TWO CASES AND TWO JUDGES - A WATERSHED MOMENT FOR INDIA

The second week of December has been a pivotal period for the Indian judiciary, a week in which it has both plumbed the depths of  ignominy, AND simultaneously raised aloft the flag of our constitutional principles. This paradox has been persisting for some time with no corrective action being taken, but it has now come to a head and can no longer be ignored. 

This was the week in which a superior court judge, Justice Shekhar Yadav of the Allahabad High Court, decided that the time was ripe for him to walk out of the  closet in resplendent saffron robes, a kind of perverted Second Coming. We should not have been surprised, of course, for the general portents had been there for a long time among his fraternity, in judgments and obiter dicta: the tet-e-tete with deities for guidance, the call to declare the cow as the national animal, the expressed fear that if conversions are allowed Hindus would become a minority, the verbal defenestration of the Places of Worship Act, the indecent haste in ordering surveys and excavations in mosques, the confession by another judge that he had always been an RSS admirer, the admission of a judge into a political party just days after retiring. But we saw these as mere flirtations-till Justice Yadav decided to tell the whole world about his torrid and hitherto unspoken love affair with the religious right.

In brazenly attending a function of a strident Hindu organisation, by calling Muslims "kathmullahs", in asserting that this country would be governed by the wishes of the majority religion, by diagnosing Muslims as being devoid of any compassion because they slaughter goats, by expressing the view that their children have violence instilled in their pysche, and casting other abominable slurs on the practitioners of this religion, this judge crossed many red lines, lines which had started becoming blurred since 2014 but had not been entirely wiped away.

It is learnt that some Opposition parties have submitted an impeachment motion against him in Parliament; this will be symbolic at best since the government, as per usual practice, is not likely to support the motion and the former lack the numbers. The Supreme Court has asked the Allahabad High Court for a report and summoned the offending judge, and one hopes that it will take the strictest possible action if the report confirms that Justice Yadav violated his oath of office, the Constitution and the Restatement of Judicial values reiterated by the SC. Mere censure or withdrawal of judicial work is not punitive enough- Justice Yadav can no longer be trusted with the administration of justice, he has exposed unrepentently his biases and religious bigotry. The CJI should ask him to resign, and if he does not do so then the SC should recommend his impeachment to both the President and the Prime Minister. The moral imperative in such a message shall make it well nigh impossible for the government to oppose the impeachment motion brought by the opposition parties. This corrective action is essential to retrieve some of the ethical capital which the judiciary has lost in the last few years.

But all was not Cimmerian darkness this week, for, with the change of Chief Justice of India, a beacon which had gone out was switched on again.

A much awaited and much needed judicial high was achieved on the 12th of this month when another shameful legacy of the previous CJI was dismantled by the his successor, Justice Sanjeev Khanna. By injuncting all further petitions and surveys of places of places of worship (read "mosques and dargahs") and restraining all courts from passing any orders on pending cases, he has largely undone the horrific damage Chandrachud had done to our social fabric. CJI Khanna has done more to protect the integrity and plurality of our country and its Constitution in one day than what his predecessor could in two years. Equally important, he has now forced the Central government to file its response to the constitutional challenge to the Places of Worship Act, within four weeks.

It will be interesting to see how Mr. Modi's government reacts in both cases- the impeachment notice against Justice Yadav and the challenge to the POW Act. Will it stick to its unstated intention to suborn the judiciary and its stated aim of demolishing all mosques (I believe more than 1800 of them have been identified for this honour, but this is probably an underestimation), or will it bite the bullet and plump for upholding the law and the Constitution? Somehow, no matter how hard I try, I cannot visualise the latter denouement. But ripping the mask off the face of despotism and bigotry is in itself no mean achievement in these precarious times.

These two cases present a watershed moment for the country, and how our institutions respond to them will determine for the forseeable future the direction in which  the history of this country shall flow.

DIGITAL IMMORTALITY IS ALREADY HERE !

 In his seminal and thought provoking book, HOMO DEUS, Yuval Noah Harari has some very interesting observations about mankind's quest for immortality. He postulates that, having triumphed over starvation (famines), disease (plagues) and violence (war),- the primary cause of deaths over the centuries- mankind in the 21st and 22nd centuries will strive to conquer death and to achieve immortality. For modern homo sapiens death is a technical problem, and for every technical problem there is a technical solution. Harari believes that the pathway to immortality could be found through genetic engineering, regenerative medicine and nanotechnology. Actually, he prefers the phrase "amortal" to "immortal" as people could still die from unexpected accidents, but human life itself (he believes) will no longer come with an expiry date.                                                                                                                                                                                      This is an extremely thought provoking- if not downright provocative- thesis, but maybe we are beginning to see the first shoots of this postulation in the American billionaire, Bryan Johnson, who has made it his goal to not die- to reverse aging and to live to the age of 150 at least, if not become immortal. To achieve this he is using the same three tools Harari had mentioned, and spends two million dollars a year on this effort. He is turning his body, in the words of TIME magazine, into an anti-aging algorithm, is 45 years old but has the body of a 18 year old. He is being closely observed by medical experts, this man who thinks he can live forever and has even written a book whose title is- what else?- DON'T DIE!

