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I
n the past ten years, four people across India were arrested every day for violating the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). If the pattern of the last three years holds, the number could likely be five.
Between 2020 and 2022 alone, 5,578 individuals were arrested under the UAPA, which translates to nearly 2,000 per year or about five per day. Among the thousands arrested during this period were a minor attending a funeral march, a geography professor who once had supervised a quarantine center at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and an activist who was filmed discussing Mahatma Gandhi’s ahimsa (non-violence) principle days before deadly riots that authorities say he had a hand in took place.
The UAPA is a colonial-era law enacted under the leadership of Indira Gandhi during the Indian National Congress government in 1967. Over the course of almost 57 years, spanning different governments, the law has undergone five amendments, with each modification making it more stringent. Once meant to address secessionist movements, the UAPA has evolved into a tool for political maneuvering, and is now enabling authorities to arrest anyone they see as a threat to their power.
Yet while the conviction rate among UAPA cases has been low, the thousands arrested under this law languish in detention for years, often without access to bail. This has prompted one veteran journalist from The Hindu newspaper to describe what is taking place as a “process as punishment,” and the UAPA as criminalizing those merely trying to defend themselves against the powerful.
Indeed, merely being accused under the UAPA can make one’s life difficult. One young man who managed to obtain bail despite having a UAPA case filed against him, and who was looking for a house to rent in Delhi, says, “Since this law was imposed on me, most landlords hesitate to rent to me due to fears that I may bring problems. Additionally, I am not allowed to leave the city; being on bail, I have to visit the police station every week to mark my attendance.”
Modi’s record
Data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) reveal a significant increase in UAPA cases since Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) first became India’s prime minister in 2014. At the time, 976 UAPA cases were registered; by 2022, the figure was 1,005. Between 2014 and 2022, a total of 8,719 UAPA were registered.
UAPA cases were filed even amid the pandemic surge in 2020 and 2021, but the highest numbers so far are those from 2018 and 2019.
Rise in UAPA cases and arrests, 2014-2022
Graph 1. From 2014 to 2022, India saw a steady increase in filed cases and arrested individuals under the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.
Source: National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB)-Special and Local Laws (SLL) 2014-2022 Annual Reports
The BJP government marked its fourth year in 2018, leading up to the scheduled parliamentary elections in May 2019. While projecting an image of normalcy, the government wielded the UAPA against those it deemed a threat, particularly those opposing the party’s return to power.
In 2019, significant events unfolded, including the abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution that granted Kashmir a special status, the enactment of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), and the Supreme Court’s decision to build a Rama temple in Uttar Pradesh, which predominantly favored the Hindu majority. The CAA protests, in particular, led to the detention of numerous Muslim protesters and activists under the UAPA.
In 2019, the BJP government introduced a significant amendment to the UAPA, granting central agencies the authority to label any individual a “terrorist.” This marked a departure from the previous practice of imposing the UAPA primarily for association with banned organizations.
Although there was a slowdown in arrests at the height of the pandemic lockdowns, UAPA cases began to rise again in 2021, reaching more than 2,600 in 2022. According to NCRB data, government agencies have on average apprehended around 1,645 people annually in the last nine years.
Trends in UAPA cases under Congress and BJP regimes
Graph 2. Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) took over from the India National Congress (also known as Congress), the number of UAPA cases have surged astronomically, based on data from the National Investigation Agency (NIA) of India.
Source: NIA, People’s Union of Civil Liberty (PUCL)
Note: These data have been mainly procured from PUCL’s 2022 report, “Criminalizing State Terror and Dissent,” which says there were 24 UAPA cases handled by NIA in 2022. By 2023, the number rose to 34.
Ambiguous definitions
Multiple sections of the UAPA can be invoked when the police suspect that an individual is involved in activities that are deemed to pose a threat to the state. Among the cases handled by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) since the Modi government came to power, Section 18 of the UAPA has been invoked around 179 times.
Section 18 deals with “punishment for conspiracy” and can be applied to individuals perceived by the government as posing a threat to the state. NIA has also invoked Section 20, which pertains to membership in a terrorist organization, approximately 145 times, and Section 16, which deals with punishment for a terrorist organization, 116 times.
Top 12 UAPA offenses, 2014-2022
Graph 3. Among all the cases handled by the National Investigation Agency since the Modi government assumed power, Section 18 (Punishment for conspiracy) has been invoked the most at 179 times.
Source: National Investigation Agency (NIA)
Note: Total cases are calculated using documents procured from the NIA website.
These three sections of the controversial law are characterized by their vagueness, and the burden of guilt often falls on the accuse individual. The ambiguous nature of these sections allows law enforcement to detain individuals for extended periods without requiring substantial proof, putting them in an agonizing legal limbo.
Piles of pending cases
Unsurprisingly, there is a significant backlog in UAPA cases. In 2014, there were 2,549 pending UAPA cases; by 2022, that number had increased to 3,999, with a pendency percentage of 80.5. A substantial number of individuals involved in UAPA cases are under trial, with NCRB data indicating that the majority have to endure more than three years of waiting for the investigation of their cases to conclude.
Languishing UAPA cases, 2014-2022, 2017-2022
Graphs 4 and 5. The number of pending UAPA cases has nearly doubled in the last nine years, and India’s justice system has since struggled to keep pace. Between 2017 and 2022, the number of UAPA-related cases that have languished for more than three years has more than doubled.
