The past few days have been frightening for the writer of these lines. The chargesheets filed by the Delhi Police in the communal riot cases are chilling indeed. Not only are they worded to ensnare the accused in a tangled web impossible to break free from, they also appear to silence all dissenters, critics of the present government, peaceful protestors exercising their fundamental rights in one devastating stroke. We are not concerned here, about the ‘scissors and paste’ job the investigating team seems to specialise in or their reliance on confessional statements extracted in judicial custody.
The admissibility of such evidence is doubtful in a court of law but that’s a different issue. The conspiracy theories that the policemen have spun are fabricated with thin yarn. Colorful these loose strands may be but they can by no stretch of imagination be considered durable. What has terrified this columnist, who has been a teacher for over half a century, is that a suspect who may have once been a student in his class, and gratefully acknowledges his debt to the mentor/supervisor in his MPhil, PhD dissertation or book may now be charged with poisoning his/her mind with seditious, anti-national thoughts. ‘Igniting Young Minds’—a phrase made popular by late President APJ Abdul Kalam—seems in the changed context, suddenly loaded with dangerous explosive criminal intent.
Any author using words like ‘Equality’, ‘Justice’, ‘Freedom’ can in this nightmarish contemporary reality be implicated in a criminal conspiracy hatched by any one not even known to him/her. In the eyes of the cops, literate maybe, educated certainly not, there is no distinction between ‘Leftists’, ‘Liberals’ and ‘Right-Reactionaries’, ‘Religious Zealots’ and ‘Assorted Fanatics’.
They appear to be following in the footsteps of Donald Trump for whom anyone who doesn’t share his world view and values is an Internal Terrorist. India, one thought, was far removed in time and space from Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia and Mao’s China.
Cops in Delhi wielding a very broad brush continue to taint anyone they choose (or think that this choice will please their equally ignorant and arrogant masters) with black paint of ‘guilt by association’. Salman Khurshid, Ram Guha, Sashi Tharoor, Jayati Ghosh and Apoorvanand, according to insinuations and innuendos, are smeared with guilt without fair trial of corrupting young minds and colluding in crimes against the Indian state. A dangerous doctrine is emerging that there can be ‘a meeting of minds’ in the realm of abstract ideas.
Most unfortunately, the double standards applied in cases of those hatemongers and rabble-rousers inciting violence enjoying protection and patronage of the ruling party has reduced the credibility of police to tatters. What is saddest and most infuriating is that it is not only the minions who are succumbing to pressures. Big Bosses have also been exposed repeatedly as harbouring virulent communal prejudice compounded by raging political ambitions.
The number of villainous ‘servants of people’ in uniform is multiplying. One is more shocked than surprised that the man who made crass remarks in rank bad taste after the death of Swami Agnivesh was once given charge of the CBI even if temporarily. The latest is the curious case of DGP Pandey of Bihar who has sought (and been granted) voluntary retirement for the second time to enter politics. One wonders about impartiality of such officers while they are in service.
Other colleagues of such cops have been in the news for all the wrong reasons—having links with smugglers to masterminding fake encounters. There are just too many predatory wolves dressed in smart black sheepskin in this Animal Farm! The courts, alas, have proved disappointing. They have erred on side of caution and accepted without applying mind what the executive has suggested through its investigators and prosecutors.
The draconian laws make it almost impossible for an accused to secure bail. The courts also have not been consistent in applying the same test in different cases when hate speech masquerades as ‘right to free expression’ of one’s views. Stinging rebukes are administered to some while others are immediately granted protection against real or imaginary threats to their life, limb or liberty. Intolerance to even fair criticism is with monotonous regularity falling foul of privilege claimed by courts and the legislatures. Let’s not forget that the sledgehammer of Contempt wielded to squash mosquitoes can soon become counter-productive.
These developments have dented India’s international image. Much worse, efforts to silence all dissent and treat peaceful protests as treason are alienating young Indians from the present ruling elite. From amendments to laws dealing with workers rights to farmers, momentous decisions have been taken in desperate hurry. Politics in the Time of Covid appears to be a tragedy worse than Love in the Time of Cholera.
Pushpesh Pant
Former professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University pushpeshpant@gmail.com