But you may well ask- why am I telling you all this?

Because, though biological immortality may still be some way in the future, digital immortality is already beginning to happen. It's something most of us are looking forward to, to reconnect with our loved ones. For instance, we all have our social and familial wealth on our Whatsapp, and if you happen to belong to my vintage (the 1950s or earlier), with every passing year we are beginning to lose some of that emotional capital: one or two accounts are perforce closed every year - loved ones, friends, family members who have handed in their chips and crossed that big rainbow. How many times, on a dreary and cold winter evening, have I  wished that one could chat with them again, exchange an emoji or two, forward a Twitter joke or cartoon? Sadly, they have gone long before before Harari's predictions about immortality could come true. But wait! Digital immortality may be at our doorstep.

The age-old methods for staying in touch or contacting our deceased loved ones have been things like planchette, the ouija board, seances or communicating through a medium. But now digital innovations and AI seem to be taking over. We all leave behind digital footprints on a huge scale- emails, WA chats, posts on platforms like X, Instagram, Facebook, videos on Youtube etc. Emerging digital tools work by datamining this wealth of information to recreate, in a macabre way resurrect, as it were, the person who is no longer with us.

Generative AI, by using the vast power of face and voice recognition technology, can literally recreate the person and make him or her virtually alive again through virtual avatars or holograms He/she can talk to you again on your smart phone, with the same voice and diction you recognise, as if they were flesh and blood again! You can reminisce with them again about past events, friends, relatives,  like they had never left. The algorithms know more about this departed person than you ever did, and can make them virtually alive again, to a point where you wouldn't know the difference.

This digital afterlife is still a few years in the future, but not too far away. Companies like Hereafter, My Wishes and Hanson Robotics are already working on this technology, combining technology with data about the deceased person- memories, texts, personality traits, previous conversations, photos - to enable him or her to interact with you posthumously. It is even possible for someone to leave pre-recorded messages while alive to be sent after death, to maintain the illusion of being present even after death!

These digital afterlife technologies may go some way in offering some comfort and emotional release to those left behind, but they will come with their own set of ethical and legal challenges, including privacy rights, the commercial (and perhaps unauthorised) use of this digital immortality. As Ardif Perdana explains in a brilliant article in the Deccan Herald, governments will have to grapple with these issues, including laws to govern the bequeathing/ ownership of the digital estate left behind by the deceased, just as they have provided for the physical estate. 

Mankind has always been good at creating illusions, the practitioners ranging from spiritual leaders to magicians to politicians to sorcerers to con-men. The digital afterlife will also be an illusion and some may find fault with it. But then again, one is reminded of the words of the Buddha, Aldous Huxley and Albert Einstein- all of whom had said in unequivocal terms that reality is only an illusion. To which I can only add, with the utmost humility- choose your reality, go with the one that comforts you most; comfort and happiness are also illusions, but they make life bearable. While it lasts.

HIMACHAL' S GAME OF SNACKS AND LADDERS

This has been a particularly bad year for Himachal and its embattled Chief Minister, Mr. Sukhu. He has certainly grabbed the TRPs but they are of the negative, Arnab Goswami and Navika Kumar type. Actually, the year began well, in pure eye-ball terms, with our own raging torrent, Kangana Ranaut, occupying the headlines with her sensational win in the Mandi Parliamentary seat. But the torrent soon became a rafting rapids which the BJP kayaks and jan-nayaks found impossible to navigate; she was told to shut up and the snowy peaks of the state have since been deprived of her yodelling rendition of history and politics, more's the pity.