Source: National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB)-Special and Local Laws (SLL) 20142-2022 Annual Reports
Approximately 50.04 percent of UAPA cases remain pending for over three years, with the number of such cases rising each year. And yet the average conviction rate is only 2.6 percent, while the average acquittal rate stands at 5.9 percent.
UAPA convictions vs. acquittals, 2014-2022
Graph 6. Despite the staggering number of arrests made under UAPA, both conviction and acquittal rates are dismally low – which are illustrative of the sluggish pace of the cases under India’s justice system.
Source: National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB)-Special and Local Laws (SLL)-2014-2022 Annual Reports
‘Notorious’ states?
Among the states, Manipur (31.7 percent of the total cases), Jammu and Kashmir or J&K (23 percent), Assam (14.7 percent), Jharkhand (7.8 percent), and Uttar Pradesh (7.2 percent) stand out as posting the highest number of UAPA cases from 2014 to 2022.
Mapping UAPA cases, 2014-2022
Graph 7. Nearly 85 percent of all UAPA cases registered between 2014 and 2022 were concentrated in five states: Manipur, Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, Jharkhand, and Uttar Pradesh.
Source: National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB)-Special and Local Laws (SLL) 2014-2022 Annual Reports
Top 8 states with UAPA cases, 2014-2022
Graph 8. What's common to the top eight states that lodged the most number of UAPA cases from 2014 to 2022 is a history of unrest or dissent. For example, union territory Jammu and Kashmir began lodging over 200 UAPA-related cases before and after it was declared a union territory in 2019.
Source: National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB)-Special and Local Laws (SLL) 2014-2022 Annual Reports
In Manipur, J&K, and Assam, the central government employs the Armed Forces Special Power Act (AFSPA), a law introduced in the early 80s to address separatist uprisings and has since been invoked in areas considered as security risks. Under AFSPA, laws such as UAPA become supplementary tools for the police and agencies to exert control over the population at their discretion.
On two separate occasions, the government has claimed that terrorism is decreasing in Kashmir and the northeastern states due to its policies. This raises the question: If terrorism is indeed on the decline, why has the government been increasingly employing the UAPA in these regions?
In Kashmir, a local journalist comments that the government uses the UAPA as a tool to suppress the people there to counter “collective memory” and instill the fear of “collective guilt” among them.
“Individuals such as journalists, activists, and academicians in Kashmir have been targeted by the government in an apparent bid to as a means of setting an example and intimidating Muslims in the region, leading to swift detentions,” he also says. “This pattern of targeting people based on their identity has reportedly been ongoing on in Kashmir, extending beyond the tenure of the BJP and predating their coming to power.”
In Jharkhand state, where industries encroach on tribal land, authorities wield UAPA against dissent, thus shielding business from lawsuits and backlash. In May 2022, freelance journalist Rupesh Kumar Singh — who had reported on the impact of factory pollution in the state’s Giridih area — was suddenly arrested under the UAPA for an alleged connection with an extremist group. He is still in detention almost two years later.
In Uttar Pradesh, which is led by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath of the BJP, the use of UAPA has been rising since 2018. Yet observers say that unlike in J&K and Manipur — which are also Muslim states — the Uttar Pradesh government has not listed multiple banned organizations despite its rising UAPA cases.
More targets
The dearth of data on the demographics of those detained under the UAPA has raised concerns. Yet, there is a prevailing belief that Muslims, Dalit, and Adivasis are disproportionately targeted under this law. There are also fears that the net will be cast much wider.
In November 2021, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, in his speech at the National Police Academy in Hyderabad, said “civil society” is the new frontier of warfare, and the police should be wary of it. In October 2022, Premier Modi said the UAPA had given impetus to the system to combat terrorists with guns and intellectuals who perpetuate terrorism through the pen.
At least seven journalists — Aasif Sultan, Fahad Shah, Gautam Navlakha, Manan Dar, Rupesh Kumar Singh, Sajad Gul, and Siddique Kappan — have since been held in detention under the UAPA. Interestingly, five of them are Muslims. More recently, the UAPA has been applied to the media outlet NewsClick on alleged charges of disrupting the sovereignty of India through the propagation of Chinese ideology.
The needless suffering of many of those charged under UAPA not only highlights failures in India's judicial system but also puts into question the country's democratic principles. Yet, regrettably, Indian governments past and present have employed various other draconian laws, including the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act, Maintenance of Internal Security Act, Prevention of Terrorism Act, National Security Act, Public Safety Act, and Goonda Act. They have even added “Reasonable Restrictions” clauses in relation to fundamental rights to suppress dissent.
Laws mandating a “state of exception” allow any individual to be treated as a potential suspect in the eyes of the government. Points out The Hindu veteran journalist: “History shows no political party in this country has been free from excesses.”
It has not helped that the people of India have had no opportunity to have their say on matters such as the controversial UAPA. A graduate of Aligarh Muslim University, who has been charged with a violation of Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code — which punishes anyone "promoting enmity between different groups" on grounds like religion and race — for participating in a campus protest, recounts: "My lawyer advised me not to make public statements against the government; otherwise, it could lead to severe problems for me. So, if I am hesitant to speak out against the state's injustice under a charge like Section 153A, how much more fearful must it be for those who have been charged under the UAPA?” ◉