SPEAK UP ! - THEY'RE COMING FOR YOU ANYWAY.

    Anyone with even an iota of intelligence and an understanding of our dysfunctional legal eco-system knows that there is something deeply problematic and rotten with the Aryan Khan case. The NCB ( Narcotics Control Bureau)'s conduct is deeply suspect, even without the personal allegations now levelled against its Zonal Director Sameer Wankhade. The entire case, with its political and criminal "witnesses", blank "panchnamas", allegations of extortions and bribes by the NCB's own witnesses, deliberate leaks of irrelevant two year old Whatsapp chats, desperate attempts to fabricate a " conspiracy" where none exists, conjectures of an international cartel without any evidence, repeated refusal of lower courts to grant bail, has exposed the agency's own rot, along with that of the Union Home Ministry, the judiciary and the press. Its hounding of a 23 year old boy who had neither consumed, nor was in possession of, any drugs makes no legal sense. The seized drugs amount to about 1.50 grammes per accused, and yet the NCB is more interested in pursuing this case than the 3000 kgs seized at the Mundra port ! It is now clear that Shah Rukh Khan and his family have been targeted, probably framed; what is not yet clear are the reasons for this.

It could be, as Pratap Bhanu Mehta points out in a recent article, that Bollywood's largely secular character is not to the taste of the present regime, which has decided to make it fall in line by targeting its most iconic face. It could be that the emerging Hindu rashtra cannot countenance the fact that the three leading superstars of Indian cinema are all Muslims, and has therefore decided to take them down, one by one. It could be that Shah Rukh Khan is not sufficiently supportive of this government- unlike the Karan Johars, Ajay Devguns, Akshey Kumars and the omniscient Kangana Ranaut- and had to be delivered a message. It could be that the real target is the Maharashtra govt. and Aryan Khan is only the bait-click. It could be simple extortion, as the Maharashtra Minister Mr. Nawab Malick has claimed. It could even be an opening gambit for the U.P. elections, just as the Sushant Singh Rajput death was shamelessly used for the Bihar elections last year.

   There are many lessons to be imbibed from this case, but the primary one is for Shah Rukh Khan and others like him who think that there is safety in remaining silent. This is a myth, it was a myth in the Third Reich and it is a myth in the New India. As a father of longer standing than the superstar, I can feel for him for the vicarious torture he is being subjected to, through his young son. But I am also compelled to point out to him that he has no right to expect any sympathy or public support for what he is going through, because he was found wanting when others were in the position he now finds himself in.

   Shah Rukh Khan has chosen to remain silent these past few years in the face of this govt's ever increasing excesses, hesitant to take a stand, refusing to be counted, hoping that his amoral camouflage of an abject " neutrality" would make him invisible and allow him to continue to mint his millions undisturbed. He said nothing when his religion was being attacked, on the streets and through legislation; when people like Kafeel Khan were being locked up for providing oxygen to suffocating children; when students from his own alma mater were being lathi-charged for protesting against the CAA (Citizen Amendment Act) and NRC (National Register of Citizens); when his colleagues and peers were being harassed on the same baseless charges his son is now facing; when films of other stars were being banned and prevented from being screened. Other stars of much lesser stature- Deepika Padukone, Swara Bhaskar, Javed Akhtar, Naseeruddin Shah, even Aamir Khan, among others- spoke out, not once but repeatedly, and most paid the price in one way or the other. But they continue to speak out. Not, however, Shah Rukh Khan- not one word of sympathy, not one gesture of support for the victims, not one whisper of condemnation of the lumpen elements or an autocratic government on a majoritarian high.

   But this has not saved him, or put him on our own Schindler's list. He is as much grist to the mill of a repressive govt. as was Akhlaq or that little girl in Kathua or Father Stan Swamy. His international contacts could not save him, nor his billions, nor his adoring fans, nor the imposing gates of Mannat. He might as well have spoken up when he could- then at least he would have been deserving of our support for occupying the moral high ground.