This TRP vacuum was quickly filled, however, with what has now come to be known as the Samosa Kand, not to be confused with Mr. Amit Shah's earlier Pakora theory. It appears that the Chief Minister was presiding over an official function at the Police HQ, and some samosas (at Rs.150 per piece!) were ordered for his refreshment, but they were mistakenly delivered to his security staff: the CM didn't even get a whiff of them. An inquiry was ordered into this "anti-government" activity and some cops even suspended. The mountains are still reverberating with the peals of laughter this episode engendered, quite unfairly, in my view. Because this was a matter of serious portent. For one, the price of the samosa goes a long way to explain why the state has gone belly-up, financially. Ex Finance Secretaries who, in their times were allowed only two Parle-G biscuits, fumed that at the very least an open tender should have been placed in at least ten newspapers for the said delicacies, never mind if that cost five times what the samosa did; rules, after all, are rules! Secondly, and even more seriously, this was a security lapse- if today the CM's samosas can find their way to some hungry cops, tomorrow it may be secret files intended for "his eyes only" or even party funds for "your pockets only". How long, one may ask, can democracy survive if such things are allowed to happen?

                                       

Barely had the fragrance of the samosas dispersed when another stench enveloped the state- a Toilet Tax- confirming that the Chief Minister's advisors had really gone potty, as it were. A tax was imposed on every toilet seat, in order to flush out some more revenue from the sewer lines. As could be expected, there was an immediate uproar, with citizens pointing to the inequity of life: Mrs. Sitharaman's GST taxed everything that went in and now Mr. Sukhu was taxing everything that went out; legal experts opined that this was double taxation and therefore illegal. The government, I learn, is reconsidering the matter, but in the interim no one is holding his or her breath or, for that matter, anything else. After all, when you gotta go you gotta go.

The state had not yet plumbed the bottom, however (to continue with the toilet imagery).  News emerged in September that Himachal had gone practically bankrupt when salaries and pensions were not disbursed on schedule. With an annual budget of Rs. 56000 crore and a population of only 7 million, you'd expect that the state was rolling in the gravy. After all, this translates to Rs. 80000 per Himachali, man, female and transgender-enough, surely, to keep them warm in winter and drunk throughout the year? But never put anything beyond a politician's skills-within two years the state has gone bankrupt, what with unnecessary expenditure on four lane highways, ambitious airports, a platoon of Advisors and superannuated deadwood, free (or subsidised) water, electricity, bus rides, an MSP for cow dung, and what have you. So now the state's debt has crossed Rs. 80000 crore, and there's only one solution to this crisis, in my view.

Hand it over to Mr. Adani (who is already there, making a killing out of buying apples cheaply and selling them at the price of your family jewels). The state should be declared bankrupt and brought before the NCLT under the Bankruptcy Code, with some Adani acolyte like Mahesh Jethmalani or Madhavi Buch appointed as Resolution Professional. Mr. Adani could then buy the state (when he is released on bail by the USA, that is) at the going rate of 10% of the outstanding debt, or about Rs. 8000 crore. It would be a (Monal) feather in his cap. He owns everything except a state government (de jure, I mean, not just de facto); as CEO of a state government he would acquire sovereign immunity from the charges in the USA and could cock a snook at the FBI and its Justice Department. He will, of course, have to contest elections in due course but that is easily taken care of- when the CEC, Rajeev Kumar's tenure expires in the Election Commission, Mr. Adani could reemploy him as CFO (Chief Fiddling Officer): his vast experience in such matters would ensure that Mr. Adani would win by twice the number of  votes cast.

So what does this say about the Chief Minister's myriad Advisors? That is best answered by a joke which was related to me by an attractive World Bank Advisor many years ago at a dinner in Washington DC: An architect, an engineer and a UN advisor (so the joke goes) were having a drink in a bar, discussing which profession should get the credit for creating the Universe. The architect insisted that it was architects who conceived the plan, positioned the planets, stars and suns in a composite whole to ensure that they rotated around each other: they in effect brought order into the primordial Chaos. The engineer disagreed, saying that the basic structure, gravity and atmospheres of the planets were designed by engineers, which made life possible in some of them; it was engineers who gave life and meaning to this Chaos. Throughout the heated arguments, the UN advisor sat quietly, legs crossed and with a bemused smile on her lips. Finally, the other two asked her what the contribution of Advisors was. She uncrossed her legs, leaned forward slightly, and replied softly : "Who do you think created the Chaos?" 

That, dear friends, may go a long way to explain why Himachal refuses to go out of the news these days, and why Mr. Sukhu could do with fewer advisors.

 

STOP THE WHINING , MR PAWAN KHERA, AND SMELL WHAT'S COOKING !

In my tiny village above Shimla the only sounds one hears in the total stillness of the nights are the howling of jackals, the calls of a barking deer, the rhythmic hooting of a barn owl, or the rare coughing of a wandering leopard. But now I am back in the NCR and all I can hear, post the declaration of election results on the 23rd of this month, are loud wailings and the familiar whining emanating from the Congress headquarters on Akbar Road; I am sure similar sounds are issuing from Matoshree in Mumbai and Saifai in U.P. And the lachrymose chorus of the Opposition quartet is the familiar one: the elections were stolen from us. 

