So far as the multi-party noise is concerned, it doesn’t have much substance, for it is aimed at being visible. The more you make noise, the better you are noticed, the more you are noticed, the better are your chances of being in the public memory for the upcoming elections. People might not know the kind of nonsense you splashed around in Parliament, but they would remember that you spoke. Here is the guy who spoke in Parliament for ‘us’. Us? What us? Who us? But the guy who spoke in the Parliament is here looking for votes so that he could cause better ruckus the next time.

Now, I cannot really say it holds good with all Indians because India is one country, but is too big for anyone to make generalizations about the way people make their electoral decisions. In India, one is perfectly capable of saying that a certain person is honest and is both willing and capable of making some real changes, but one is still not willing to lend him support by way of voting in his favour because the fellow does not come from one’s caste.

Okay, I guess it’s time for me to stop. I am beginning to seriously denounce the Indian electorate, and electorate does not wrong, like the British Crown, thank you.

I am fine with Farhan, Hritik and Abhay going to Spain and playing with their tomatoes. Back home, they need to look at the tomatoes with greater reverence. Our students down here hardly get tomatoes for their late-night Maggi to go with Facebooking while the Spanish give it all to their cows and bulls, and then have the same tomato-fed bulls chase people down for fun! Somebody tell them to bring their tomatoes down to India, give them to our Maggi boys here and see how they chase all the Spanish folks right into the Mediterranean down to the bottom and back up. Hail Maggi!

I am unsure and rather perplexed at my newfound fruit-friendliness. Whenever I watch the The Dirty Picture song ‘Ooh La La’, which keeps flashing every now and then on the TV screens of the cafes I frequent, I feel very concerned about the oranges – two-truck full! – rolled downhill while Naseer and Vidya Balan do their ‘thing’ on the green grass. Poor grass. Must be wondering what to make of the old Naseer and the young-flesh Balan rolling together.

Where did the oranges go after the shot, I find myself wondering, and come up with a new bizarre answer each time I ponder the question. They perhaps found their way back to the fruit carts, and were ‘resold’. But then, why would Ekta Kapoor allow the oranges to be resold when she had already purchased the whole lot? I am not sure if the producers are that generous. But then, it’s a bit difficult to imagine Ekta and Tushar selling oranges on the streets of a South Indian suburban town. And two truck-full oranges are difficult to consume for a Bollywood film unit, or can they really stomach as much?!

Well, who knows! Given our national tendency aptly demonstrated in ’3 Idiots’ to line up or gatecrash wherever there is a whiff of free lunch – langar or wedding – nothing is really impossible. “Order no lunch! We have oranges today!” Ekta Kapoor might have gaily announced with North Indians muttering under their breath, “Thank God, no dosa, idli today.”

The flip-side is that most of the posts tend to be very grim and long with majority of them dealing with thick legal issues that nobody – not even lawyers – would really like to get into for fun despite that some of the legal issues are actually funny. Of course not the one that I talk about in my articles. They are generally too dry on fun.

But that doesn’t mean my blog is going to be a circus now on. Okay, to face the truth, it’s not not because I don’t want to be entertaining; but because I am not really funny. So, as much as I want to be make people laugh, I just don’t have the required sense of humour to be entertaining enough. So, I would stick to being ‘serious, just a little less’. And that should make my blog readers hate me a little less for my monotonous writing.

Ultimately, it boils down to this that expecting funny posts of me is expecting an impossibly lot. But quite surely there is world outside the courtrooms and significant issues of non-legal character, some of which are quite entertaining. Also, the readers of my blog deserve a little more variety than my blog presently offers. With that thought in mind I decided to turn my attention to the blog, and write something for the blog alone; something to be found only here and nowhere else.

Next was the issue of picking up a topic to write on. Didn’t we learn that in the school about the essays? All essays have topics. So, you decide what you want to write on, and then begin. And ‘only’ then begin.

Often, there were topics served up to us to try our writing skills on. But that’s no fun really. Why write about ‘something’? Why think about ‘something’? Why is it so necessary to be specific? Why can’t the thoughts simply saunter around under the kind sun of a winter afternoon? Stream of consciousness? Not really. I don’t want to get that serious yet again. I did attempt to write nonsense on many previous occasions as well with little or no success. So, here I am trying yet again. And no, I am not serious about writing ‘nonsense’, for that would start making sense again. Where is the problem? No. Where is my problem with all this?

I guess the problem lies with the very understanding of what nonsense is. Nonsense, quite obviously, is something that makes no sense. And when does something stop making sense? When it appears disjointed and without reason. A man is crazy only when his behaviour is completely discordant with all patterns of behaviour that we are familiar with under the given circumstances. The same applies to all kinds of expressions, too. An expression is senseless only and only when it does not relate to anything that precedes or follows it.

