Chennai: Government secrecy on the jallikattu amendments and the police excesses at Marina and Alanganallur triggered the violent retaliations by the youth, former chief secretary of Haryana, M.G. Devasahayam said here Thursday. "If only the government had explained the ordinance and the amendments that followed using the media and other experts to the huge gathering of jallikattu protesters at the Marina, who have all along been very disciplined and self-regulating, the youth would not have suspected the rulers' motives and resisted closure of the agitation. They thought, rightly so, that the government was hiding something and was trying to cheat. And then the police action was brutal", Mr Devasahayam said at a Republic Day function organised by the Perungudi Lake Area Neighbourhood Environment Transformation (PLANET) association.
"The protesters would have all gone home on Sunday afternoon if only things were properly explained and if any mischief mongers stayed back there, the police could have taken tough action, we would not have any problem with that. But that did not happen. The first signing of the Governor did not come out, only an innocuous Raj Bhavan statement was released. There was nothing on the state government website; why? It's a huge failure of the administration", he said, recalling that the government released the notification Sunday without the details of the amendments, which came out only at about 11 Monday morning, by which time the police "were already chasing the students and others into the slums and beating them up".
"When we finally saw the amendments, we exclaimed that they were just fantastic. But why did they not reveal at the right time - Saturday evening? There was a deliberate plan to deny the people the joy of celebrating the success of their jallikattu struggle", said the seasoned bureaucrat and an anti-corruption campaigner.
