientific discoveries or inventions, no doubt, brought great transformation in our lives. Take any domain; be it manufacturing or service, the new findings have revolutionized our lifestyle and made us more comfortable today than the past. Even many of us talk today about its negativity lest forgetting taking its advantage every moment. However the question is, is this invention restricted to science alone? “No.” Confused, here we go!

Everyday our rulers invents a new law – I am sorry, I can’t use any other better jargon than this [invent]! Or can we substitute the word invent with discover? I don’t want to fix our politicians in a box as a mere explorer [discoverer] from the title “inventor” as they deserve to be!

Take any Special Acts [in layman’s understanding, Special Act means, an Act which has specific purpose and objectives – an Act which is focused on topic or subject. Example: Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, Prohibition of Harassment of Woman Act….] and we get to know the objectives and thought process of our lawmakers very clearly in those Acts.

Some Special Acts are of a discovery nature while a few are true invention of kind – Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, is one such of a discovery nature. Fact is, our rulers were instructed / advised / ordered by the international Organisation like UN and its’ Sister Organs to fall in line on the global covenants to prevent women from domestic abuses. Otherwise, our women would have been still waiting for a Statute like DV Act.

While true invention always bring a reputation of our rulers in light – what they are up to while legislating a Bill and making it into a Law? The commendation, reprimand, criticism, debate, opinion… all make us to understand the laws what they have invented on the backdoors were, were legitimate enough to serve the humanity or endangering the lives of the innocent citizens?

Here are some masterpieces of such Statutes invented by our rulers;

1. The Unlawful Activities [Prevention] Amendment Act, 2019
2. Farmers Law, 2020
3. CAA, 2019
4. The NIA Act, 2008

Though the list is long, but, I think writing too much would make you boredom hence I restrict to those 4 Acts and straight away coming to point;

Obituary

Yesterday at about 13.30 hours, a Priest and an Activist, Stan Swamy, who worked for Tribal rights had passed away at the age of 84 years and he died in a Mumbai based Hospital. On October 8, 2020 he was arrested by NIA officials and since then he was in Taloja Jail. Only recently, he was transferred to a Hospital for he developing old-age complications and died of cardiac arrest, yesterday.

The question is, what was the offence of this Priest and that too at such old age?

The fact is, he was a voice of Adivasis and he was fighting for their releases. According to him, there were 3,000 Adivasis jailed for theirs uprising against plundering of theirs natural resources by the privates under the aide of rulers.

Now how to cut the voice of an Activist, who was intellectual and easily comes out of jail from the colonial Statute [Indian Penal Code], thanks to an invention called NIA and amended UAPA so to silence his voice. He acknowledged in an interview that UAPA was imposed on him so to make him silence on Adivasis issues [Read editorial of today’s The New Indian Express].

I believe, now you learnt the literal meaning of “necessity is mother of invention.”

So to stop the voices of true messiahs [like Stan Swamy], who comes to liberate the voiceless from the clutches of autocrats functioning under the garb of democracy, Special Acts were invented.

So invention of this kind of Statutes are time immemorial “necessity” of our rulers hence such Acts were invented and they keep on inventing it till dooms day. Otherwise, the literal purpose and objective of such Acts are illusory of a Welfare State!