Excessively rational minds find it nearly impossible to break the mould. And that’s because their consistent training prevents them from taking the plunge into the darkness of senselessness. Don’t mistake it for fear. Rational minds are not essentially cowardly. It’s not cowardice that stops them but the complete bafflement. They have no idea what it means to dive into meaninglessness. Where is meaninglessness? We have been told that the world is meaningless and there is no reason why we are here, why we are alive, why we do what we do, why we breathe and why everything exists and why non-existence is not the order of our world. So, there is no meaningfulness anywhere.

There is no such central meaning, central theme, central philosophy of existence to be found anywhere that runs across all things past, present and future. So, if there is no meaningfulness found, it has to be meaningless? That’s a harder question to ponder because we know how to look for meaning, but we have no idea as to what it is like to look for meaninglessness because we have always known that meaninglessness is simply lack of meaning and is thus opposed to meaningfulness. In other words, absence of meaningfulness is meaninglessness just like darkness is nothing but absence of light.

Do I make sense at all? No? Bingo! The nonsense would continue. Stay tuned!

Democracies are clamorous because people are noisy, and the senseless noises they make are generally not only of no consequence, but are also born of selfish motives in most cases while in some it’s plain malice at work. But, it is this baffling disorder that is the heart and lifeblood of a democracy.

It is the irregular, ugly rock that houses captivating statues waiting to be carved out. Destroy the rock, and the statues are gone forever. The lovers of order, discipline and propriety hate this side of democracy that is at its starkest in the way people exercise the constitutionally guaranteed Fundamental Right to Freedom of Speech and Expression. We talk more nonsense than sense, and our media feels no need for and makes no effort to turn into grandmotherly moralizer. And the reasons for this self-restraint is no nobler than commercial expediency in most cases. Our media believes that people must get what they ‘want’ and not what they ‘need’ because what they ‘want’ is what they ‘need’, and the people are best judges of their ‘needs’ and ‘wants’. They keep it simple, and carry on attending to ‘public demand’. Yes, farmers are dying. Yes, there is poverty. Yes, there is corruption. But then, Aishwarya delivered a baby ‘valiantly’, and she with her little one makes a better picture than any pictorial depiction of poverty or corruption. Beauty sells better than problems, and also better than Shahrukh for now. Why depress people when there are mood-elevators around. Call it ‘chocolate news’, if you like.

Newspapers have started selling spicy news and bikini girls while 24-hour TV channels sell anything from mysterious ghosts and Indian exorcists to the end-of-the-world prophecies and baby-in-the-ditch dramas. News is entertainment. It no longer is the useful information it once used to be. And that’s perhaps no such a good news.

The real question, however, is whether it is really as bad as it seems at first glance or there is a bright side to it. Has the Indian media really stretched, strained and taken for granted the constitutional guarantees to such an extent as to require an independent, regulatory watchdog keeping vigil over its activities? Has self-regulation really failed as Justice Katju feels? And when did that happen exactly? Is it time to bring electronic media under Press Council of India, like the print media? If not, what makes it eligible for a different treatment? And why is electronic media so uncomfortable with the talk of regulation by an independent body when Press Council of India has done nothing to curb the freedom of press, and the Judiciary has fiercely defended free speech against all encroachments at all times?

The issue of regulating electronic media by expanding the reach of the Press Council of India to bring electronic media within its purview came to the fore when former Supreme Court judge Justice Markandey Katju took over as Chairman, Press Council of India (PCI), and pushed for more effective powers and wider reach for the PCI so that the Council could monitor and regulate the media better. Justice Katju wrote to the Prime Minister regarding it, shared his views on the issue during several TV interviews and also reduced them in writing in an article published in The Hindu. A few days later, he also issued a clarification to make his point clearer.

Justice Katju appears unhappy over Indian media’s failure to bring into sharper focus the socio-economic problems of the people, and bemoans its overindulgence in things as inconsequential as private lives of the film stars, fashion trends and cricket milestones. But then, different TV channels and the different programs they broadcast have different audiences. One can easily watch serious news and heated debates on current issues of national significance on one channel, soap operas on the other, and cricket on the third. There is no reason or justification to interfere with individual preferences in this regard in any manner whatsoever.

Justice Katju’s comparison of the press during the Age of Enlightenment in Europe with the Indian media of the present day, too, is far-fetched because the societies under comparison are too far apart in time, culture and developmental stages to be compared. Back then, the press controlled the information that went to the people whereas today it is the people who decide what deserves their attention. There are dedicated business channels, sports channels, food channels, cricket channels, movie channels and also news channels. One watches what one chooses to watch, and one has every right to so choose.

Justice Katju laments in one of the articles mentioned above:

Many T.V. channels show astrology. Astrology is not to be confused with astronomy. While astronomy is a science, astrology is pure superstition and humbug… No doubt most people in our country believe in astrology, but that is because their mental level is very low. The media should try to bring up that level, rather than to descend to it and perpetuate it.