They probably were. There is no direct evidence of this, of course; there rarely is in an inside job, and when the government and ruling party themselves commit the heist, who do you think is interested in collecting the evidence, in any case? But there is plenty of circumstantial and anecdotal evidence, apart from the EC's studied inaction on hate speeches, seizure of bribe moneys and convenient delay in notifying the elections in Maharashtra to enable Mr. Shinde to announce hundreds of concessions and freebies: 

* How did the voter percentage increase by almost 8% over the initial count in Maharashtra, when historically this figure has never exceeded 1% ? An astounding 76 lakh additional votes were added by the EC to the initially reported count of 5.00 PM. This translates to 26000 extra votes per constituency, which assumes significance when it is revealed that 100 seats were won by a margin of less than 26000, most of them naturally by the BJP.

* How is it that, many analyses show, wherever the final voting numbers are increased the benefit invariably accrues to the BJP and its strike rate goes up dramatically? This is a phenomenon which first surfaced during the last Parliamentary elections and has become entrenched since the Haryana election last month.

* How is it possible for some EVMs to display a 99% battery charge after a full day of polling and many days of storage? If this is normal then the CEC, Rajiv Kumar, should be conferred a Nobel Prize for Physics for discovering the Holy Grail of energy and power- an infinite, unending and inexhaustible source of power- beating all those nuclear scientists who have been labouring for decades on atomic fusion!

* How could the BJP's strike rate jump from 32% to 90% in just six months? Almost ditto for the Shinde and Ajit Pawar factions, who would have been overjoyed with a 25% rate, going by their Lok Sabha performance and own pre-polling statements ?

* How come no one- NO ONE- picked up even a hint of the impending NDA tsunami, not the journalists on the ground, not the pollsters, not even the political parties themselves? It has been suggested, satirically, by veteran journalist Deepak Sharma that the tsunami was not in the polling booths but in the EVMs!

* How come the Election Commission took no action to investigate allegations of mass deletions of names from voter lists, removal of Muslim and Yadav officials as polling officers, and police forcibly preventing voters from accessing their polling booths (this last has been extensively documented on videos, including by the portal Newslaundry)? News reports and videos suggest that this was particularly rampant in UP. Why was no repolling ordered in these booths?

* How come the NDA tsunami was limited to only those two states where the BJP is in power, whereas it was not even a ripple in Bengal, Jharkhand, Kerala and Karnataka? Does control of the state machinery have anything to do with this phenomenon?

* How come the Election Commission is steadfastly silent on these questions and offers no explanations, instead spouting terrible "shayari" which would have both Ghalib and Amir Khusro rotating in their graves in agony?

The bullet points above are in the nature of grave doubts that trouble the average citizen. It is possible that there can be valid explanations for them, or some of them. But the Sphinx like silence and constitutional arrogance of the Election Commission which works for the people but rejects any accountability to them, raise the doubts to suspicion and a presumption of wrong-doing. As Parakala Prabhakar has noted in an interview with Karan Thapar, this raises a question mark over the very legitimacy of the mandate of the winning party and its governments.

Of course, we all knew that this was going to happen; there is even a name for this electoral phenomenon- it's known as the Haryana model. The BJP tested this prototype in Haryana earlier this year, found that it worked, and have now rolled it out on a larger scale. In future it will form the main pillar of the One Nation One Election One Party edifice. So how come the India Alliance never anticipated this?

My guess is that they did, but that they were lazy, uncoordinated, complacent after their Lok Sabha showing. At worst, they could always fall back on their comfortable, whining, default mode and wait for the tide to turn. Civil society, both organisations and individuals, have been warning them of this danger for years, and urging them to take urgent political and legal action to check the institutionalisation of the Haryana model. One hopes that the Congress and its allies realise now that this is a flood, and not an ebb, tide and that they shall never be allowed to win any election of any consequence in future; they will be "given" just enough seats to maintain the credibility of the election process. They may win, for some more time, the few states where they have a government but that will be an inevitably declining number. They should take no comfort from the southern states holding out against the BJP: the impending delimitation of Parliamentary seats will ensure that the South will lose whatever little leverage it currently has. And no one will be impressed by the Opposition's continued whining- all institutions have been silenced or coopted in the Reich,  the media has been bought over, and the public is fatigued. Only Ms Mayawati seems to have realised this, with her uncanny instinct for survival.

