The recent unprovoked use of the aggressively repressive Maintenance of Public Order Act, 1972, resurrected and fortified by the Trinamool Congress regime in West Bengal, is an ominous signal for any public acts of opposition. Its use against a protest organised by the Students Federation of India (SFI) and the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) just over a month since the amended law was re-enacted is a troubling reminder of exactly how menacing its provisions were in the original, when it was indiscriminately used against young people suspected of having Naxalite or Left links by the Siddhartha Shankar Ray government.

The original law was used against any young person suspected of sympathising with the politics of revolution, which meant using violence to overturn the state itself. That was more than four decades ago.

The Trinamool Congress regime has now used it against protestors demanding transparency in the selection and appointment of jobs for primary school teachers who have qualified in the teachers eligibility tests, with no thought of overturning any established political order.