  The same lesson holds for our corporates and captains of industry. The voices here are even fewer- a Rajiv Bajaj here, a Parle there, an Anand Mahindra reluctantly tweeting in the background maybe. The others are content to smother the sound of the jackboots so long as they can keep salting away their billions in the British Virgin Islands or St. Kitts or Bermuda. But they are living in a fool's paradise too: when it suits the BJP's political purpose, or when they become inconvenient to the party, they too shall be subjected to New India's version of the Inquisition, as the Tatas found out some time back when they were castigated publicly by the Union Commerce Minister for opposing the E- Commerce rules. The charge? Lack of patriotism and nationalism, naturally !

  No corporate is safe if the ruling party can extract political mileage by targeting them, regardless of how much they might contribute to the Electoral Bonds or the PM CARES fund. As proof of this we need only refer to the attacks on Tanishq for its inter faith ad, the CEAT ad by Aamir Khan on fire crackers, the Jashn-e-Rivaz ad by FabIndia, the ransacking of the sets of Prakash Jha's movie " Ashram". Even as I write this piece the long knives are out again against Cadbury's latest Divali ad featuring- who else ? - Shah Rukh Khan. The attacks follow a familiar script: social media trolling and hatred, visits and threats by assorted vigilante groups, a studied silence by the government. And the concerned companies buckle over like ninepins even before you can say " Jai Shri Ram", pull their ads, worried about their Diwali bottom lines, and go back to various " Conclaves" to sing the familiar hosannas to the presiding deities of our electoral autocracy.

   But you can't buy peace from a position of cowardice, that way lies utter capitulation and surrender. Our superstars, industrialists and influencers should realise, after the recent events, that silence is no guarantee of immunity from persecution, that a leopard may change its grin but not its spots, that you cannot ride a tiger for ever- sooner or later you will end up as dinner. Time is fast running out. Speak up, or be silent for ever.

   

MANDI AIRPORT IS HIMACHAL'S OWN CENTRAL VISTA DISASTER

   In my more lucid moments ( which are now becoming few and far between) I seriously wonder why Himachal has a department of Environment or a Science and Technology Council at all. Neither shows the least interest in either protecting the environment or in exposing the scientific fallacies in the hare-brained schemes regularly manufactured by the state's unideated policy makers.

  The state has been exceptionally favoured by the Gods with the most beautiful, rich and diverse landscape, flora and fauna; abundant waters in its thousands of rivers and streams, and a climate money cannot buy. And yet, various governments since 1972 have been raping this god-given treasure in the name of a spurious " development", while their eyes have been firmly fixed on the cash registers. They have been deaf to the protestations of the people whose livelihoods, and even lives, have been destroyed in the process.

  For almost 50 years now the simple citizens of Himachal have been the ones paying the price of a " development" that mainly benefits the city dwellers in the plains and the few influential fat cats of Big Capital in the state itself. Tens of thousands of hectares of forests have been destroyed, landscapes disfigured, streams polluted, wild life decimated by hydro-power projects, unregulated construction, senseless road building, reckless mining and unplanned urbanisation. Major landslides and " flash floods" are now an everyday occurrence, buildings have started collapsing all over the state, road fatalities are increasing, garbage is piling up on the mountains and in the valleys, the traffic is a nightmare. To add to all this litany of woes, climate change induced EWE's ( Extreme Weather Events) are posing a new threat and challenge to the govt's planning processes.

  One would think that the state govt. would wake up now at least and realise the impending environmental and livelihood catastrophes, post Covid, that are staring us in the face. Right ? Wrong. The govt. is still in Mohammad Bin Tughlaq mode, busy challenging the NGT's very sensible 2017 order which restricts buildings in Shimla to two and a half storeys and prohibits construction in its core and green areas. And it is in this context that it has come up with its most stupendiotic idea yet- an international airport in Mandi district.

  The proposal, approved by the Civil Aviation Ministry in 2019, is to build an international airport in Balh valley of Mandi district. This is the most fertile, multi-cropped, irrigated agricultural land in Himachal. 237 hectares of land will be acquired for the project's first phase, which includes 202 ha private land and 12 ha of Demarcated Protected Forest containing rich biodiversity. 2500 farming families ( 12000 population) in 8 villages will be displaced, their livelihoods taken away. 70% of them are Dalits, OBCs, Muslims and landless people who had been allotted land by the govt. 30 to 40 years ago under the Land Reforms schemes. They will now regress into their earlier landless status once again.

