GET READY FOR IPL ( INDIAN POLITICAL LEAGUE) 2024.

   I don't usually watch video forwards on Whatsapp lest I get FIRed by some cop in Hathras, but last week I did view two, and I'm so glad I did. The first was a short speech in his Parliament by the Prime Minister of Singapore in which he succinctly explained how elections even in democracies are becoming more like auctions. The second was an even shorter one by our Finance Minister announcing the decisions of the GST Council. At one point she alluded to a new tax on " horse trading" but quickly corrected herself and revised it to "horse racing". 

   Most observers attributed it to a Freudian slip. But a Freudian slip is more revealing than you would think, it is indicative of what is going on in your sub-conscious mind, a temporary revelation of thoughts you are keeping a tight lid on. Like the priest who blessed the newly married couple with: " May the two of you have a very sexful life." He quickly corrected it to a "successful" life but the cat was out of the bag. Or take the case of the Sikh gentleman who was giving a job interview. When the interviewer expressed some doubt about his qualifications the young Punjabi retorted:  "Would you like to see my testicles?" He meant "testimonials"- or did he?

  So I'm not sure that Ms Sitharaman did not actually have horse trading on her mind. Remember, this was at the same time that the Shiv Sena horses were being led to the feeding trough in Maharashtra; the govt. desperately needs money what with the fiscal deficit going north, and the states  screaming blue murder for their share of the GST. A tax on horse trading can be a reliable and substantial source of revenue for the govt., what with the BJP specialising in this economic activity and promising much more of it in the run up to 2024.

  Just consider the potential. A friend of mine who tracks the LSE ( Legislators Stock Exchange) on a daily basis tells me that in the last eight years at least seven state governments have been brought down by defections. He estimates that, at about Rupees 30 crores per MLA, this amounts to a market capitalisation of about 3000-6000 crores. A GST of even 18% on that would have netted about 600-1200 crores ! That would have covered the cost of the senior citizen concession on the railways, now discontinued, presumably to raise funds for the Bullet train ( shortly to be rechristened the Canon Ball train given the pace at which the project is progressing).

  In the age of neo-liberalism the market decides everything, so why not let it decide the elections too ? In an earlier blog I had theorised that elections have now become irrelevant since the BJP will form the governments anyway, by hook or by crook, before polling or after. Maharashtra has confirmed the validity of my hypothesis. The people's vote does not matter any longer- they may vote in legislators from party A but in a few months, once a deal has been finalised, all these johnnies will simply walk over to party B, who will then form a government the people had never wanted in the first place. So why not do away with elections altogether, and replace it with an IPL ( Indian Political League) modelled on cricket's Indian Premier League ? It's a business model that cannot fail.

  This, I think, is what the Singapore Prime Minister had in mind. Let there be an IPL ( Indian Political League) every five years. Candidates throw their hats into the ring and political parties bid for them. The party which is the first to garner a majority in that state gets to from the government. There would be a minimum bid price for each state, decided by the CAG ( Comptroller and Auditer General) who badly needs to be given some work to do. This would be like the Circle Rate fixed by the states for registration of real estate transactions, to ensure that there is no tax evasion. After all the cricket IPL too has a floor price.

  Each party would submit its return to the IPL Commissioner, since the Election Commission would have been disbanded. (There would no longer be any need for it under the new system. Nobody would miss it since it has been missing in action for the last eight years in any case). Mr Lalit Modi could be offered the Commissioner's post, with or without Sushmita Sen, since he knows all the ins and outs, ups and downs and ifs and buts of the game. These returns would be kept confidential lest Mr. Elon Musk learn of the massive business opportunity available and makes a bid for it too. Were he to do so, with the US$ 42 billion now available with him again after the collapse of the Twitter deal, he would be able to form the governments at the Center and in all the states too, with the possible exception of West Bengal which doesn't take kindly to car makers. We certainly can't allow that, not while our own double engine A+A are around, can we ? And since there cannot be an IPL without cheer leaders, I would be happy to suggest the names of certain anchors of well known TV channels for the role; they have the required experience as cheer leaders of a political party for the last eight years, and though they may not be very good at kicking their heels, they are superb at bending the knees.