What is now increasingly suspect is not only the EVM-VVPAT apparatus, but the entire electoral process including the superintendence of the Election Commission of India- the notification of the election schedules, the rationale for multi phasing, the implementation of the Model Code of Conduct, the preparation of voters' lists, the suppression of voters, the counting process, the opacity in releasing figures of polling data, the distribution of Form 17C. The India Alliance and other Opposition parties should realise that the battlefield has now moved far beyond just the EVMs to encompass all the other areas mentioned above. Their battle is not a single front war any more, but a multi-pronged one: even if the EVM was to be replaced with the ballot paper tomorrow, there are other arrows in the government's quiver whose poison has to be removed.

Bharat Jodo Yatras and petitions in the Supreme Court will not do. These may work in a non-polarised and democratic society, which we no longer are. The India Alliance has to take the battle to the people, and to raise the stakes beyond being merely politically correct. It should move, firstly, a motion for impeachment of all three Election Commissioners. This will fail, given the numbers in Parliament, but it will draw international attention to the rot that has set in in what used to be the world's leading such institution. It will also bring on record for posterity the hollowness of these men of straw and how diligently they laboured to destroy the world's largest democracy.                                                                                                     The Alliance should simultaneously announce two main non-negotiable demands- replace EVMs with the ballot paper, and scrap the present selection committee for appointment of Election Commissioners and revert to the one ordered by the Supreme Court with the CJI as a member. It should boycott all elections until these demands are conceded. They will not be, we can rest assured, but the easy options are no longer available. The ballot paper system has its drawbacks, including booth capturing and stuffing of false votes. But then we at least knew about these incidents, accepted they were illegal and could take corrective action to rectify them. But with the EVMs the same thing is being done on a much larger scale, much more efficiently, and in a manner so sophisticated that it is undetectable, and with no accountability. A case in point is the fraud perpetrated in the Chandigarh Mayoral election some time back: had this polling been conducted on EVMs we would never have known that it had been hijacked in favour of the BJP by the Presiding Officer.                                                                                                                                        By boycotting elections the Alliance risks its marginalisation for some time and may offer a the BJP a free hand to do what they wish, including amending the Constitution. But I'm afraid the India Alliance has no other option but to bite the bullet. By continuing to participate in these farcical elections it will continue to lose and, just as important, provide a legitimacy to them and to the NDA's victories and rule. Even a doomed soldier must make a last stand; it's time for the Congress and allies to do so now, before it's too late.

Hoping that things will improve or change with the passage of time is forlorn wish thinking. Precious time is running out. As the poet said:

Yeh jo beet raha hai

Wo wakt nahi, zindagi hai

[ What you are witnessing is not just the passage of time

  But the ebbing of life itself]

THE THREE TRILLION DOLLAR SMOG.

 While our Supreme Leader is accepting inconsequential awards in Nigeria and Guyana (do you even know where they are?-- Clue: they are nowhere near Manipur)) and hugging war criminals and their accomplices in Rio de Janeiro, his own capital is invisible from outer space, or from my balcony, blanketed in a toxic cocktail of dust, poisonous gases, PM 2.5, CO2 and God only knows what else; as I write this it's been six days and counting. AQI levels have crossed 1000 (more than twenty times safe levels as prescribed by the WHO) according to official reports. North India has been officially declared the most polluted region in the world. Two million Indians die of pollution every year (one fourth of the global figure) according to the WHO, but when was the last time you heard either this demi-god or his Environment Minister or any other leader of any consequence talk about the environment?

I wouldn't want to bore the reader with oft repeated statistics, but some figures are necessary to grasp what a waste of time the usual trope of blame-gaming- AAP vs BJP vs Congress vs Yogendra Yadav vs all- is. And that this is not just about the privileged and spoilt brats of Delhi but about the whole country. We ALL treat the natural environment like a piece of toilet paper: use it to serve our basest needs and just throw it away (incidentally, did you know that 28000 trees are cut every day for manufacturing toilet paper?). Consider some figures, if you can spare the time between your Muslim bashing, bridge game, gym workout, the Swiggy delivery or kitty party.

The country has lost 2.33 million hectares of tree cover since 2000 to so called development projects (Global Forest Watch). One hectare of moderately dense forest can capture 147 m.t. of CO2; if our Environment Minister can do the simple maths, that means we have lost about 300 million tonnes of carbon sequestration capacity per annum, one third of what we had promised to add in the last COP on climate change. And this does not even factor in the other benefits of forests- ecological services, water retention, dust and sound barriers, preservation of biodiversity. In addition, between 2015 and 2021, 3.13 million hectares of forests have been degraded from dense to open/scrub; 9.40 million trees have been felled for mining, road construction, power projects. In Delhi 77000 trees have been cut between 2019-21, according to a New Indian Express report by Prabhat Shukla dated 4th July 2024. The Lt. Governor of Delhi himself (he who is accountable to no one, not even his conscience, since that has been kept in hock in 7, Lok Kalyan Marg) is being investigated by the Supreme Court in a case of irregular felling of 1100 trees in Delhi's southern Ridge area. India has 28 trees per capita as against a global average of 422.