By logical extension of the rationale above, anybody who believes in anything other than ‘scientific facts’ or ‘scientifically established truths’ has ‘low mental level’. Scientifically, Pluto was a planet for decades; it no longer is. Scientifically, there was no vacuum in space; then, scientifically, the existence of vacuum was confirmed, and then again the position was reversed to no-vacuum status, scientifically. And we are quite prepared for another ‘scientific’ reversal in this regard. The fact is that even ‘scientific facts’ are not ‘facts’, strictly speaking, but are ‘scientific beliefs’.

Also, the most widely accepted unscientific and irrational belief is the belief in the existence of God. The belief is not only scientifically unverified, but is also considered ‘unverifiable’. Are we prepared to say that all those who believe in God have ‘low mental level’?

Justice Katju believes that among the media person “the majority consists of people who do not seem to have the desire to serve the public interest.” Shouldn’t the ‘public’ be allowed to determine ‘public interest’? Justice Katju further says:

To remedy this defect in the media I have done two things (1) I propose to have regular meetings with the media (including electronic media) every two months or so. These will not be regular meetings of the entire Press Council, but informal get-togethers where we will discuss issues relating to the media and try to resolve them in the democratic way, that is, by discussion, consultation and dialogue. I believe 90% problems can be resolved in this way (2) In extreme cases, where a section of the media proves incorrigible despite trying the democratic method mentioned above, harsher measures may be required.

Now, the proposed arrangement sounds much like a state-run ‘evening tutorials’ for the media with the provision that if the media fails to learn its lessons well enough, the state might choose to summon the stick. This also seems to be an attempt at forced homogenization of media’s approach to news and other content, which is nothing short of interfering with the constitutionally guaranteed Right to Freedom of Speech and Expression. If media is wary of such measures, it’s not without justification.

Having said that, Justice Katju’s insistence on putting together a mechanism to check unethical practices in journalism by punishing the erring is not without merit. It is high time we had the legal framework to deal with those who use the power and influence of the Fourth Estate to pursue selfish and immoral personal goals. But it must be a negative, punitive check, and must not be directional in nature so that the freedom of press stands effectively protected against state interference or influence.

As for the failure of the self-regulation, it is not clear how and when did it fail. True, scandals like Radia Tapes and Paid News are alarming, but they do not necessarily indicate a failure of ‘self-regulation’ because even if there was an external regulatory authority, such scandals could have taken place, for the mere existence of a functioning regulatory authority does not guarantee desired results. For instance, Central Board of Film Certification or the Censor Board is such a regulatory authority, and it did nothing to prevent song videos like ‘DK Bose’ (Delhi Belly), and, more recently, ‘Jhak Maar ke’ (Desi Boyz) with John Abraham’s indisputably obscene gestures from not only being part of the movies, but also being cleared for television promos for universal viewership. 

Free Speech is a right too precious to be lightly meddled with. In this regard, it is worth noting what Chief Justice Patanjali Shastri said in Romesh Thappar v. State of Madras, AIR 1950 SC 124:

Freedom of speech and of the press lay at the foundation of all democratic organisations, for without free political discussion no public education, so essential for the proper functioning of the process of popular government, is possible. A freedom of such amplitude might involve risks of abuse. But the framers of the Constitution may well have reflected with Madison, who was the leading spirit in the preparation of the First Amendment of the Federal Constitution, that it is better to leave a few noxious branches to their luxuriant growth than by pruning them away, to injure the vigour of those yielding the proper fruits.

Mr. Modi, who had maintained a ‘studied’ – rather, ‘tactful’ – political silence, finally found a bit of his voice when he came across what his supporters thought of as a laundered, disinfected, polished and ironed ‘chit’ of some kind somewhere in the Supreme Court to be held up as a symbol of victory with the victory bugle blowing prematurely in the background. 

His supporters and detractors both have unduly reacted to a simple, dispassionate Supreme Court order directing the trial court to proceed in the matter in accordance with the law. The apex court exercised restraint and did not touch the merits of the case in the interest of justice. Therefore, there is no question of its giving a ‘clean’, ‘soiled’ or semi-soiled chit to anybody. 

The investigation and collection of evidence was undertaken by two independent entities — the Court-appointed SIT and the ‘amicus curie’ — and the findings are now to be placed before the trial court, which is now compelled to also consider the amicus’ report together with the report of the SIT. It is for the trial court to convict or acquit on the basis of the evidence placed before it. Any Supreme Court observation, howsoever fleeting or moderate, on the merits of the case could be prejudicial to the trial and would also be uncalled for, the proceedings not being a trial, which is why the apex court restrained. If the Court did not say “prosecute Modi”, it did not say “don’t” either. There is nothing more to it. 