At one fell stroke, we would have done away with all those pesky issues of EVM tampering, Code of Misconduct, election petitions, defections, booth capture. The govt. would save thousands of crores in election expenses. The courts, freed of the baggage of election petitions, could finally get down to deciding the 100,000 pending bail petitions they seem to have no time for. Admittedly, the voter would no longer be relevant, but then  he has had no place in the democratic process in any case since 2014. Polling booths have already been replaced with 5 star resorts, governments are formed in Raj Bhavans and not in Vidhan Sabhas. The IPL would exemplify the apogee of the ease of doing business: instead of bribing millions of voters, it would be so much easier to strike a deal with a few dozen candidates. It would be cheaper too.

With horse trading now becoming legit, Mrs. Sitharaman could now move in with her GST. I would suggest that the tax be kept at the maximum slab of 28% applicable for "sin goods" since there is no greater sin than selling your conscience to the highest bidder. My earlier mentioned friend (who could have been the CAG if he had taken a greater interest in coal mines or 2G Spectrum, like Mr. Vinod Rai) tells me that in just one general election the govt. can rake in about Rs. 5000 crore from this tax. And here's the beauty: the Central govt. would not have to share this with the states as they can impose a similar tax on horse trading in state elections! This would be one horse race where there cannot be any losers ( except, of course, the voter but he's been a loser since 1947 and is content with his fate).

Indian democracy would finally have come of age, and our tryst with destiny would be complete. Who says you can take a horse to Wardha  but cannot make it wink ?

ONE NATION, ONE ANIMAL FARM

   Animals continue to contribute immensely to Indian politics ( and here I am not referring to the herds which congregate in resorts before a vote, or rush into the well of the House to drink deep of the Pyrean spring). I refer to the genuine, self respecting quadrupeds who are increasingly turning the country into one animal farm , and without whom our political menagerie cannot be complete. Let me explain.

   Our obsession with quadrupeds started during Mr. Manmohan Singh's time, when the "animal spirits" were let loose to give impetus to our industrial growth ( and it worked too, with 7-8% growth every year). Then came the "caged parrot" observation by the Supreme Court about the CBI. Those were the good old days when nobody would have contemplated applying this phrase to the court itself, as some unkind people are wont to do nowadays. In any case the parrot looks more like a plucked chicken these days, but then who am I to intrude on a taxidermist's domain ?

   Then came the BJP's Amrit Kaal and suddenly all manner of animals appeared on the political firmament. First was the Jallikattu bull in the Chinamma shop which turned out to be a lot of bull. Then came AAP leader Mr. Somnath Bharti's dog who was accused of biting his wife, at his command. In the police station, however, the dog would only wag his tail, as Labradors are wont to do. Realising that this was a case of the tail wagging the dog the police had to perforce discharge Mr. Bharti. There was a rumour subsequently that the dog died of the bite but I have not been able to confirm this. Then Mr. Azam Khan's buffaloes made headlines, allegedly stolen. The entire police force of the district was deployed to search for them, which ended when it was discovered that they had defected to the BJP, where they felt safer and had been promised tickets for the next election, in preference to the usual bipeds. This was quickly followed by a woman in U.P. ( where else) alleging that a neighbour's parrot had been hurling four letter abuses at her. She lodged an F.I.R, the parrot was taken to the police station and interrogated. But all it did was whistle, a gender neutral musical note, and had to be ultimately released for want of heard evidence. The police suspected that the neighbour, the parrot's owner, was actually a ventriloquist but were unable to prove this.