This environmental slaughter is an ongoing and continuous process under the benign gaze of the judiciary, National Green Tribunal, World Bank, IMF and the expanding roster of home made billionaires. Approval has been given for felling 800000 trees in the Andamans, 120000 in the Hasdeo forests, in the face of protests by tribals. 60000 trees have been cut for a wholly unnecessary road for Mr. Yogi Adithyanath's favourite kanwariyas. Even Shimla, which now has more Advisors to the Chief Minister than it has deodar trees, proposes to fell a few hundred trees to make fly-overs! I will not even talk about the Western Ghats, the horrendous Char Dham Highway, the wholly unnecessary four-laning madness that has gripped the Himachal government. Every single river has been poisoned beyond acceptable levels of drinking or even farming. Most of our wildlife and biodiversity are on the verge of extinction, never mind the figures cooked up by FRI, Project Tiger Authority or the Zoological Survey of India on their post retirement micro-waves. Why should we spare the air, when we are decimating ever other element of nature?

Environmental regulations that provide some limited protection to the environment even in a chronically corrupt country like ours are being relaxed on an almost daily basis to favour some crony or the other. The 10% upper classes, who contribute 90% of the pollution and degradation, are not bothered: they can insulate themselves with their Air conditioners and Air Purifiers, or jet off (like our PM) to exotic locales and count their fixed deposits there. Those who stay back to keep an eye on their fixed deposits here will suggest that a Lockdown should be imposed immediately- an absurd, elitist idea which will hit the most vulnerable most, just as they are recovering after the terrible effects of the COVID lockdown. The environment and ecology are never an election issue, no political party ever espouses it, no manifesto so much as mentions them even in passing, you and I never demand this. By the time we are done with issues relating to EVMs, caste reservations, free water, electricity and rations, "ghuspaitias", Rohingyas and demolishing of mosques, we have time and energy left only for discussing Salman Khan's latest film or Kangana Ranaut's most recent demo of her profound knowledge of history.

It is no coincidence that India has been ranked 176 out of 180 countries in the Global Nature Conservation Index in October 2024, one of the five worst performing countries in the world. So why should we be surprised at Delhi adorning this mantle of honour every year? And why should we be blaming an incompetent and environmentally illiterate government for it, considering that we ourselves don't give a s**t about the environment?

Still surprised that we have this 3 trillion dollar economy smog over the Indo-Gangetic plains that has already knocked seven years off your lives, according to health experts? Don't be, for all this devastation is in pursuit of the holy grail of the 35 trillion dollar economy by 2050. Except that the smog will have killed us all by then, or rendered us comatose (if today's politics has not already done so).

So take a deep breath of the patriotic, made- in- India fumes, and while exhaling chant loudly: Hum Hindu Khatre Me Hain.

You will never say a truer word in your life-or what remains of it after the smog has lifted.

THE MORAL HAZARD OF WHATSAPP GROUPS

 There are more than 532 million Whatsapp users in India (July 2022 figures), which is 40% of the population. Most of them belong to some Whatsapp group or the other, usually to multiple ones. It would not be incorrect to state that the country, socially and politically, is divided into innumerable Whatsapp groups, which now provide the bricks and mortar for our society and polity. The sheer diversity of these groups is mind boggling, encompassing various categories of citizens, all dedicated to their particular niche- RWAs, bloggers, business entities, political parties, vloggers, civil services (both serving and retired), yoga, trekkers, civil society, family groups and many others.

These WA groups are an unparalleled medium for exchanging news and views- and therein lies the problem. Ever since the right wing juggernaut started rolling in 2014 we have been divided as a nation as never before, in our ideologies, political loyalties, religious proclivities, levels of inclusivity and tolerance. It was inevitable that these divisions would spill over into the WA groups too but the levels of toxicity and venom that has accompanied this process was perhaps not anticipated and presents some of us with a moral hazard.

The right wing elements, bound by a common Hindutva thread and an unquestioning adoration for the Supreme Leader, are by far the more aggressive component of these groups, supported and egged on by the BJP's I.T.Cell, a fawning media, fake news, an omnipotent and over-arching government whose spokespersons provide fresh ammunition to these "bhakts" on a daily basis. Most groups have been taken over by these elements.