  The effected farmers and villagers have been protesting against the project for the last 15 years under the banner of the BBKSS ( Balh Bachao Kissan Sangharsh Samiti), and they have been joined by environmentalists and experts, who have questioned the airport on social, economic and environmental grounds. But the govt. is not listening, perhaps because the project falls in the Chief Minister's own district and the Indian politician's instinct to leave behind a footprint for posterity, no matter how disastrous, has prevailed. He insists it will promote tourism, which is just not true. 

  It appears that neither any Cost- Benefit analysis nor any EIA nor any Social Audit has been carried out for this project. Nor will they ever be conducted in an honest manner because this airport cannot be justified on any parameter. Let us consider some of them:

[1] An airport at Balh is neither needed nor will it ever be commercially viable. The performance of airports in Himachal has been dismal. There are already 3 airports in the state within a distance of 50 kms from Balh- Jubbarhatti ( Shimla), Bhuntar ( Kullu) and Gaggal ( Dharamshala)- and none of them are functioning at even 50% of their capacity. According to figures I have gleaned from the COPU report of 2020-21 the average daily arrivals in Bhuntar is about 85 passengers, Shimla 13 and Gaggal 250. This totals to less than 1.25 lakhs per annum, which is less than 1% of tourist arrivals in the state!

   There are understandable reasons for the poor performance of the existing airports- the mountainous terrain does not permit long runways, therefore only small aircraft can operate, which are more costly on a per seat basis. This is aggravated by the load penalty factor because of the altitude at which the airports are located: for both these reasons the tickets prices are very high, discouraging even the better off tourist. Flights are irregular because of unpredictable weather conditions and frequently cancelled. There is no reason to assume the Balh will be exempt from these disadvantages, in fact it will be worse off: the existing airports are located in the proximity of Himachal's three most popular tourist centres which account for more than 85% of total arrivals. Balh is in no man's land, and any tourist flying in there will have to drive for three hours to reach Manali, and four hours to hit either Shimla or Dharamshala- not an attractive prospect, given the state's road and traffic conditions. Forget the fabled international tourist, even the canny domestic traveller will give Balh a wide berth.

[2] Agriculture provides an assured livelihood and the Balh farmers earn an average of Rs.5 to 6 lakhs per annum.  One of the vital lessons of the pandemic has been that salaried jobs and even self employment ventures are ephemeral and can disappear in a moment. Tourism in particular has become a very uncertain sector and will take many years to recover. Livelihoods based on land and farming, even if relatively low paying, are far more secure and stable.. But the Himachal govt. does not appear to have learnt this lesson, and is determined to throw 2500 farming families on the roads. Himachal has one of the worst unemployment rates in the country- 28.20%, and one would have expected it to protect livelihoods, not destroy them.  Running a few taxis and some dhabas with the compensation money cannot be adequate recompense for displacement and deprivation of generations old livelihoods. Furthermore, the state's track record in rehabilitating oustees is quite dismal. The Balh development refugees will join the hundreds of refugees from the Bhakra and Pong dams who have yet to be rehabilitated even after decades.

[3] This blind push for an airport which is not required also ignores the aspect of Food Security, recently highlighted by our deplorable ranking in the Global Hunger Index. Add to this the fact that Himachal is not self-sufficient in foodgrains. And yet this govt. has no qualms about foregoing the production of approx. 6800 quintals of wheat/ 5400 quintals of rice and tonnes of seasonal vegetables by diverting 202 hectares of prime agricultural land for an airport no one needs.

[4] The Balh valley is fed by three streams and is a veritable green lung of the district. The farmlands, with their bordering forests, provide a rich habitat for all kinds of wildlife and biodiversity. The large scale concretisation necessary for an airport, the attendant traffic, noise and pollution will transform this sylvan place into a pollution hot-spot. The valley is already flood prone, the airport construction will exacerbate this vulnerability.