   I recount all this simply to stress that we have always been fascinated by animal tales, and to provide a context for the current, well, uproar about lions. There is more roaring going on in India these days than on the Serengeti plains or in Masai Mara, all about the four lions on the Asoka pillar. But it is time to paws and consider the matter dispassionately. Though Mr. Modi has been given the lion's share of the blame, he cannot be faulted for this piece of carnivorous sculpture for there had been signs a plenty that he was about to let the cat out of the bag.

   The only lions in India ( if we discount the loins of Punjab) are in Gujarat- the Gir lions, and therefore Mr. Modi does have an Intellectual Property Right on them. It is only now that we are beginning to see why he has been consistently refusing to share the Gir lions with the rest of India and resisting their relocation elsewhere.- he was keeping them for the Asoka pillar ! And he doesn't like tigers as competition, either, which is why the Shiv Sena tiger has been reduced to a mewing cat and the Royal Bengal tigress quarantined in her own state.

   This is the age of the 56 inch chest and the poor Asokan lions with their regal gravitas have no place in today's India. A muscular India has no place for a meditative or pacifist lion- after all, Sri Lanka has such a lion on its flag, and see where it has got them. A resurgent Naya Bharat will not brook a Simba, or a Disney lion, not even a politely growling Metro Goldwyn Meyer lion. No, sir, fangs, claws and a roaring demeanour are the flavour of theday and the new avatars atop Parliament convey this symbolism perfectly. The question, however, is: is this message being sent to China or our own citizens ? If the former then I hope the PM's advisers have taken into account the aphorisms of ancient Confucian wisdom. One of them is: " A roaring lion kills no prey." I'm sure President Xi Jinping has brushed up on his Confucius- why else would he continue to grin like a Cheshire cat through all this ? Somehow I feel that it will take more than a couple of snarling lions, regardless of the angle/ elevation from which Mr. Hardip Singh Puri views them, to deter the Chinese from building villages in Doklam or bridges on the Pangong Tso lake in Ladakh.

  Meanwhile, of course, I continue to worry when the next upgrade to the Asoka Pillar will happen. Will it be after 2024, when the Parliament below it has been reduced to a purring kitten? And will the new heraldic symbol be the Bulldozer or the Sabre-toothed tiger, both perfectly appropriate to the times in their own ways? 

THE OFFENDED INDIAN

   If there is one quality Indians cannot be accused of, it is the ability to be sensitive- to the feelings of others, to the environment, to civic decencies, to social mores. One has only to look at their behaviour in public places or even a familial setting, to realise how true this statement is, unpalatable as it is. And the higher up the pecking or social order one is, the more insensitive one is.

  But a new, paradoxical dynamic has emerged over the last eight years or so- this crass insensitivity is now blended with an obnoxious oversensitivity to matters relating to one's own religion (not that of others), creating a toxic broth whose fumes are choking the life breath of this nation. And all this is being done under the shadow of a tattered Constitution, justified by the "rule of law", encouraged by all four so called pillars of democracy eaten away by the termites of the seven sins.

  We could all hear the chewing of these termites these past years but matters have now come to a head post the Nupur Sharma episode. The taking of offence has now reached pandemic proportions; not a day goes by without a dozen FIRs being filed for "hurting the religious feelings" of worthies who have suddenly discovered that a police complaint is one sure fire way of emerging from their miserable anonymities. More FIRs are filed for "inciting hatred", as if any further incitement were necessary in a social environment brimming with the bloody thing. This phenomenon applies to both the major communities, is assiduously encouraged by the ruling dispensation and other political parties, made use of by a darbari media to churn out even more profits, and allowed to fester by a judiciary which is either complicit, pusillanimous or confused, or all three.

  It is bewildering for your ordinary citizen like me, brought up to believe that we live in a secular democracy where the organs of government behave responsibly and act in accordance with the law. How does one reconcile these (perhaps naive) beliefs with beheading threats, demands for arrests for showing a deity with a cigarette in a creative genre, rejection of bail for tweeting a still photograph from a 1983 film by one of India's most renowned Directors, lodging of multiple FIRs against a Parliamentarian for saying that her Goddess eats meat or drinks alcohol ?