This presents a problem for the more moderate elements, the much abused "sickulars" who would rather go by evidence and not mere claims, by cold figures and not ranting, respect history and not redact or rewrite it, do not subscribe to the view that the BJP and the nation are synonymous with each other, who are happy with our current Constitution and do not wish it to be dismembered, believe that India's strength lies in its diversity and not an imposed homogeneity, who abhor the deliberate differentiation  of majority and minority (whether by a government or an opposition party), are opposed to the oligarchs taking over the economy, believe that fundamental rights are the bedrock of any liberal democracy and do not believe that this country needs a Hindu rashtra. But they are usually shouted down by the majoritarian loyalists, whether the issue under discussion is Gaza, Canada, Kashmir, the hijab, CAA, madrasas, MSP, EVMs, partisan Governors, federalism, election bonds, denial of bail to thousands, bulldozers, Pegasus, Adani or Arundhati Roy.

The trolling can get vicious, abusive and even personal. Which is why one has to ask oneself the question: should one put up with the rabid rantings of these politically illiterate and ethically bankrupt elements, or should one quit the group? It is a question many of us have had to ask of ourselves sometime or the other in these last ten years. The standard response is to either fall silent in the face of these attacks, or to try to reason with these BJP shock troopers. Neither serves the purpose of defending what one stands for.

Silence is never an option in the face of bullying or intimidation, nor is it an adequate defence of what we stand for; in fact, it can even amount to passive collusion. As Martin Luther King Jr had said: In the end we will remember, not the hatred of our enemies but the silence of our friends. Silence only emboldens the oppressors. Reasoning with these lumpens also does not help, for their minds are as tightly shut as bear traps and the light is never allowed to penetrate there. It is also not a good idea to wrestle with pigs, as someone said, for they will drag you down into the mud and win with their superior experience in that element. Continuing as a member of these groups only provides their administrators a fig leaf facade of open mindedness and fair handedness, of intellectual inclusivity, whereas in reality these groups are actually being used to spread their messages of hate, Islamophobia and support of fascist ideas. Because the problem here is not one of mere differences of opinion or perspectives. One can certainly differ on policies, whether they relate to the economy, business, education curriculae, climate change, the creamy layer and reservation, defence strategies or a host of subjects that make up the fabric of daily living and governance. In fact, a diversity of views and debate is the mark of a healthy society. But there can certainly be no two views about the fundamental values of civilisation and democracy-pluralism, religious tolerance, human rights, secularism, freedom of speech, affirmative action for the disadvantaged, respect for the Constitution, and so on. These values have been arrived at after millenia of conflict, slaughter and suffering, form the bedrock of humanity, and are indivisible and inalienable. There should be no compromise on them, no give and take. They are, to use a phrase now famous, the basic structure of civilisation and cannot be allowed to be tampered with, least of all by a political party in search of a thousand year Reich. 

There is also a larger issue of basic morality involved here: should we continue to associate with people who oppose these fundamental truths and possess such toxic values which are completely antithetical with our own? Should we become complicit with their messaging by our silence or quiet acceptance with just some mild protest? Or should we quit these groups, whether they involve friends or relatives? For some wise guidance on these vexed questions we can do worse than heed these words of author and activist Ijeoma Oluo:

"We cannot be friends with those who actively support oppression and hate. Friendship requires a certain level of integrity."

Or these sentiments of the American talk show host, Jon Stewart: "If you're a friend of a bigot, you're a bigot."

Guilt by association is an accepted principle of law. Quitting such groups is  a statement, a positive and not a negative one, it makes clear where you stand, validates your conscience and frees you from the asphyxiation of toxic relationships.

Something to think about.

WHEN YOU FIND YOURSELF IN A HOLE, STOP DIGGING!

 The first rule of excavation is that when you find yourself in a hole, you should stop digging. It appears, however, that our venerable Chief Justice, who has now seen the (saffron) light, has not heard of this truism, notwithstanding his vast knowledge and learning. He continues to excavate, somewhat like the Archeological Survey of India, probably hoping to  strike Hindutva bedrock. With his "legacy" already under the public scanner one would have expected him to lie low and weather the storm. Instead, just last week he has publicly gone on record to gloat that (a) he authored the Ayodhya Ram Mandir judgment and (b) that he had prayed to God for a solution to this thorny issue, and the "solution" was promptly sent to him by the deity, presumably via Blinkit or Zepto. Predictably, this confession has raised another fire storm, with eminent lawyers and even retired judges coming down on him like a ton of the famed Ram Mandir bricks.