  The proper course of action for the Himachal administration would be to take steps to improve the capacity utilisation of the three existing airports, instead of building another one at a cost of thousands of crores ( just the land acquisition will entail an expenditure of Rs. 2800 crores.) The central govt. may be able to find the money for its Central Vista project but the cash strapped state govt. is certainly in no position to do so. And, as a tourism force multiplier, what the state needs is not more airports but more heli-pads- a network of helipads in all districts, providing internal connectivity as well as connectivity with major tourist originating points such as Chandigarh, Pathankot, Jalandhar. And a well thought-out plan to encourage and incentivise operators to utilise these facilities. Heli ports are cheaper to build, need hardly any land, do not displace populations, have very short gestation periods, provide quick and point to point connectivity. What is needed is serious prioritisation and practical planning, not epiphanic flights of fancy.

  Size no longer matters in the post-Covid and post Climate Change world. Nowadays small is beautiful; it is also sustainable.  

THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT.

  The last seven days have been a bit of a mixed week for me, somewhat like what the Delhi voter got in 2020 when he voted for Kejriwal : neither fish nor fowl but a chameleon. And for once this dog's breakfast has nothing to do with our presiding trinity- the alliterative ascetic, the corpulent chronologist or the malevolent monk. They have, of course, been up to their devious tricks as heretofore but we shall set them aside for the nonce in order to retain some semblance of our sanity ( a rare commodity in this New India, you will agree).

  This particular hebdomad began with a news item sent by a friend who has an eye for the curious ( the other one is for unaccompanied ladies ). If you thought that the only problem with Indians is that they have been growing progressively more stupid since 2014, think again. According to research carried out by JNU and published in PLoS One, analysis of NFHS ( II to IV )data reveals that Indians have been growing shorter since 2012- the average height of the Indian male has declined by 0.86- 1.10 cms and of the female by 0.12 cms ! This is not only curious but also alarming, because average global heights have been increasing.             Experts opine that this is due to malnourishment, which is further borne out by the fact that we have now slipped to 101st place out of 116 countries in the Global Hunger Index, below Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal. I guess this was inevitable since everyone these days has to subsist on a staple diet of bigotism, minority bashing and lies, which is not known to promote the growth of either body or brain tissue. It may also be due to " too much democracy" and no doubt the Niti Ayog will soon look into the matter, just as soon as it has sold Rashtrapati Bhavan to the highest bidder. The building has a Double A rating and it is only proper that it goes to the " double engine" A+A duo who are driving India's growth. After all, growth of billionaires is far more desirable than the growth of your average Joe's height, isn't it?

  But as usual I have a different take on this. Per me, Indians are losing height because Mr. Modi is cutting everyone down to size, along with the economy and the GDP. Come to think of it, have you seen any Opposition leader who is more than 5' 8" in height ? The newer ones, the post- Modi breed- Kanhaiya Kumar, Mahua Moitra, Tejeshwi, Jagan Mohan Reddy, Aditya Thackeray- are even shorter. Of course, Mr. Modi is not exactly a bean pole, but then he makes up for it with a 56" chest and a beard of indeterminate length which waxes and wanes with the moon and his electoral prospects. Perhaps what we are witnessing under this government is a form of reverse-evolution: Indians regressing back to the Neanderthal Man era ( whose average height was below 5'). Neanderthalensis too was a man of few words and all disputes were settled with the liberal use of a club. Seems familiar ? Form and substance appear to be finally  coming together, in final confirmation of the promised " Acche Din !" 

   And now for the good news. How often have you torn your hair out trying to decipher whether your doctor has prescribed Allegra or Viagra for your drooping spirits , or whether he wants you to go to a cinema or have an anema to get rid of that tense feeling ? Doctors seem to derive a sadistic pleasure from writing prescriptions which nobody except a pharmacist can read, and sometimes even he cannot. I do suspect that this is deliberate, because when they write out their consultation bill every zero in it is clearly legible. Things have become so bad that I never trust a prescription where the doctor's signature is legible. My brother, who is a senior consultant and surgeon in Mumbai, confesses that he cannot read his own prescriptions! He has now delegated the task of inscribing them to his secretary who doesn't know the difference between a laxative and a relaxative; by the time the patients find out it's usually too late.