  This is a collective madness, a viral insanity spurred on by the government of the day, assorted "leaders" of various communities, and a police which is looking more and more like the private militia of whichever party rules in a particular state. The only possible antidote for this disease is the judiciary but its recent erratic, inconsistent and biased orders indicate that it is not up to the job, and may even be making matters worse by giving legitimacy to the actions of the rulers and the dominant community. It may be making the virus stronger, not weakening it.

  Looking for some explanation for this suicidal behaviour, I came across a recent interview with the author Amish Tripathi on India Today which made a lot of sense. Tripathi states that every society craves for an equilibrium of religious beliefs. This can be achieved either by all religions respecting each other, or by all religions equally disrespecting the others. The former ensures a harmonious social order, the latter a chaotic and violent society. Till recently India was fortunate in having the former, notwithstanding the occasional communal riot, but over the last few year we seem to be moving towards the latter, negative equilibrium. I agree with his assessment, the only one so far which makes any sense.

  But I have certain caveats, which perhaps better explain his basic postulate. The negative equilibrium Tripathi talks of- all religions equally disrespecting each other- sounds very much like the concept of MAD- Mutually Assured Destruction, where the equilibrium is reached only when the opposite forces are equally balanced, as with the nuclear deterrent of countries. But attaining this equilibrium in a country where there is a marked numerical imbalance between religions- 82% of the population versus 14%- is not possible through the certainty of mutually assured destruction, especially when the state favours the majority. Any effort to do so can only result in large scale violence, civil disorder and worse. This can only be a recipe for a dangerous disequilibrium, not equilibrium.

  The only solution is to strive towards what our Constitution envisages- Tripathi's first equilibrium- mutual respect , not mutual destruction. For this we need an enlightened political leadership, an objective media, a proactive judiciary not afraid to do its job, a bureaucracy which works for the citizens, not the ruling party. But most of all, we need a society and citizenry which stops feeling offended on the slightest pretext. To help this latter process we need to do away with outdated laws like the IPC sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups) and 295A (outraging religious feelings) which only incentivise the propensity to feel offended. They also provide a handle to the police to persecute anyone they wish, as the case of Muhammad Zubair shows.

  Most developed and progressive countries have done away with such laws, even if they once had them in the first place. They are disturbingly close to the Abrahamic tenets of "blasphemy" and, if not repealed, will only Talibanise our hitherto eclectic, broad minded society and cultural traditions. We are being pushed further and further down this dangerous path with each fresh FIR that is filed and each ambiguous decision of our higher courts. They have no place in a civilised society, for they can lead to ridiculous outcomes- just last week a man in UP was charged with wrapping non-vegetarian food in a newspaper containing pictures of Hindu gods, while in Assam a person was arrested for dressing up as Shiva in a street play protesting against price rise ! Such instances only confirm that as a society and a polity we are not yet mature enough to handle such draconian laws; it is like giving an AK47 to an eight year old child and then expecting him not to fire it.

 I am of the firm belief that neither Nupur Sharma nor Leena Manimekalai, and certainly not Zubair Mohammad or Mahua Moitra, deserve to be prosecuted or arrested for their statements, even if some people find them offensive. Their utterances are in fact a reaction to a toxic sub-culture that has been deliberately created for political benefit. Religions through the ages have evolved and reformed themselves through a process of questioning and debate; some have even branched off into different schools. If this dialogue is stopped by criminalising every statement or observation then there will be no scope for improvement. This regressive trend must be countered by erasing the ecology of hatred and anger before all space for rational discussion and questioning is extinguished. We would do well to remember the wise words of George Bernard Shaw: " All great truths begin as blasphemies."                                                                                                  If we have to feel offended, let us be offended instead by the poverty, unemployment, rising costs, environmental destruction, child malnutrition, gender imbalance, exploitation of tribals, the declining democratic values, the erosion of our institutions of governance and pathetic state of our media and judiciary that is rapidly taking us down the global rankings. There are indeed plenty of things in our nation to take offence at , but religion is not one of them.  