The question is not if Modi has been granted a ‘clean chit’, the question is whether such a ‘chit’ for Modi is possible at all. Are we supposed to believe that Indian state is incapable of protecting the innocents in the time of need? Like laymen, let’s ask the basic questions. Let’s leave Mr. Modi’s political calculations aside for a while for the sake of argument and also his thinly disguised emotions against the minority community. 

That done, are we to believe that while Gujarat was burning, Mr. Modi was so far off in some political meditation within a soundproof Hindutva cocoon that he could not be reached even in the emergency of such kind? If it was beyond the power of the police and other forces to control the situation, why wasn’t the army promptly called in? And if the police and other armed forces at the disposal of the state were sufficiently equipped to deal with the situation, how did so many people turn up dead? It could only be either a criminally culpabale negligence on part of the state or a willful and purposeful abstention. Either way, it was the state that ‘allowed’ the genocide, no matter how one looks at it. It being so, can the Chief Minister be absolved? Even if Modi is not the murderous monster he is sometimes projected as, he did look like an extremely inefficient and ineffective CM guilty of criminal neglect, if not wilful malice. 

But then, if the progress of Gujarat is anything to go by, Mr. Modi is not really ineffective or inefficient, and so far we have not been told that he was ill or otherwise rendered incapable of making sound decisions. So, what got into Mr. Modi when so many people were so systematically massacred? What made a man with a reputation of being ‘strong’ make such an obviously wrong decision of going soft on those who wantonly killed, raped and burnt? The ‘wrong decision’ could not be on account of such a rare bout of ‘Ministerial incapacity’ that was never glimpsed until or since. Modi’s projected innocence and his claim to fair-play makes no sense in face of the undeniable facts reported by multiple, independent agencies. The only version that talks of Modi’s ‘innocence’ is the ‘official version’.

From the national and international media to NHRC and Human Rights Watch, every single independent agency that looked into the pogrom found state complicity in the killings too glaring to be ignored even with closed eyes. So, the apparent lack of control of the all-controlling Gujarat CM was not a ‘failure’, but a daringly planned and systematically executed malfunction of the state machinery with political ends at its heart. That’s the only theory in which all pieces of the puzzle fit in perfectly. And all theories that seek to absolve Mr. Modi must necessarily reject all facts reported in national and international media, which, quite certainly would be an exercise in blanket denial of the undeniable truth. 

However, the worst part was not the pogrom but the fact that Mr. Modi, despite being clearly ‘unclean’, managed to find electoral mandate to be the CM, and the Secular India tolerated the dirty dance of number politics. The idea of democratic accountability thus failed to clear the basic morality test. Humanity hung its head in shame while we watched then as we watch now, powerless.

Originally written to be published as part of my monthly column — STREET LAWYER — in LAWYERS UPDATE in October 2011 Issue. However, it was found too ‘hardhitting’ and harshly critical of Narendra Modi, and the Editorial at LAWYERS UPDATE thought it prudent to withhold the piece.

“He is just one of the freedom fighters to me. Nothing more,” said one of my students on Facebook. Oh yes, there are some useful discussions on Facebook as well involving the teenagers. 

The reasons she had for disliking Gandhi are the same that I have heard countless times from countless people who choose to deride the man who was by far the most compelling Indian reason for the British to think of sailing back home for good. 

Her point was that the old man was responsible for the partition and was in some way responsible for the execution of Bhagat Singh and his extremist companions. Also, Gandhi did not get us freedom from the colonial rule. Many would naively say that it was the extremist violence, whereas some of the discerning lot would want to credit external circumstances just to take it away from Gandhi. So, going by that argument, could Britain not hold on to any of its colonies after the Second World War? Well, Singapore, for one? 

Could Gandhi save the extremists? Assuming he could, the hard question is: Why should he have?

Of course, Gandhi can easily be defended by history and additional facts can always be marshalled in his defence to nullify the naïve attacks. But I don’t think even that is quite necessary. For now, let’s leave history aside; and resort to common sense and depend upon the information that can be safely relied upon no matter which side of the fence one prefers. 

So, the basic questions are these: Could he want partition? Could he have genuinely believed that Hindus and Muslims were two nations? Although he was not a politician, and did not believe in ‘political pragmatism’, but even if that is conceded for a moment; could it serve any political end to alienate Muslim population? 

The Mahatma who believed in peace and brotherhood in a united nation could not have desired two nations, nor could he have thought that the people who had been living together for centuries and had fought the intruders together were so completely divided that they could no longer be one nation. Also, Mahatma’s goal was a noble society based on truth and non-violence and not a state based on any particular political ideology. The idea of two nations – one for the Muslims and one for the rest – simply doesn’t fit in Gandhi’s vision of India. So, partition could never have been his will. 

