THE GHOST OF ADM JABALPUR STILL HAUNTS US.

                                    THE  GHOST  OF  ADM JABALPUR  STILL HAUNTS US.

     1976 is a year the Supreme Court would like to forget because that is the year it reached its nadir. Legitimising Mrs. Gandhi's imposition of Emergency, it ruled in Shashikant Shukla vs ADM Jabalpur that " under emergency provisions no one could seek the assistance of any court in India to try and save his life, liberty and limb." In other words, a citizen did not have a fundamental right to life or liberty when emergency was declared. All habeas corpus petitions against the thousands of arbitrary arrests were dismissed.The four judges who authored this outrageous and disgraceful judgement duly received their reward as all of them subsequently became CJIs. The lone dissenting judge, HR Khanna, was superseded for the post of CJI and resigned, with honour, something which the other four will be denied forever by history.

   In the forty years since then it seemed that the court was correcting itself and making amends for 1976 by standing up to the executive. But in the last five years or so we have once again begun to see the chinks in its armour when confronted by a rampaging executive: the Collegium is unable to enforce its recommendations( just today it has capitulated to the govt. and revised Justice Kureshi's posting from Madhya Pradesh to Tripura), " sealed cover" communications between the government and the court has become the order of the day, enforcement agencies have run amuck with no check by the judiciary, senior and respected lawyers have made public the irregularities in the allotment of cases to various benches, a perception is gaining ground that the judiciary has become totally unaccountable, whether it is the quality of their judgments or their personal conduct. The politician smells blood: the BJP Delhi chief earlier this year defied the SC by breaking open a house sealed by the Court's committee and got away scotfree, last month the Law Minister, no less, dismissed the Collegium's recommendations by asserting that his Ministry was " not a post office", last week a UP Minister proudly boasted that " both the Ram Mandir and the Supreme Court are ours!", and on the 17th of this month Mr. Subramaniam Swamy even pre-empted the court by announcing that the Ram Mandir judgment would be delivered before 15th November and it would be in favour of the Hindus. Displaying a tolerance and benevolence the common litigant rarely gets to see, the court has taken no action against any of these contemnors.

   And now we have the tragedy playing out in Kashmir over the past six weeks, and with every passing day of state repression the judiciary appears to be heading for a new nadir. In many ways the lockdown in the valley of Kashmir is worse than the Emergency- not just a few thousands but millions have been virtually imprisoned for six weeks now, schools are not functional, mobile network is cut, businesses are shut, troops occupy virtually every square foot of space, unknown thousands have been detained and no one knows what the charges against them are. Unlike in the Emergency, now only a particular people, a specific region is coming in for all this heavy handed state attention. One would have expected that the Supreme Court would not allow the ghost of ADM Jabalpur to rise again from the grave.

   That expectation is being belied. It has been more than six weeks now and a large number of habeas corpus petitions, challenges to the shutting down of the media in the valley, and writs against the J+K Reorganisation Act have been filed. In a shocking expose by the Indian Express yesterday, it has been revealed that as many as 252 habeas corpus petitions have been filed in the J+K High Court since the 6th of August but not one has been decided. 147 of them are still at the admission stage and 87 are listed for orders. The state is routinely being granted time to file replies, as much as four weeks. This defeats the very purpose of a habeas petition. But the courts have shown no urgency in deciding them. The Reorganisation Act has been referred to a constitution bench which is yet to take up the matter. Only one habeas corpus case has been decided, that of the CPI leader Mr. Tarangini. God only knows where the others are languishing. Three or four well connected politicians have been allowed to visit Kashmir- why not the other citizens of the state, the hundreds of students stranded in other cities outside the state, running out of funds or news of their family? Why has the Kashmiri press not been unmuzzled yet? Why are no questions being asked about this extended suspension of the internet and mobile telephony, fundamental to the very concept of free speech and liberty ? Why is the Court accepting at face value the govt's "national security" argument and giving it so much latitude to "restore normalcy"?

   Contrast this with how the higher judiciary in the UK is conducting itself in the legal challenges to the suspension of the British Parliament by Mr. Boris Johnson on the 29th of August. Within a week of this, three High Courts ( Scotland, Ireland and London) ruled on the matter, two upholding the govt's action and one striking it down. The subsequent appeals have already been argued and heard in the country's Supreme Court, which has announced that it will deliver its verdict next week. All signed, sealed and delivered in three weeks! This is how vital constitutional matters should be decided in mature judicial systems, this is how the courts should function as a bulwark between a rampaging executive and the defenceless citizenry, this is how genuinely autonomous institutions should function in a democracy.

  It appears that the ghost of ADM JABALPUR is alive and kicking. Kashmir is the judiciary's last opportunity to exorcise it- there won't be a third chance.

THE SKY CANNOT BE THE LIMIT.