BED AND BREAKFAST ( BAIL COMPLIMENTARY )

    This is the century of Private Capital. While governments involve themselves in waging wars and making life as difficult as possible for their citizens, it is the private sector that is pushing forward the frontiers of economic development and spawning the innovations that will make life sustainable in the years to come. It is  private enterprise and entrepreneurship again which is (happily for all of us, but mainly for the double A engine) ensuring that governments are becoming more and more irrelevant to the life of the common citizen- whether it is Twitter and Facebook for information sharing, or Dupont and Suzlon for renewable energy sources of the future, or Amazon and Ali Baba for creating freer markets, or Baba Ramdev and the Sad-guru for conning us. It should surprise no one, therefore, that McDonalds and Coca Cola have conquered more countries than all of Mr. Biden's armies, or that the combined "Brand values" of just four companies- Apple, Google, Coca Cola and IBM is more than the total foreign reserves of India!

     In this changing environment, therefore, Mr. Modi is spot on in stressing the primacy of the private sector in developing the country's economy, in sectors as diverse as defense production, power, infrastructure, tourism, food processing, housing and so on. But he appears to have neglected one critical sector which of late has become a magnet for powerful politicians, bureaucrats, corporates and well connected criminals, a sector which is like, pardon the pun, a " holding" company for all kinds of dubious operators. I refer, of course, to our prisons.

    I owe this path-breaking realisation to a very close friend of mine who is a successful hotelier in Shimla. Looking around for his next project, his usual fertile imagination bolstered by a couple of single malts, he voiced the desire to build a five-star hotel in Tihar Jail of Delhi, exclusively for its convicted inmates (or at least those who could afford to pay for it, which would include the top 1% of our population). If this idea sounds crazy to you, just list out the crazy ideas of a few decades ago which now go by brand names such as Gillette, KFC, Otis, Hoover, Ford, Frigidaire, Durex, or by product names such as submarines, steam engines, telephones, airplanes, razors, vaccum cleaners, even the humble condom for God's sake! To slightly alter a Shakespearean phrase-those whom the Gods would make billionaires, they first make crazy.

     The more I think of a luxury hotel in Tihar the more sense it makes to me. After all, prisons in the USA and UK have been handed over to private companies for their running and management, and even Tihar has its own snacks making division, a furniture unit and even a food-court, all under the brand name " TJ". ( the brand is admittedly not yet a household name, but that's because they haven't yet invited Salman Khan to be its brand ambassador. That may change, however, if he is sent to Tihar in the black buck case ). Why not then a franchised hotel? Having acquired a Diploma in Marketing Management during my frequent spells of under- employment in service, I even examined the idea on the crucible of the three hallowed P's of marketing- Product, Price and Promotion- and found it a winner on all counts. Let me share this with you.

    PRODUCT. There is no doubt at all that there is a niche and unmet demand for this product i.e. a five star hotel in Tihar Jail. Firstly, with " Opposition mukt Bharat " now becoming a Directive Principle of our Constitution, the list of erstwhile VIPs gradually lining up for admission to Tihar is growing by the day. These include politicians who offend Mr. Amit Shah's aesthetic sense and Mr. Modi's sense of his own destiny, real estate barons, company directors who misconstrued " cash in hand" as " hand in cash ", bank managers who thought their NPAs could be cured by a sexologist, billionaires forever immortalised in the Paradise and Pandora papers, bureaucrats who felt that their fat pensions did no justice to their talents. This list may become larger if the BJP were to lose some of the  elections scheduled over the next two years, and may then also include some assorted monks, vocal members of the Sant Samaj and a few party spokespersons and television anchors who need a rapid course on defamation and hate mongering. And of course, how can we forget those worthies who were/ are already ensconced in Tihar or other jails, earning loyalty reward points- Sahara Shri, the Unitech and Supertech honchos or those like Mr. Mallya, Nirav Modi and Choksi whose reservations have already been confirmed but they refuse to show up, like the bad sports they are. 