No doubt extremists like Bhagat Singh also wanted freedom, but they believed in violent means, which Gandhi was dead against. To Gandhi the means justified the end. Only just means could achieve just end to the old man. His unwavering belief in the virtue of truth and non-violence formed the core of his moral and spiritual being. Besides, a society founded on violence could only be violent because in such a society violence is legitimate depending upon the significance of end to be achieved. And significance is just a matter of valuing one thing over the other, which simply means anything can be significant at a certain point of time justifying the use of massive violence for reasons that might otherwise be insufficient to swat a fly. The Mahatma knew this, and considered it a battle worth fighting. Violence begets violence, and there is no end to the cycle of violence before at least one of the two sides is completely annihilated, which is why he famously said, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” 

The rightness of means was central to Gandhi because to his mind all human actions produced consequences depending upon the nature of the actions. So, what you do, you must face its consequences as well. Violence was evil to Gandhi, and if the likes of Bhagat Singh were facing the foreseeable and painful consequences of their violent actions, why would Gandhi intervene? Was the mere fact that they were his countrymen striving for the same goal enough for him to try blocking the consequences that they had consciously brought upon themselves? Should he have allowed his moral judgment to be clouded by petty considerations of nationality and common objective? Violence was evil to him. So, should he have treated an evil practiced by his countrymen as noble or less evil? Gandhi considered violence so unacceptable that he would not tolerate if his successfully running movement was marred by violence and would be quick to withdraw it. Why would he condone anybody’s indulging in it no matter how noble the objective? He was true to his principles and valued his beliefs over all other things. The extremist freedom fighters themselves embraced death, for they too were true to their beliefs. To blame it on Gandhi is plainly mindless. 

Let’s toss all this talk away and consider just one thing. For all that the Mahatma did for this country, what did he take? A sheet of cotton cloth to cover half his body. And what did we give him? Bullets. Period. 

Originally published as part of my monthly column — STREET LAWYER — in LAWYERS UPDATE [September 2011 Issue; Vol. XVII, Part 9]

All fingers were pointed at the politicians in general and at the UPA government in particular, which was writhing under a massive pile of corruption-related investigations and court cases. The fingers were just too many to ignore, and they had nobody to point their own fingers at. All politicians, our esteemed ‘elected representative’ and the aspiring-to-be-elected, are very well aware that when it comes to corruption and corrupting, just nobody is clean. A truly honest politician – one in a million, of course – is not corrupt himself, but he still tolerates and ignores corrupt political practices all the time and is thus guilty by virtue of his silence. A watchdog of the Lokpal kind is the last thing that they wanted on their necks. So, the solidarity among all politicians against such an institution was quite natural, but in face of mounting public ire, there was frustratingly little that they could do about it. Anna was a virtually unsolvable problem. And the superior courts, particularly the Supreme Court, were adding to their woes by pushing the government to bring the corrupt to justice and the black money back home. In walks a defiant Justice Sen, after having been found guilty by his own kind. The much needed punch bag was found. He belonged to those quarters that were most irksome to the ruling elite, for Justice Sen’s robed brethren asked too many questions, prodded far too often for comfort, and leashed and lashed as needed. He was the much desired pound of flesh, served fresh and warm. Snarling ferociously, they leapt forth to tear him apart, and did. But, unfortunately, the searing criticism did not stick to Justice Sen alone, and a time came when it was difficult to tell if it was Justice Sen in the docks or the entire judiciary. The resentment against judicial prodding and the proactive roles that the Indian Judiciary plays in checking excesses and misuse of power was writ large. Somebody was asking uncomfortable questions a little too often. Somebody had been telling them to keep the air clean, to demolish the illegal structures, to let the poor consume the grains that were beginning to rot, to let investigations into scams be impartial, to bring the black money back home, to have the scamsters punished, and so many other such wrongs that this ‘somebody’ could not have ignored without being in breach of its own constitutional duty.

The resentment surfaced most clearly when BJP’s Mr.  Ravi Shankar Prasad remarked that the Judiciary was “taking away power by appointing committees — MCD should work like this; this committee should work like this. Sorry, Me Lords, this is not your function.  May be, the authority is not functioning properly, but for that you are not the authority.  Let the democratic process, the rule of the law and parliamentary accountability set right the course.”

Mr. Arun Jaitley, too, brought up the issue of judicial overreach saying, “Separation of powers requires that every institution works in its own spheres. And if every institution works in its own spheres, it has to lay down the lakshman rekha of its own jurisdiction..And I must candidly confess that this attempt to encroach upon the lakshman rekha is neither coming from governments of the day in the Centre or the States nor is it coming from the Executive or the Legislature. Some serious sidestepping is coming from the judicial institution itself.”

