Tavleen Singh: I wish PM Modi had pointed out that without rule of law there can be no democracy
NB: I appreciate this opinion piece. (The only substantive issue I have with it is the assumption that Mr Modi favours the continuation of democracy). Ms Singh asks what message is sent by the failure of the BJP to suspend those indulging in vigilante violence. I venture to say the message is clear and in accordance with the overall project of the Sangh Parivar: the abolition of the distinction between legal and illegal violence. The local Sangh affiliates are welcoming the violence and congratulating the culprits. The BJP has planned a celebratory march in Indore. Given this behaviour, who can say the trial court will not be intimidated? Do we not recall that in 2014 these people were celebrating Gandhi's assassin ?
The government has protected lynchers; and covered up the death of a judge - a relative of the Maharashtra CM threatened a lawyer pursuing the matter. The Sangh and its allies have indulged in sabotage of justice: in the Bhima Koregaon case, they have misused executive power to protect their cadre. They have secured the dismissal of cases in which their associates were implicated, by causing court records to disappear as in the Aseemanand case. There have been 67 'encounter' killings since March 2017. V. L. Solanki, the police officer who worked on the Sohrabuddin case says the government is trying to silence him: 'If a sitting judge can die suddenly, I am just an inconsequential retired police inspector. The government and the police can go to any extent to ensure everyone accused in the case gets a clean chit. They can kill too.'
The promotion of vigilantism by virtually all political parties is no secret: violence is the ground shared by enemies. The group now in power has an ideological fixation with violence no less obsessive than the Maoists. The difference is that unlike violence in the name of tribals, peasants and workers, communal violence is acceptable to vested interests. Hindutva is the Maoism of the elite
It is no longer a matter of what the PM says or does not say - his silences have been noticeable for some years. The rule of law in India is under severe threat, and it is up to an alert citizenry to prevent it from disappearing altogether. Our ruling class is not opposed to violence and lawlessness in principle; only the Naxalite and jehadist versions of it. They will not flinch from destroying the country for narrow partisan interests. Loss of faith in justice makes physical and emotional trauma even harder to bear than with a functional justice system. Here are some comments I made on political violence and criminality a month ago. DS
It is no longer a matter of what the PM says or does not say - his silences have been noticeable for some years. The rule of law in India is under severe threat, and it is up to an alert citizenry to prevent it from disappearing altogether. Our ruling class is not opposed to violence and lawlessness in principle; only the Naxalite and jehadist versions of it. They will not flinch from destroying the country for narrow partisan interests. Loss of faith in justice makes physical and emotional trauma even harder to bear than with a functional justice system. Here are some comments I made on political violence and criminality a month ago. DS
From Indore last week
came pictures of the son of a senior
BJP leader using a bat to attack officials
on government duty. From a
village in Jharkhand came a video of the latest lynching. Tabrez
Ansari was tied to a pole and, while being beaten with sticks by a
mob, ordered to repeat ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and ‘Jai Hanuman’. The video of his
terrified face was too awful to watch, but went viral on social media as did
the news that the local police, instead of taking him to hospital, locked him
up. It took him four days to die. And in his last days his family was not
allowed to meet him.
In Mumbai a Muslim
taxi driver, Faizal Usman Khan, was beaten by a Hindu mob, who ordered him to
say ‘Jai Shri Ram’ as they beat him. He later told reporters that his cab
stalled and, while he was trying to fix it, some men came by on a scooter and
started beating him for what he thought was no reason till they ordered him to
say ‘Jai Shri Ram’, till he became unconscious.
In Kolkata, a Muslim
teacher, Hafiz Mohammed Shahrukh Halder, was thrown off a train because he
refused to say ‘Jai Shri Ram’. He sustained severe injuries but lived. He told
reporters that his attackers had first mocked him for his clothes and his
Islamic beard and then ordered him to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’. In Kasganj, Uttar
Pradesh, a policeman was threatened by a local BJP legislator because he
arrested his friends for rowdyism. The MLA warned him that he had the power to
have him transferred.
In Parliament,
meanwhile, the Prime Minister made two fine speeches in which he painted a
glowing picture of the ‘new’ India he promises he will build. A prosperous,
powerful, secure India in which every citizen will be treated equally. In his
speech in the Rajya Sabha, he mentioned Tabrez Ansari.
He
was saddened, he said, by the death of this youth and hoped that those
responsible would be given the severest punishment. He denounced violence in
general and said nobody had the right to break the law, whether in Jharkhand,
West Bengal or anywhere else. As I listened, I found
myself wishing that the Prime Minister had put more emphasis on the
significance of the rule of law for the survival of democracy. I found myself
wishing that he had pointed out that without the rule of law there can be no
democracy. If he had said something like this, it is possible that his message
would have been clearer to his partymen and to the killer mobs who now defile
Ram with their craven brutality.
It is no longer about cows. It is about the rule of the mob. No excuse is needed for violence. In the case of Akash Vijayvargiya, an MLA in his own right, when asked why he was beating up the officials in Indore, he defended himself proudly. On camera he announced that it was his policy to first make a polite request and, when this was refused, he did not think it wrong to use violence. He was arrested for attacking the officials. But, has so far not been sacked from the BJP. What signal does this send?
It is no longer about cows. It is about the rule of the mob. No excuse is needed for violence. In the case of Akash Vijayvargiya, an MLA in his own right, when asked why he was beating up the officials in Indore, he defended himself proudly. On camera he announced that it was his policy to first make a polite request and, when this was refused, he did not think it wrong to use violence. He was arrested for attacking the officials. But, has so far not been sacked from the BJP. What signal does this send?
In India, the wheels
of justice turn slowly. Sometimes they do not turn at all. If the victim is
poor and helpless and the culprit rich and powerful, justice is unattainable in
many cases. So a degree of rough justice has always existed. But, in the past
few years, cow vigilantism has given a whole new facet to rule by the mob. The
vigilantes have mostly got away with what they did. Inevitably, now that
Narendra Modi’s
mandate is bigger than the one that he got last time, many of his supporters
see it is as sanction for them to carry on with their violent activities. After making his first
speech to his newly elected MPs in Parliament’s Central Hall, the Prime
Minister bowed his head before the Constitution as if it were a sacred text.
This wonderful gesture will soon seem meaningless unless mob rule is brought to
a swift end. A good first step would be to expel Akash Vijayvargiya.
RSS organisations in Dehradun force two colleges to say they
won’t admit Kashmiris
A whiff of evil
Minister Who Got The Loudest Cheers Has A Murky Past
A whiff of evil
Minister Who Got The Loudest Cheers Has A Murky Past
अपूर्वानंद - भागवत और वंजारा साथ-साथ: हम कौन थे, क्या हो गए हैं और क्या होंगे अभी?
MD HIZBULLAH AND ATUL DEV: How the Vyapam SIT chief, judges and journalists benefitted from government largesse in Madhya Pradesh
MD HIZBULLAH AND ATUL DEV: How the Vyapam SIT chief, judges and journalists benefitted from government largesse in Madhya Pradesh