    Demand for this product has never been higher since the country gained its independence in 2014. The flavour of the season is that fulcrum of the Indian justice system- the F.I.R or First Information Report. We have done to it a reverse engineering even the Chinese would be proud of- arrest first and look for the relevant offence later. Consequently, we now have an Amazon type End of Reason, discount sale on FIR's- hundreds on offer every day if you feel offended, hurt or outraged by something said, done, thought, dreamt or tweeted. The number of people being railroaded into our jails these days is growing at a rate even faster than Mr. Adani's billions.

    These gentlemen would pay anything to be provided in Tihar the comforts they are used to- this is the nub and heart of my friend's brilliant concept. Right now they get barely a fraction of the luxuries they desire, and that too by devious means-false medical certificates to obtain parole or to get admitted to super speciality hospitals, generous contributions to the jailors' post retirement corpus for special favours such as special VIP cells and servings of biryani, killing off a relative now and then in order to attend the funeral , simply to get out for some time.

    All this poses a massive headache for the courts and the governments. Very soon, other than the real estate dons and corporate bankruptcy specialists, there will be other corporate honchos wanting to sell their assets to get bail or liquidate their loans or to pay their fines- how many corporate offices can Tihar be expected to provide on the Sahara model? It is, after all, a jail and not the World Trade Center. No indeed, this is a deluge that the government cannot counter by itself-it needs the services of entrepreneurs like my friend from Shimla.

   A luxury hotel in Tihar would resolve all these problems at one stroke-five star accommodation, multi national cuisine, all corporate facilities, wi-fi, access to hawala accounts. Why, now that the courts are inclined to declare conjugal rights as a fundamental right even for a convict, the demand for honeymoon suites too is bound to, well, rise. 

   Just consider the other benefits. One would no longer have to hire an expensive lawyer to go bench shopping to constitute a medical board to recommend a special diet for one. The famous Sidhu cuisine- Chamomile and Rosemary tea, kiwis, sauteed vegetables, crushed almonds- would now be available on room service. The in-house photographer would be happy to take your photo with a BJP "fringe element" type like Gosavi  (that bald headed cluck who gave the game away in the Aryan Khan case) so that you too can impress the NCB and your girl friend at the same time. And when the good times return and all those hate speech anchors are locked up they can hire a conference room to hold their nightly prime time debates and feel at home. ( Of course, there would be no one else on the panel, but that's ok because these guys never did let anyone else speak, in any case).                                                                                                          Given the inventiveness of our private sector I have no doubt that soon the basic product would be tweaked to offer all kinds of special packages: for example, a Corporate Package (or discount) for two or more CEOs booking in as a group, a Bail Package for two days and one night for those who intend to stay only till their bail petitions are approved, a Nuptial Package( two nights and one day) for those wanting to be reacquainted with their wives, a Parliamentary package for our legislators, a Frequent Felon package for inmates gracing the jail more than once. Of course all payments will have to be made in cash since the guests could hardly be trusted with any credit -if they could they wouldn't be here in the first place.

   PRICE. This is not an issue considering that the combined wealth of all these worthies would probably be more than the GDP of all our neighbours, with the exception of China. And in any case the expense would be tax deductible.

  PROMOTION. Most of this would be by word of mouth and hoardings put up outside prime catchment areas such as Parliament, corporate offices of companies, Stock Exchanges, major studios in Bollywood conveying messages such as TIHAR- THE HOME AWAY FROM HOME or TIHAR-THE KING OF GOOD TIMES or THE PERFECT ESCAPE-TIHAR REGENCY. Being a captive market, pardon the pun again, the expenditure on promotion would be negligible, adding to the viability of the project.