Remember the Supreme Court initiated Sealing Drive not too long ago, Mr. Prasad? The illegal structures that had mushroomed due to rampant corruption within the MCD were ordered to be demolished, and the MCD and the Delhi Government sided with the violators, and not the ‘Rule of Law’. When the government departments are told to perform their duties, it is precisely the ‘Rule of Law’ that is upheld. The Courts neither do try, nor have tried, overhauling the system for ‘better governance’. The approach has always been curative. And why the need for the cure arose in the first is a question that must be answered by those who sing the song of ‘Separation of Powers’ and ‘Parliamentary Accountability’ as though they were powers without duties. What is being called ‘usurpation of power’ is ‘owning additional responsibility’.

Mr. Ram Jethmalani, who shares the distinction of being a noted lawyer and a BJP MP with Mr. Jaitley and Mr. Prasad, had clearly disagreed with both of his ‘colleagues’ when some time back he had said in the same context, “It would be overreach if we had an honest government. Given the way things are, if the court avoids that overreach they would be held guilty for dereliction of duty.” [Who will judge the Judges by Damayanti Datta, India Today, August 20, 2011]

That said, why is Parliament talking of ‘judicial overreach’ when what is under discussion is a motion for the removal of a High Court judge? The motion reached Parliament after, as per the constitutional procedure, the Inquire Committee constituted by former CJI, Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and comprising of one Supreme Court Judge (Justice B Sudershan Reddy), one High Court Judge (Justice Mukul Mudgal) and a noted Jurist (Mr. Fali S. Nariman) had found Justice Sen guilty, and had recommended his removal. The judiciary had already done its bit in taking the black sheep out. The only relevant question was whether there was still something to save the day for Justice Sen. Therefore, Parliament could either accept or reject the recommendation of the Inquiry Committee. The whole talk of judicial overreach was completely out of place, and equally irrelevant was the issue of the appointment of judges.

Removal of a judge is constitutional measure aimed at ‘course correction’. It is a cure. And the existence of a corrective measure presupposes the possibility of an error. Since error of judgment can always creep in regardless of what system of appointment we follow makes the question of appointment irrelevant in a motion for removal because precautionary measures at the time of appointment pre-emptive while removal is curative. If pre-emptive measures could be made flawless, we wouldn’t need curative mechanism at all.

Granted, to borrow Mr. Jaitley’s words, “The system of judges alone appointing judges must now change. India needs a National Judicial Commission to appoint judges.” But Vigilance Commissioners don’t appoint Vigilance Commissioners. How could PJ Thomas be appointed when he had been chargesheeted in a corruption case? UPSC examination for the selection of IAS, IPS and other officers is by far the fairest and cleanest exam. So, is the bureaucracy and police administration clean of corruption even at the highest level? Recruitment to the armed forces, too, is through a fair, transparent and rigorous process involving several tiers of test for officer ranks. So, Sukhna Land Scandal, Adarsh Land Scam and Kargil Coffin scam must sound alien to us, but they don’t. No recruitment process, howsoever fair, transparent and rigorous, can guarantee honesty and clean conscience of the selected. Therefore, if removal on proven corruption charges is the issue, the talk of recruitment process is wholly irrelevant.

Mr. Jaitley’s calling the Collegium system “a system of sharing the spoils”, and adding, “When the High Courts recommend, members of the collegium share the spoils”, is also completely irrelevant, misplaced and uncalled for. Furthermore, the language of ‘spoils’ casts unsubstantiated and unsubstantiable aspersions on the integrity of the judges thereby undermining the authority of the Judiciary in the eyes of the people.

Even more irrelevant was Mr. Jaitley’s observation that “Courts cannot say that this is neoliberalism which is creating problems.  Courts cannot have an ideology.” What was it? A ‘Special Church Hour for the Judiciary’ with Mr. Jaitley at the pulpit?

Judges swear allegiance to the Constitution, first and foremost. To the constitutional courts the laws are not sacrosanct; the Constitution is. Therefore, in upholding the Constitution in letter and spirit, they must also uphold and protect Constitutional ideologies. And constitutions are not ideologically neutral. Words like ‘Secular’, ‘Socialist’ and ‘Democratic’ find prominent place within the Preamble, and ‘Secularism’, ‘Socialism’ and ‘Democracy’ are indeed ‘ideologies’, which the Courts are dutybound to abide by. Liberalism, pushed to extremes, can easily run counter to ‘socialist’ values, to which the constitutional courts can raise a constitutionally valid objection.

Quite evidently, the motion for the removal of a judge became an excuse to crucify the Judiciary for performing its constitutional functions in a clear case of ‘Parliamentary Overreach’.

Also, in case of both Justice V. Ramaswami and Justice Sen, the Judiciary did all that it could do to secure the Removal. Thus, no blame lies at the doorsteps of the Judiciary making all criticism in this regard excessive.