  Well, folks, all that's about to change: a High Court has fined three doctors Rs. 5000/ each for writing illegible prescriptions and reports. It was a medico-legal case and the doctors' bad handwriting was held to be an obstruction of justice since even the court could not figure out what they had written! Just imagine if a post mortem report reads  " death caused by a  sharp wife" when what is intended to be stated is " death caused by a sharp knife " ? Indeed, the court has rendered yeoman's service to future generations. Neerja says she can now sleep easy, knowing that what I suffer from is dyspepsia and not dementia. Though I'll probably get the latter by 2024, but that won't really matter because by then this regime would have lobotomised us all into a nation of halfwits anyway. Blessed are the demented for they will never know what hit them.

IS THE JUDICIARY'S ARAB SPRING OVER ?

   I don't know about you folks, but I found the obiter dicta by a two judge bench of the Supreme Court last week very disturbing. Hearing a petition by a farmers' organisation ( not connected to the protests) for permission to congregate at Jantar Mantar in Delhi, the bench asked the question: Do the farmers have the right to protest against the three farm laws when the judicial challenge to them is under the court's consideration and the matter is sub-judice? Further, the hon'ble judges perhaps gave a glimpse of their inner thinking when they also observed that the farmers have " strangled" Delhi for months and now have the temerity to want to come to Jantar Mantar. They have now proposed to deliberate on these issues.

  Where was the need for these comments when the matter is already settled, by the same court, none other, by a number of judgments ? The latest was in December 2020 when  CJI Bobde, in a decision of considerable import, pleasantly surprised us all by ruling that protest is a fundamental right, that public protests are permissible and legal provided they don't involve violence or disturb the public order, that the court would not therefore intervene in the matter. No circumstance has changed since then to warrant second thoughts, except that the government itself has been trying its best to instigate and wreak violence, first at Karnal and now at Lakhimpur Kheri. 

  Over the last couple of months some hope had been aroused that the Supreme Court had finally resolved to confront a rampaging executive, to stand up more assertively to protect the constitutional rights of the citizens, to become more pro-active. There were heartening straws in the wind, bold pronouncements, firm orders. Some of us even dared to hope that a kind of judicial Arab spring was in the air. But the questions now asked by the court on the very rationale of the farmers' protests appear to indicate a shift in the wind, that perhaps our hopes were too premature.

  For a lay person to understand the issues involved, a lawyer friend of mine has donned the mantle of  a Devil's Advocate and sought to justify the Court's latest queries by posing four questions to me. These are questions which must also be plaguing the mind of the average citizen ( not lawyers, they have all the answers!) and therefore it would be useful to consider them. I reproduce them below, along with my response to them:

[1] If farmers have moved the Supreme Court, what is the point of continuing with the protests? The matter is sub-judice, how then can the protests continue? 

    The answer to this is pretty simple, but since there is no politically correct way to say it, here goes: the protests are continuing because the farmers ( like large swathes of the citizenry) have lost faith in the Supreme Court. The credibility of the court has never been lower than it has been over the last few Chief Justices. This is primarily because of the perception that it is reluctant to confront the government, that all major decisions have of late gone in favour of the govt., and where that is not possible the matters are simply kept in limbo.

  Secondly, to the best of my knowledge, the protesting groups of farmers under the umbrella of the SKM (Samyukta Kisan Morcha), have not gone to the Supreme Court. Six petitions challenging the three farm laws have been filed by the Bharatiya Kisan Union, one DMK Member of parliament, one RJD MP, the Chhatisgarkh Kisan Congress, and a couple of others, but not by the SKM. The SKM has always maintained that the farm laws have not just legal implications but also economic, social and political dimensions and therefore the opposition to them cannot be limited to the court rooms. One doesn't play poker with a rigged pack of cards.