   Tihar Regency would be the perfect product-a win-win for all: the consumer, the promoter, the government and even the courts who would be rid finally of all those frivolous applications for parole, health check-ups, attendance at funerals, sitting for exams etc.which so far have not served the cause of justice one iota but have certainly enriched the likes of Mr. Kapil Sibal and Mukesh Rohatgi no end.

   In fact my Shimla friend, known for his inventive mind when in close consultation with Mr. Jim Beam, proposes to go a step further: a bed, breakfast and bail package on the lines of the wedding package offered by the more grand hostelries. In the latter the hotel takes care of all wedding arrangements, except finding the bride or bridegroom. My friend proposes a similar but more inclusive package in Tihar Regency- hiring the lawyers, preparing and filing the bail briefs, even bench- shopping for the magnanimously inclined judge. And here's the clincher- full refund if bail is denied ! With such offers it would be a stupid man who does not commit a crime now and then.

  My hotelier friend is preparing a project report for submission to the central government. He still has one problem, though: where does he find a Chief Guest for inaugurating Tihar Regency? Any of the usual suspects generally requisitioned for this role may be wary of stepping into Tihar, since there is no guarantee that he would be allowed to get out after the inauguration ceremony. So, if you think you have an answer please do send a WA message to my, uh, cell- phone.

COINCIDENCES AND THE CONSTITUTIONAL DRIFT

   I don't like, or trust, coincidences and believe there is no such thing as a coincidence if something happens again and again.. In fact, I'm one with the Japanese cartoonist Osama Tezuka when he says:  "Coincidence doesn't happen a third time." This thought is clarified even further by Ian Fleming: " Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action." Okay, maybe not enemy action when it comes to India's superior judiciary, but certainly a disturbing pattern which merits a slightly more detailed response than the customary " Oh, shit!" which the morning papers usually evoke these days.

  Was Friday the 24th of June, 2022, a day of coincidences ? I ask because on this day the Supreme Courts of the world's two largest democracies gave two judgments that are an assault on human rights, individual choice and freedom and, in the words of an eminent lawyer,  have "stood the Constitution on its head." On this black day SCOTUS ( Supreme Court of the United States) decreed that women did not have a fundamental right to abortion and that it could therefore be declared illegal. The same day our own Supreme Court created constitutional (unconstitutional?) and juridical history by declaring a petitioner (in a case in which more than a thousand people were murdered) as a conniving accused and practically ordering her to be arrested, which an ever obliging Gujarat police did the very next day.

  The problem, however, is not with just these two judgments, fatal as they are to human rights and democracy. The real danger is that these rulings may not be just coincidences but portents of a radical ideological change, part of a pattern of illiberalism which began with Trump in the USA and with the NDA in 2014 in India. That they are not isolated, stand alone rulings but only the latest in a chain of similar rulings. That they are indicative of the fact that it is not just political governments that are swinging to the extreme right across the world, but also their judicial organs. Actually, "extreme right" is a euphemism- the swing is towards majoritarianism, revisionism and absolutism. 

  Take the USA first, before we come to our own benighted country. Jurists there are worried that, ever since Trump packed SCOTUS with right wing " conservatives" the court has veered more and more to the right and is becoming anti-liberal. In two previous judgments it has diluted the Voting Rights Act, disenfranchising hundreds of thousand of voters; just recently it has struck down a gun control law that mandated stricter background checks. Overturning Roe Vs Wade on the 24th of June was the third strike that Tezuka was speaking about. The pattern is all too clear, and enlightened citizens are worried that other hard-won individual rights could be next on the block: access to contraception, gay rights, same sex marriage. There are no coincidences here, just subjective biases of judges parading as law.

   We in India are in an even worse place because at least in the USA the government of the day and SCOTUS differ with each other on these matters, but in India the two appear to be on the same page, a "double engine" in current parlance, taking us to stations not envisaged in our liberal Constitution.