Originally written for and published as Cover Story in LAWYERS UPDATE [October 2011 Issue; Vol. XVII, Part 9]

“You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to.” 

Ensconced in awkward silence, the two sit – the sperm donor and the woman. Silence between strangers echoes polite aloofness. The space that lies between is truly an unoccupied, neutral area that holds no rancour, no hostile indifference, no longing, no pull or push of any kind; it’s just an emotionless, purely physical vacuum. But the one between these two is not the space of such kind. It has a breathing intimate connection unaffected by the worldly lack of familiarity. The unborn child of this emotionless, non-physical union supplies the faint warmth. The movie opens thus, and extends an immediate access to the world of a woman shattered by her ex-husband’s betrayal and wrung by an intense desire to be a mother. She chooses artificial insemination to accomplish motherhood, but still longs for a father for her child instead of a mere sperm donor, which explains here desire to know as much as possible about the prospective father of her child – his interests, his hobbies, whether he likes music and whether he has any siblings and so on; relevant or irrelevant, she wants to know all that she can.

After the brief procedure of insemination is over, she takes a taxi, tears the paper bearing the sperm donor’s number to bits and shows it out the window. Freedom. Freedom from the societal shackles, freedom from men, freedom from the biological necessity of a father. Finally, she walks into breezy sense of near-absolute independence. This was Afia Kidwai played excellently by Nandita Das.

Cut to the story of Afia’s friend, Megha Mattoo (Juhi Chawla), a Kashmiri Pandit, who visits Kashmir to sort out certain property issues. The pain of having been driven out by force with vandalized houses standing testimony to the gruesome acts of violence resurfaces, gushing. She wants to wrap up the work and make a quick exist. The torturous reality of forced homelessness that was once thrust upon her family is a little too much to bear. Even the sweet memories of the bygone times taste bitter like spoilt yoghurt. Friends turned foes, the world turned upside down and nobody could escape unscathed, not even those who could escape.

The surest way to ensure peace is to make people have a stake in it, which didn’t happen in Kashmir. The simmering discontent resulted in disaffection and every bid to stomp out resistance ended up flaring things up, as it invariably resulted in the application of excessive force. The consequence was that despite being an integral part of India, Kashmir remained a suspecting child of an unsure mother.

The Kashmiri Pandits who had to flee and all those who stayed back for one reason or the other found themselves trying to come to terms with the present and the past both. All that Megha wants to do is drop the baggage of memories completely and move on with her non-Kashmiri life. Signing away the papers of the house is the final act of breaking away from the past. 

The narrative moves on to Abhimanyu (Sanjay Suri), Afia’s friend, in Bengaluru. The movie snapshots some of the events of Abhimanyu’s tormented past. As the present and the past flash in and out, the issue of child abuse and its adverse effects on Abhimanyu’s adult life slowly emerge. Abhimanyu’s stepfather was a child abuser, who also cared for him and made sure that Abhimanyu got all that he wanted. The first Indian movie to seriously broach the issue of child abuse was Monsoon Wedding. But it presented the abused-abuser equation in a straight victim-victimizer format whereas here we see the equation turn complex with the victim learning to take advantage of the abuse and play the victimizer to his advantage. Throughout Abhimanyu’s journey from a13-year-old abused child to an adult filmmaker what constantly remains with him are nameless cats and his manipulating ways. He learns to use human beings and manipulate their feelings to further his own ambitions. His badly bruised psyche manifests itself thus. 

Abhimanyu runs into an old friend, Jai (Rahul Bose), at a café, and the movie takes us into Jai’s recent past. Before the Delhi High Court decriminalized consensual homosexuality, Jai, a gay, is shown coming across a guy named Omar at a coffee house in Mumbai. The two go for a drive during which the duo engage in some sexual activity and are caught by a police officer in the act, who demands rupees one lakh to let go of them. While Omar is sent away to the ATM to withdraw the money from Jai’s account, Jai is forced to perform oral sex on the police officer. The humiliation stays with him, eating him up. He soon realizes that Omar was complicit in the duping. 

Jai is shown thanking the Delhi High Court for decriminalizing consensual homosexuality. The movie appears to suggest that the law against homosexuality had some role to play in Jai’s humiliation, which is quite incorrect because two people engaged in sexual activity – homosexual or heterosexual – in a car can always be hauled up by the police for indecent conduct in public place. The decriminalization of homosexuality does not affect the position at all because the police officer was not using ant-homosexuality law to hold out the threat but the law pertaining to indecent conduct in public places. Of all four separate stories this one makes the least impact. 

The movie presents four individual narratives that touch each other without getting mutually intertwined. The common thread that runs across the stories is the long shadow of the past cast on the present that is happy on the thin surface that hides throbbing turmoil underneath. 

Among the actors, Nandita Das stands out for the delicate portrayal of a woman independent and determined not by choice but for want of it.

