Lakshadweep islands across 12 atolls, closest to Kerala, constitute India’s least populated Union Territory with a population size of 65,000 living in only 10 of its 36 islands. It is now making national headlines for a series of controversial proposals mooted by Praful K Patel, the administrator of the UT of Dadra, Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu, who has been given the additional charge of Lakshadweep following the death of Dineswar Sharma in December, 2020. The people there are seething with anger as they find in the proposals a sinister attack on their culture, freedom and constitutionally guaranteed rights. They appeal to their lone MP from Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and MPs of Kerala to send a petition to the President urging him to restrain the administration from attempting to rip apart their social fabric. The administration has predictably claimed the proposals aim at ensuring safety and well-being of the residents and promoting the islands as a tourist destination like the Maldives.
Obviously, the administrator, a former minister in the Narendra Modi-cabinet of Gujarat, would not have gone ahead with his ill-conceived and insidious proposals without clearance from the top. The suspicion gains ground because the proposed measures follow a set pattern of communal polarisation and benefitting the superrich that characterise the governance of the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre.
The administration seeks to ban the slaughter of cow, calf, bull and buffalo without a certificate from a competent authority. It prohibits the sale, transport and storage of beef and beef products with penalties that include a jail term up to one year and a fine of Rs 10,000. The communal intent is too transparent. For Moslems, the measure is a direct infringement on their culture and eating habits. The BJP’s crusade against beef eating is a well known tactic for communal polarisation tried before in UP and other parts of the country with literally deadly consequences.
There is the abhorrent proposal under the Draft Panchayat Regulation 2021 that aims to bar people with more than two children from becoming members of gram panchayats. The regulation does not disqualify those, who have already more than two children, provided they do not have further children after the rule comes into effect.
The proposal to allow liquor to be served at resorts on inhabited islands has triggered hostile reaction from the residents. Currently, prohibition is in place on all the inhabited islands with liquor served only at resorts on the uninhabited Bangaram island. The fig leaf for the new proposal is, as Collector S Asker Ali clarified, that liquor permits would be given only to resorts for tourists and not for locals. The move, it is feared, will lead to a proliferation of liquor sales on the island, which had been observing near-prohibition until now. Interestingly, Patel was Minister of Finance in the Gujarat government headed by Narendra Modi earlier. In his home state, he was a staunch supporter of prohibition.
Moslems constitute the majority of the population on these islands, nearly 62,000, according to the last Census.
Similarly, the administration has prepared a draft Lakshadweep Development Authority Regulation (LDAR) to oversee development of towns on the islands with sweeping changes in the way land can be acquired and utilised. It talks of declaration of ‘planning areas’ and constitution of ‘planning and development authorities’ for preparing a land use map and register, ostensibly for large projects. The large infrastructure and tourism projects have the potential to destabilise the ecology, while the draft gives powers to the administration to remove small landholdings of Scheduled Tribe residents.
The worst part of the whole exercise is the provision for Lakshadweep Prevention of Anti-Social Activities Regulation that accords powers to the state to detain a person for up to a year without legal representation from six months to a year to prevent him from “acting in any manner prejudicial to the maintenance of public order”. This is being done when Lakshadweep has the record of being a UT with one of the lowest crime rates in the country.
The horrifying clause of detention without legal representation has of late become a favourite tool of the Centre to shove reprehensible, anti-people measures down the throat of the people denying them legal redress if they protest against government’s illegal acts. The controversial farm laws have one such provision to deprive farmers of legal remedy should they find themselves cheated by private operators in agri-marketing of the legitimate prices for their produce.
In the name of introducing draconian measures against anti-socials disturbing law and order, the administration seems to be arming itself to stifle all voices of protest against the new proposals.
Significantly, for one full year Lakshadweep did not record any case of COVID-19 thanks to stringent quarantine protocols and testing of inbound travellers. But, last December when Patel assumed charge as administrator, the pandemic standard operating procedures (SOPs) were diluted by removing mandatory quarantine for travellers at Kochi and Kavaratti. Instead, anyone with a negative RT-PCR certificate issued in the previous 48 hours could travel to Lakshadweep. The administration said the SOPs were changed as per Union Home Ministry rules to allow reopening of the economy. The result is that till May 28 Lakshadweep has reported over 7,300 COVID cases and 28 deaths.
The administrator of Lakshadweep appears to be bent on destroying an oasis of peace with an insidious agenda.