[ This piece was published in THE WIRE on 4.9.2019, with slight editing, under the title: THE AVIATION SECTOR'S RAMPANT GROWTH MUST BE REINED IN.]

                                    THE  SKY  CANNOT  BE  THE  LIMIT.

   It’s just not working. The sixth Global Environment Outlook ( GEO6) report released on 13.3.2019 warns that even if countries achieve the nationally determined contributions ( NDCs) under the Paris accord 2015- which they are far from doing- this will be just a third of the mitigation needed to restrict rise of global temperatures to 1.5-2.0 degress celsius by 2100. In fact, it has stated that this limit will be reached by the middle of this century and is likely to reach 2.7 to 3.0 by 2100. To prevent this  emissions have to drop by 40%-70% globally by 2050, and to net zero by 2070. Instead, they went UP by 3% in 2017. We are staring at environmental Acopalypse.

   The problem is simple: the world, especially the developed countries, simply has to change its lifestyle, its reckless consumption patterns, move to a more simple and sustainable way of living. It has to waste less food and water, travel more sensibly, reduce its ever increasing dependence on power guzzling technology to make life more easy going and convenient, shop less, use recycled materials rather than plunder more from nature. It has to shift from consumption to “ nonsumption” and accept “minimalism” as the biggest NDC of all. One area of human activity which could do with more attention on this score is aviation, which poses a looming threat that most people are not even aware of.

   The global aviation sector accounts for 3.5% of total emissions, and in absolute terms the figure is expected to reach 1.250 billion tonnes by 2030 because of its continued dependence on fossil fuels. It has been allowed to grow like an unchecked carcinoma because it has been excluded from any restrictions under the Kyoto protocol; it is growing at 7.5% per annum ( the figure for India is 17%); the total number of flyers in 2017 was 4.1 billion- in other words, every second person in the world is a flyer!  There are 42000 commercial flights a day in the USA, 34000 in Europe. If this did not cause enough pollution, the uber rich add more than their fair share by the indiscriminate use of private jets: according to the website airliners.net there are between 25000 and 30000 private aircraft globally. The future projections are even more worrying: according to a study by Boeing 39600 additional aircraft shall be required by 2038, doubling the current number. The number of flyers shall grow to 7.8 billion. Just recently there was widespread criticism when the BBC revealed that 1500 private jets were used to ferry world leaders to Davos in January 2019.

   It’s not just emissions that concern us here; more flyers mean more airports, more runways, for which thousands of additional hectares of land has to be acquired. This land has to be denuded of all green cover, right next to urban centres which need trees most; thousands of families are displaced and fertile agricultural land is concretised with serious implications for recharging of ground water. ( The Civil Aviation Ministry in India has just announced the construction of 20 more airports). Acquisition of 5000 hectares of prime agricultural land has already commenced for Delhi’s second airport at Jewar in neighbouring UP; hundreds of farmers will be displaced. 4500 acres of priceless wetlands ( including 70 acres of mangroves) will be devastated for Mumbai’s new airport which is coming up in total violation of all CRZ rules. This can only accentuate Mumbai’s annual flooding woes and destroy the habitat of at least 250 identified bird species.Separate terminals and even private airports are being built for the rich and their jets. How long can this wanton decimation of nature continue ?

   This cancerous growth of a sector that caters essentially to the rich at the cost of the poor has to stop. Mitigation measures will not work- a recent report of the US Govt. Accountability Office( the counterpart of our own CAG) has stated that measures such as technical innovations in air-frames/engines, improvement in fuels, mandatory emission reduction targets or even tax on emissions will be insufficient to curb the expansion of the aviation sector. Governments all over the world have to find more draconian and innovative policies to rein in this monster.

   They should stop building more runways and airports, and if they do not, then residents of the areas effected should oppose them. This shall automatically restrict the number of flights. (A struggle has been going on for the last ten years to approve a third runway for Heathrow, with Londoners opposing it tooth and nail.) Railway systems should be upgraded to offer an alternative almost as fast but less expensive. In this context the plan to introduce 160 super-fast trains in India over the next two years is a welcome step, but the identification of the routes should not become populist: the emphasis should be to connect metros and routes where there is maximum air traffic. A single train can obviate the need for at least six wide bodied aircraft. Rail tickets should be subsidised: after all, if the govt. can spend tens of thousands of crores on constructing and maintaining airports, it should not balk at this incentive. A heavy carbon tax should be imposed on all air tickets to bring down demand; this would also recoup the subsidy on rail tickets. Private aircraft should be banned altogether: why should someone be allowed to pollute the air just because he has the money? The natural environment is a common heritage and everyone has just one share in it, it is not a corporate entity in which the rich can be allowed to have a “controlling interest”.