  Thirdly, in a democracy the courts are only one of the options available to citizens to challenge the government. A legal or constitutional challenge to an unpopular law is only the first step, and a threshold one at that. Even if a law is legally sound, it still has to pass the test of acceptability by the people- legality and legitimacy are two separate concepts and requirements. The Supreme Court can decide on the first one, not the second- that is a political and social issue, between the government and the people, and it would be unwise and unconstitutional for any court to interfere in the process by banning protests. Popular legitimacy is as important as constitutional validity for any law.

[II] Farmers have a choice to either approach the court or to hit the road. They cannot do both.

   This in fact is the essence of the question posed by the two judge bench referred to earlier. But they are wrong, as Justice Madan Lokur ( Retired) has reiterated in a recent interview to THE WIRE: the pendency of a petition in court does not negate the option to protest. The court itself has held, in numerous judgments, that the right to protest is a fundamental right in a democracy. It synthesizes within itself key guarantees provided in our Constitution: Article 19(1)(a)- freedom of speech and expression, Article 19(1)(b)- right to assemble peacefully, Article 21- right to protection of life and liberty. These rights run pari passu with Article 32- the right to constitutional remedy, and the two are not mutually exclusive, they co-exist, they can be invoked separately or together, in sequence or simultaneously.

  In my view, the doctrine which the bench appears to be postulating is dangerous for democracy, as an editorial in the TRIBUNE on 7th October has pointed out. In a democracy the streets are as important as the courts as arenas for opposing a government, more especially so when Parliament has been emasculated, as in the India of today. Any attempt to put a gag order on street protests by using the doctrine of "sub-judice" would be anti democratic and unconstitutional. All it would take to " strangulate" (the court's favourite word) any opposition to government policies would be one fixed/ contrived petition in the court for or against the policy. And this is not speculation: it is already happening with this govt., including on the farm laws. The Supreme Court should not make the mistake of believing that it is the only guardian of democracy- the people on the streets make better sentinels, and anything which ties their hands or gags them is to be condemned by all right thinking people.

[III] The farming laws have been stayed by the SC, so why continue with the protests ?

   Because this govt. cannot be trusted, either to keep its word or to respect even judicial orders. Remember the Rafale case where it lied to the court about the CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General) having presented its audit report to Parliament ? Or the Aadhaar judgment prohibiting the linking of Aadhaar to non welfare schemes, which is being violated on a daily basis with impunity ? Or the more recent Pegasus issue, where the govt. refused to file an affidavit even when asked by the court to do so? Moreover, a stay or injunction is an interim and temporary order and can be lifted at any time, it does not provide a permanent solution.

  Secondly, suppose the SC finally decides that the laws are legal and constitutional; the stay would then be automatically vacated and the laws would become effective. The farmers would then be left in the lurch, having observed the stay and foregone their right to protest. It would be well nigh impossible to rekindle the momentum the protests have acquired. And finally, public protests are a means of spreading the message throughout the country, in the absence of the kind of financial resources and lapdog media which the govt. has at its command to broadcast ITS propaganda and misinformation. Suspending the protests would adversely effect the farmers' ability to muster support for a legitimate cause and movement; it would also enable the govt. to quietly implement the three laws in an insidious manner, as it has been doing with Aadhaar and even with CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act). The status quo would favour only the govt. at the cost of the farmers.

[ IV]  The Supreme Court can fast track hearings so why not wait for the decision ?

   Once again, it's the lack of credibility of the court, based on its recent track record. The constitutional challenges to the farm laws have been pending for almost a year now, with no end in sight. Even the report of the Expert Committee set up by the court has been submitted to it a few months back but  has not been made public for some inexplicable reason, let alone taken up for consideration. This appears to have become a pattern now whenever some contentious matter concerning the executive is involved. Other important cases have also been pending with the court for years- Electoral Bonds, abrogation of Article 370, The Kashmir Reorganisation Act, CAA and NRC, UAPA (Unlawful Activities Prevention Act)- and even applications for urgent hearing have not speeded up their disposal. Once again, the status quo suits the government. One cannot blame the farmers for their lack of faith in the judiciary's ability or will to decide on the farm laws quickly, and therefore to continue with their protests.