His revelation, as far as I know, is only the second judicial epiphany after Moses was handed the Ten Commandments by a burning bush on Mount Sinai, with the difference that the Directive Principles of the Commandments have now been replaced with the binding Ayodhya judgment; after all, it is a tenet of spirituality that divine revelation always precedes divine authorship. And since the Chief Justice himself has implicitly attested to the authorship of this SC judgment, the epiphany itself must be acknowledged. But the fecundity of the implications of this spiritual communion is mind boggling; this piece attempts to unravel some of them.

India must be the only country in the world which now has two of its top leaders in direct communion with God: the Prime Minister (who is probably God incarnate himself) and the Chief Justice. We must consider ourselves exceptionally fortunate in this respect, though we still don't know with whom our third pillar of democracy- the Presiding officers of the two houses of Parliament- communicates. The evidence points to either Johnny Walker or Alfred E Neuman (of MAD magazine fame) but I could be wrong.

The Hindu pantheon reportedly has 30 million Gods (not including our Prime Minister) so it would be interesting to know which particular deity the Chief Justice had consulted. There is also a problematic dimension to this, as was raised by Karan Thapar in a question to retired Justice Rekha Sharma of the Delhi High Court: if it was indeed Ram lala (as most people suspect) then is not the whole Ayodhya judgment vitiated, since Ram lala, through his "next friend" is a party to the dispute? Even by our dismal standards of jurisprudence we can hardly have a judge consulting one of the petitioners in a case as to what type of order he should write! Justice Sharma would not be pinned down on this question, but she was obviously uncomfortable with the point raised by Thapar. It would be interesting now, wouldn't it, if some lawyer were to file a curative petition in the SC on this point to challenge the judgment?

Justice Sharma was, however, emphatic that Justice Chandrachud's admission had lowered the image of the court. What if it had been a Muslim or Christian or Sikh judge claiming that he/she had consulted his/her God before writing a judgment? There would have been a majoritarian outrage, charges of a "judicial jihad" would have been bandied about by the likes of the Assam Chief Minister whose career is based on his study of jihads, and all manner of bhakts would have descended on Jantar Mantar, like the proverbial "Shivjiji ki barat". In contrast, the present Chief Justice will in all probability be well rewarded for his epiphany. One good turn, or about-turn, deserves another.

Will every court now have a temple attached to it, for ease of doing judicial business? After reserving a judgment the concerned bench could repair to the temple (the five star hotel with the bar comes later), confer with the deity of choice, and then announce the order. Or, better still, why have these pesky and expensive courts at all, which are nothing but convenient venues for gangsters to shoot down their rivals?- replace them with temples and head priests who will function as the Registry and convey the divine orders. We could adopt the Himachal model for this, where the "devtas" speak through their spokesmen or "gurs" and tell the simple Himachalis what to do. I would suggest that a committee of judges should go to the remote Malana village in Kullu to study this model: right now the "gur" of Jamblu devta has told the government that the devta does not approve of the Kullu- Bijli Mahadev ropeway; in years past it was the "gur" who also approved the tour programmes of officials who wished to visit Malana on duty!

The complexity of the Pandora's box opened by CJI Chandrachud is mind boggling. There are approximately 17000 judges in India; what if each one of them decides to consult his or her family God before passing judgment ? There is also a strict hierarchy of gods and goddesses in our religion, which you tamper with at your own peril. This shall make the whole appellate process of our jurisprudence chaotic. What if the god of the trial judge is superior in the divine hierarchy to the god of the appellate judge? Whose judgment will prevail? And how will a Bench ever come to a final conclusion on a matter if the respective gods of the member judges are unable to agree? What if the senior most god (not judge) on that Bench insists on exercising his veto, like the USA does on Israel?

No, sir, this new jurisprudence will not work, not even in Naya Bharat. The Ayodhya judgment must be struck down as non-est. A Joint Parliamentary Committee should be immediately constituted to investigate whether the gods were also consulted while passing orders on a host of other cases- rejection of the EVMs petitions, denial of bail to Omar Khalid, upholding of the abolition of Article 370, multiple rejections of the bail applications of the Bhima Koregaon "accused", junking the Rafale case on the basis of sealed covers and redacted statements, papering over the charges against Adani and SEBI in the  Hindenberg expose, giving the quietus to the  Pegasus inquiry report, the disembowelling of the Places of Worship Act, the refusal to investigate the mysterious death of Judge Loya, and so on. We must know whether we are still a democracy or have silently, through a judicial coup, become a theocracy.

And Justice Chandrachud, of course, should stop digging, for he will be sorely disappointed in his attempts to uncover a destroyed Hindu temple under the Supreme Court.