   A global pushback against rampant expansion of this sector has begun. There was a public outrage when the BBC revealed that 1500 private jets were used to ferry corporate honchos to this year’s Davos summit, with demands that they should use commercial flights instead. Megan Markel, the Duchess of Essex, had to face widespread criticism when she too flew the Atlantic in a private jet in February to attend a baby shower in New York. Even more interesting, BBC has reported that an environment group in Sweden has launched a campaign to persuade people not to take a flight in 2019; their target is to obtain 100,000 pledges this year: by March they had obtained 10000 pledges. They make a very important point: governments cannot do everything- citizens themselves have to exercise choices that are in the best interests of the planet and themselves. For, as the poet Mahmoud Darwish lamented:

“ Where should we go after the last frontiers?

   Where should the birds fly after the last sky?”

A REVIEW OF 'SPECTRE OF CHOOR DHAR" BY AVAY SHUKLA.

                                                     BY    ANIL     PRADHAN

                                           

 [ VISHWAKARMA PUB. AMAZON. 136 PAGES. RS. 180.00 ]

Avay Shukla writes with a flair which is unmatched. A true Nature Lover, the ten stories in his book, 'Spectre of Choor Dhar', weave a magic tapestry with words that transmute ordinary natural scenery to scenes of wonderment.

The raconteur is Onkak Yadav, the retired Chief Secretary, better known as the Collector, who lives in his cottage at Namhol village. The setting is the Officers' Club in the district headquarters of Bilaspur town near Shimla. The motley crowd consists of the District Collector, the Sub Divisional Magistrate, an IAS Probationer, the Executive Engineer, the Chief Medical Officer, sometimes the Superintendent of Police and a businessman or two. To this assorted crowd, the Collector recounts his tales of yore, enlightening them about places, myths, proclivities and a few home truths.

The writer's choice of words marvellously echoes the scenery that he describes. Early in his first story he writes, "Bilaspur's USP, however, is the picturesque Gobindsagar lake, curling around the town in a loving embrace as if loath to part with its companion of centuries past." A little later in the same story, describing the avalanche of rain, he says, "Claps of thunder blasted the stillness and echoed around the crags like some menacing symphony. The whole atmosphere was still and inert as if waiting for the arrival of some primordial force. And then the force arrived - huge dollops of rain cascaded down in their millions of litres ....."

The writer’s knowledge of his locale is astonishing. Every trek worth knowing in the state of Himachal Pradesh is listed. Every mountain and valley and stream is mapped out. In 'The Lost Treasure of Dibbi Bokri', he writes, "The Parbati river, as you know, originates from the glacial Mantalai lake just below the Pin Parbat range ...... It cascades furiously down its narrow, thickly forested, habitation-less valley .... before it confluences with the Tosh stream at the village of Pulga." In 'The Devta of Jiwa-Nal', the local legend of the Pandavas' wanderings in the upper reaches of the state is peppered with accurate descriptions of the locale.

Each story has an element of palpable suspense. In 'The Judgement', till almost the last paragraph we do not know how the wily judge will negotiate between the twin dangers of Scylla and Charybdis, between the death sentence and life imprisonment, while fulfilling his bounden duty with the utmost regard to rectitude and fair play. The ending of 'Ambush At Chanshil Pass' is chilling while that of 'The Lost Treasure Of Dibbi Bokri' and 'The Spectre Of Choor-Dhar' are both Hitchcockian. Equally unexpected is the way the lanky, expressionless, penitent representative from the Naxalite region is dealt with in the 'The Midnight Visitor'.

Cynicism is the leitmotif in 'The Cave Man Of Sainj Valley', the background being the Teachers Awards Day. The Collector laments that, "It's sycophancy and networking that brings awards". Be it the Republic Day or Independence Day Awards, or even the Teachers' Day Awards, the rule is, the more senior the more awards. The misandry and political give-and-take forms the core of the story, 'The National Park', so reminiscent of the hilarious but cynical BBC serials, 'Yes Minister' and 'Yes Prime Minister'.

As the writer confesses in his 'Introduction', "... his stories reveal everything about him". His love for the outdoors and for long, lonely, arduous treks, his intense passion for Nature, his utter and unwavering belief in Destiny, are all there splashed across his ten stories. The last tale, 'The House That Died Of Grief', is an intensely personal slice of the author's life. Yet, there is no rancour or bitterness at the way things are. Rather, there is a certain mirth, a certain joy mingled with a grin and an indulgent smile at the varied and multilayered dimensions of life in this world of ours.

At times, the reader may feel bogged down by the language used by the Collector while narrating his anecdotes. Then again, how else will a retired bureaucrat speak but in measured tones, using words which the assembled crowd of district officials encounter in their daily grind of officialdom. They don’t bat an eyelid .... and neither should you.

[ Anil Pradhan retired from the IPS as Director General of Police, Meghalaya. He lives happily in Shillong.]