  In an earlier blog (https://avayshukla.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-farmers-protest-does-not-require.html ) I had argued that the Supreme Court should concern itself with only the legal challenges to the three farm laws, and should keep away from the subject of the protests themselves. The latter are not within its domain, nor does it have the expertise or training to adjudicate on them. The protests are a politico-socio-economic movement to be resolved either in Parliament or in the country's public spaces, not in court-rooms. I stand by this position with even greater conviction today. It is not the job of the judiciary to pull the executive's chestnuts out of the fire. Any attempt to restrict or ban the protests by farmers can only weaken our " partial democracy" further, and create an even wider trust deficit between the people and the judiciary.

  One swallow does not make a summer, but it can at least be a harbinger of the spring we are all waiting for.

   

WHEN DID WE BECOME SUCH A BRUTAL COUNTRY ?

   Circe is the mythical Greek goddess- sorceress who ruled the island of Aeaea; any shipwrecked mariner who landed on its shores was turned into an animal- wolf, lion, swine- a fate which also befell the Greek hero Odysseus. In 1965 Nirad C Chaudhri, the last of the breed of Anglophiles, wrote a book of essays on India which he titled THE CONTINENT OF CIRCE. It was his postulation that, for various reasons, the Indian sub-continent was a continent of Circe, turning humans into animals. Nirad da was roundly condemned at the time for this sacrilege and betook himself to Oxford in a kind of self imposed exile. Today, half a century later, he has been completely vindicated- we have become a country of beasts, not so much of the lion and wolf variety as that of the porcine one.

  Anyone who has been surprised by the police violence and deaths in Darrang district of Assam last week, or by the murder of a Kanpur businessman in a Gorakhpur hotel by six policemen this past Wednesday , must have been in a coma these last seven years. Because the hatred, the viciousness of majoritarianism, the intolerance, the complete lack of compassion for Gandhi's " daridranarayan", the total lack of accountability, the religious fanaticism which has been building up since 2014 has been there for all to see. It has been steadily spreading its poisonous tentacles as the BJP has consolidated itself and its rule. Geographically, it has gone beyond the Hindu heartland, even into hitherto untouched north-east; it has infected government agencies and services, including the Army and the IAS; it has captured most of the media; it has occupied the mind spaces of society to a point where men have lost their reason and have become, well, swines.

  It began, of course, as all bad things do, with the government of the day, ably supported and instigated by the shadowy figures in Nagpur. The strategy functioned/ functions at three levels. One, push through policies to disempower and de-identify all minorities, especially the "abbajans". Secondly, encourage second rung leaders to make open and provocative statements targeting minorities, dissidents, farmers, journalists, even inconvenient industrialists, so that the message is clearly understood. Third, let loose the hounds as in Muzzafarnagar and north-east Delhi , our own made-in-India Ku Klux Klan, with firm directions to the police to act as facilitators for the violence. And the rot has set in deep within the government itself.

  The brutality shows when  a young rape victim is forcibly cremated at midnight by an administration which later tells a court that absence of spermatozoa means no rape took place; it shows when 500 farmers are allowed to die at protest sites and the Prime Minister cannot spare even one tweet of sympathy; it shows when millions of migrants are compelled to trudge hundreds of miles to their homes, with the administration lathi-charging them and hosing them with pesticides to hurry them along; it shows when the government says no Covid victim died of lack of oxygen; it shows when students are beaten up in their hostels and libraries, millions disenfranchised as citizens of the country on the basis of a dodgy immigration policy, when you can be shot to death for having a lathi in your hands. It is an endless litany, and after a while the brain stops registering anything except a passive acceptance of our depravation and brutalisation.

