Democracy & Anti-Terror Legislations: A Comparative Look at India & USA

When we give a cursory look at India and US to study their anti-terror legislations, the first thing that comes to our mind is that they both share the external and internal threats of terrorism, for which they needed to enact certain legislations to combat it. This necessitates the respective government to give its law enforcement officials the necessary tools to respond to these threats, find terrorists, and prevent future attacks. If we move a step further in our study, we find that they also share the commitments to a democratic form of government where core constitutional values like freedom of speech, civil and political liberties, and human rights are cherished. However, this isn’t an unbridled freedom, the security interest will come in play to an extent to justify the curtailment of the freedoms in certain cases but a balance will always be strived to be maintained by the legislators between protections of these rights and national security interest. The political, historical, and cultural landscape and reality of each country do shapes what laws are made and how they are implemented yet the societal impact of these laws is different because of the role both countries assign to its courts as Sentinel Qui Vive for their response to the call of constitutional conscience. Irrespective of these differences and a different political consideration for which they are being used, a comparison between the two democracies can be drawn which will help us to come at a better understanding of the ways in which the two important concerns can be tackled i.e. National security interest and Constitutional rights. A comparative study of anti-terror legislation of these two states would help us to plug in loop holes of anti-terror legislation and adequately vary the scope and ambit of such legislations.