   The 24th June ruling on Teesta Setalvad, as with the SCOTUS rulings mentioned, is no coincidence. It was a cluster bomb waiting to happen. It has been preceded by other controversial judgments that have made the government happy: Rafael, Ram Mandir, bail under UAPA (Unlawful Activities Prevention Act), Pegasus, Bulldozer, Hijab, just to mention a few. These judgments clearly indicated that the nation was on a one way road to a fundamentalist autocracy. If further proof were needed, it was to be found in those cases which the Supreme Court has NOT taken up: habeas corpus, challenge to UAPA, Electoral bonds, reorganisation and vivisection of Kashmir. In the absence of any explanations for these delays, one would be justified in assuming that since these could be road blocks to the executive's political vision so it is best to avoid them and to take a detour. The Teesta Setalvad ruling is our own third strike, as it were.

  It is an unconscionable judgment and deserves the criticism it has attracted from former judges, eminent lawyers, international organisations and civil society. I will not go into the merits of the dismissal of Zakia Jafri's petition because many others more qualified than me have done so, and find even this puzzling (like some of the other rulings mentioned in the previous para). What concerns me as a member of India's civil society (or what remains of it) is the fact that a constitutional institution which is created to provide justice has now taken upon itself the job of lodging FIRs against a petitioner seeking justice !

  By stating that Setalvad and " all those involved in such abuse of process need to be in the dock and proceeded with in accordance with law" the Court has provided a handle to the government to continue its vendetta against her. How can any assistance to an  82 year old petitioner, whose husband was murdered and who has been waging a lone battle against an all-powerful govt. for 20 years, be termed an abuse of process or a conspiracy ? How could the Court have forgotten that, in its own earlier judgments related to the Gujarat riots, it had found that it was the executive which was indulging in abuse of process and had consequently transferred hundred of cases out of the state ? Did it not recollect calling the then rulers of Gujarat as " modern day Nero's" ? That it was this same Court, distrusting the state govt's intentions, which had ordered the setting up of an SIT ? That it was this same Teesta Setalvad and other human rights activists like her who had ensured that Bilkis Bano received justice after struggling for 15 long years? That it was her efforts, and not those of the Gujarat govt., which had resulted in dozens of convictions, including that of a Cabinet Minister of the then state govt.? Surely, Setalvad's credentials deserved some consideration ?

 The entire history of the 2002 carnage and its aftermath throws up one irrefutable lesson: that even the limited justice delivered so far would not have been possible without the unremitting efforts of human rights activists, workers and campaigners. And yet, the Court has now termed them as conspirators with " ulterior designs" whose only aim is " to keep the pot boiling", and has ordered that they be punished. This travesty of the judicial spirit, this telling the state to arrest an individual who has dared to challenge it, has been described by the noted lawyer and legal scholar, Gautam Bhatia, as a " constitutional innovation." At one fell stroke the Court has defenestrated all human rights organisations and workers who can now be legitimately prosecuted for taking up cases against the govt. This single judgment will do more harm to the human rights ethos of India than all the coercive actions of the NDA govt. in the past eight years.

  As Anand Yagnik, a senior Advocate from Gujarat, says in a quote to THE WIRE: " The order is constitutionally, ethically and legally improper." The Court has exceeded its jurisdiction, there was no reason for it to have gone beyond dismissal of the petition, judges should exercise restraint given the import of every word that they utter. This need for caution has been very well expressed by the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, John Roberts: " If it is not necessary to do more to dispose of a case, then it is necessary not to do more."

  If the intention of the Court was to effect the arrest of Teesta Setalvad, then, as ( retired) Justice Madan Lokur told Karan Thapar in an interview- " Heaven help us !" This judgment confirms my point, given the other rulings in the recent past, that our courts are becoming less liberal, are averse to taking on the executive, and are interpreting the Constitution in ways not seen before. They are moving to the ideological and political right, and it is no consolation that the same thing is happening in many other democracies including the USA and the UK (the approval to extradite Assange to the USA). It is not only the Indian land mass that is drifting towards doomsday - our Constitutional drift to the right can do more damage in the long run than the Continental drift.