  Responding to the dog whistles from Delhi the administration has become totally insensitive and heartless, as exemplified by the NITI AYOG CEO's assertion that we " have too much democracy." Sovereign violence is the answer to any protest, cases against victims the response to mob lynchings. The police in most states are now totally unaccountable, encounter killings a standard SOP, sedition and the UAPA (Unlawful Activities Prevention Act) the weapons of first resort for a blood thirsty apparatus. Even the elite civil services have been infected by the virus of power lust. The SDM of Karnal who has interpreted the CRPC to be  some kind of a Handbook on Savagery is, unfortunately, not the only civil servant to do so, he is only the latest example of what happens when the bureaucracy imbibes the perverted values of its political masters. There have been at least seven documented incidents in the recent past alone when officers of the level of District Magistrate/ Sub Divisional Magistrate have displayed utter savagery and a particular ideological bent of mind in dealing with the public.                                                                                                                                                       An IAS officer slaps a young boy on a road in Shahjapur district of MP for no ostensible reason; Prakash Singh Rajput, SDM of Surajpur in Chattisgarh hits a young man and forces him to do sit-ups for violating quarantine rules; a District Magistrate in Tripura barges into a wedding function, intimidating and arresting people at will for the same reason; Ranbir Sharma, a Collector in Chattisgarh slaps a man and smashes his cell phone on a road for some imagined slight.  A magistrate has no legal authority to use physical force on a citizen, and each of these acts by these officers amounts to a criminal offence, but no attempt has been made to discipline them. This growing trend of civil servants behaving like storm troopers of an occupation force must be curbed with an iron hand before it becomes the norm, as it already has with the police.

  This heartlessness and lack of compassion or concern for the ordinary citizen has not spared the judiciary either. Taking due care not to antagonize the executive, it has fallen prey to the same disease. There can be no other conclusion when journalists and activists are kept in prison for years on trumped up or no charges at all, when hundreds of habeas corpus petitions are allowed to pend for months, when no action is taken on cases of forced encounters, when it takes a court three weeks to decide whether an undertrial who suffers from Parkinsons can be permitted a sipper for drinking water, when a man practically on his deathbed is refused bail on medical grounds, when a woman who accuses a judge of improper sexual advances can be dismissed from service and put under surveillance.

  The less said about the major part of the media- print and television- the better. They resemble nothing better than a pack of hyenas feeding off the offal thrown them by a contemptuous executive. Their complete lack of humanity and empathy was more than evident in the coverage of the Tabliqui Jamaat congregation, the exhumation of the still warm corpse of Sushant Rajput, the sufferings of millions of migrant labour, the demonisation of those who protested against the CAA and NRC, the state assault on students that happens every day, their complicity with the government in covering up the tens of thousands of deaths in the second wave. The media has mortgaged not only its ethics but also its soul to Mammon.

  But most disheartening and saddening of all is the brutalisation of our society as a whole. Under the onslaught of a government and a party which has an EVM where its heart should be, our collective social values have all but collapsed into a stinking pool of prejudices, ignorance, triumphalism and religious intolerance. Everything- every repressive action, every incident of state or vigilante violence, every police atrocity, every lie by the government, every distortion of history- is seen through a religious prism, and the hard facets of the prism sanctify and bless all misdeeds of the government and its minions. Underpinning all this is nothing but hatred- for Muslims, intellectuals, questioning students, protesting farmers, liberals, human rights activists, migrant labour, landless dalits. In short, anyone who questions the government or makes it look bad. I am appalled at the kind of forwards and messages floating around on Whatsapp and Facebook. There is no use blaming these platforms, as we are constantly attempting to do. They do the work of Dorian Grey's picture- honestly reflecting back to us the ugly reality of what we have become as a nation but refuse to admit. We may deny it but that will not change the reality.

  It is bad enough when the politics of the day becomes callous and brutal, but this is not irretrievable. Parties in power change, and an inhumane or harsh ideology can be replaced by a softer, more liberal one. But once this malignancy enters the apparatus of administration and the blood stream of society it is difficult to dislodge. We appear to be entering this terminal stage. 

  I am reminded of two lines form Lord Byron's Child Harolde's Pilgrimage which were inscribed by the distinguished jurist H.M. Seervai on the first page of  his authoritative book  "Constitutional Law Of India":

" A thousand years scarce serve to form a state,

An hour may lay it in the dust."

Has Nirad Babu's hour arrived finally?