Originally published as part of my Legal Movie Review column LEGAL SCANNER in LAWYERS UPDATE [August, 2011 Issue; Vol. XVII, Part 8]

A certain Babaji found this particular truth conducive to his dreams and desires. But then, he seemingly missed something crucial. The number game has its own intricacies. And Babaji turned out to be a complete novice in that respect. His chit-waving adversaries did not fare too well on that count either. It was a battle of two elitist parties with political naivete writ large. They apparently had no idea of how an emotional common man of this country reacts to such things.

Need I specify that India is an emotional country and can be taken for a ride in the name of religion and corruption alike? And we, being a gullible people, can easily trust the seemingly pious ‘babas’ to deal with the palpably corrupt ‘babus’. So, our Babaji here took a leaf out of the bulky black book of corruption and zoomed into the issue of black money stashed away abroad.

The black money talk has been around since the Stone Age, almost. Supreme Court brought it to the fore and the Babaji decided to use it as a springboard to take a plunge into the political ocean of the world’s largest democracy.

The nation watched eagerly the tussle between the most popular Yoga guru of the day and the Central Government, but the closed-door talks complicated the issue right from the start. Corruption is best countered by transparency, and closed doors are the very antithesis of transparency. It suits tactful diplomats, but to simplistic Satyagrahis, truth — and not ‘tact’ — is the weapon to fight with, and also the ideal to fight for. They put up a fearless fight for the right and the truth and do not do a ‘Shivaji-in-feminine-garb’ without an Aurangzeb. It’s hard to imagine our mild, gentlemanly Prime Minister as the Mughal fundamentalist emperor.

On the other hand, it is equally hard, if not harder, to see Babaji as a Gandhian Satyagrahi, which is the only acceptable kind of a Satyagrahi anyway.

Babaji missed both the political and the moral nuances of Satyagraha. Fasting is a tool, a way, a mode of Satyagraha. Satyagraha is not as much about results as about the right endeavour for the right ends very much in line with Lord Krishna’s teachings in Srimad Bhadwad Gita.

One hangs in there to bear the heartless caning and thrashing, and does not seek an escape shivering in terror. The path of non-violence which is a necessary element of Satyagraha is not for the frail hearted and weak spirited, or for those who seek security behind a wall of numbers. One has to step out and submit oneself to merciless violence of the heartless oppressors without looking at the effect it might or might not be having on the circumstances one wishes to change by one’s efforts.

One has to do choose one’s own ‘right path’ and stick to it without resorting to violence of any kind against anyone. It is a form of ‘Nishkaam Karmayoga’ that has no tolerance for egoistic traits. Self-defense by way of violent retaliation has absolutely no place in the scheme of Gandhian Satyagraha. Therefore, any talk of raising a ‘protection group’ or ‘counter force’ for self-defense is clearly out of sync with Satyagraha. If it was inappropriate against foreign oppressors, there is no way to justify the same against a democratically elected government fully accountable to the people as well as other Constitutional authorities for the purpose.

Satyagraha is a tool of protest that can only be employed in its pure form with its essentials unadulterated. There can be no such thing as ‘armed satyaraha’ just as much as there can be no such Satyagraha where the group that protests is different from the group that gets beaten up. So, there is no way to defend the ‘self-defense’ protection group that the Babaji talked about.

May be the Yoga Guru has self-destructed much of his appeal with the people, for even his most ardent supporters find it difficult to defend some of Babaji’s actions.

The issue would keep bouncing back and around for quite some time, for the one good thing that the recent anti-corruption protests have managed to do is make corruption a mainstream debate. And we have clearly expressed our unwillingness to submit to it like meek cows the way we had begun to. However, despite the gravity of the situation the protesters must stick to Constitutionally permissible methods.

Most importantly, religion or communal inclinations of the protesters are likely to do more damage than good. Not even a hint of saffron or green or any other colour except white — the colour of peace and harmony — has any place in the nationalistic struggle that anti-corruption protests necessarily are.

On its part the government must engage constructively instead of raking up issues like place of birth, passports or somebody’s income issues because it can only be seen as an attempt to oppress protesters. And if tyranny is added to the concoction of rising inflation and rising corruption, the ruling party might find itself left out in the sun to dry by the electorate as soon as it’s time for the people to issue a fresh mandate.

We Indians might be emotional and dynasty-worshiping fools, but we do have a knack for ousting anyone who starts acquiring dictatorial colours. Of course, we give second chances but not before heaping loads of embarrassment.

What I fail to understand is why the Babajis and the governments think that we would believe whatever they say when even children no longer trust what their parents say? Did that sound too bad? Well, let’s go back to sleep then.

Originally published as part of my monthly column — STREET LAWYER — in LAWYERS UPDATE [August 2011 Issue; Vol. XVII, Part 8]