Law and disorder
The last time we had a midnight “tryst with destiny”, it felt momentous, life-changing.
At least, that is how I imagine it must have felt. That is how it comes across in the books I have read on India’s Independence; that is how my grandfather, who participated in the freedom struggle, and my dad who lived those moments as a youngster, described it to me.
Last night we had another midnight tryst with destiny — one that brings with it not promise, but dread; not a dream of independence, but the threat of a police state.
As the clock ticked over to 12.01 AM today, three new laws came into force. The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita replaces the Indian Penal Code of 1860 vintage; the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita replaces the Code of Criminal Procedure 1973, and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam replaces the Indian Evidence Act of 1872.
I just sprained my tongue trying to pronounce those three titles. I am not about to go into detail about the three laws — I know highly qualified lawyers who shrug and throw up their hands when I ask them for a breakdown.
What I do know, and think worth mentioning, is that the three bills were introduced on 12 December 2023 and passed on 20 December with minimal debate. (I wonder how many ruling party MPs of the 17th Lok Sabha can even, without referring to notes, tell you the names of the three bills they voted to pass, never mind the contents).
Also worth noting is that the bills were passed by a Parliament in which 97 Opposition MPs were absent because of suspensions; that 49 of those MPs were suspended on 19 December 2023, the day before the new laws were passed in the Lok Sabha; and that President Draupadi Murmu gave her assent to the bills within two days of their being submitted to her — which makes her either an incredibly fast reader, or a rubber-stamp.
That is one hell of a way to overhaul the entire structure of our criminal laws — and even as a layman with no legal expertise, it feels to me like we are heading for a train wreck of monumental proportions.
A good friend with whom I was chatting on WhatsApp late last evening called it the “demonetisation equivalent of the judicial system”.
Late last week, Justice Rongon Mukhopadhyay of the Jharkhand High Court granted bail to former state chief minister Hemant Soren, and said that Soren was, based on evidence submitted by the Enforcement Directorate in court, not guilty of money laundering. Which is to say, the ED foisted a false case on a then serving chief minister of a state and chucked him in prison just ahead of key elections.
In mid-May, when a Supreme Court bench granted interim bail to Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, Home Minister Amit Shah accused the apex court of favouring the Opposition leader.
“A lot of people in this country”, Shah said, believe that Kejriwal was being given “special treatment” — as clear a case of pressurising the judiciary as any.
These are just two of the more glaring recent examples of how the government has weaponised existing laws. What do you suppose is likely to happen under the new set of laws, many of whose provisions appear to be expressly designed to stifle dissent and create a police state? (Read this Indian Express explainer).
Two interviews worth watching:
Also read, a LiveLaw compendium of articles analysing the three new laws. And in passing, note that the first case under the new laws has already been filed — against a street vendor in Delhi.
The police in the FIR mentioned that the accused was selling tobacco and water on a cart near the main road, which was causing hindrance and trouble to the commuters. When the police patrolling in that area asked the accused to remove his cart, he ignored the officials.
Fiddling while country drowns
OVER these past few days, my news feed and Twitter stream have been flooded with images and videos of airport roofs falling, of bridges — five of them in the span of a little over a week — collapsing, of apocalyptic floods in Delhi and in various cities in Gujarat, in Jharkhand and elsewhere.
What struck me most forcibly about the social media posts in particular is this: Each successive disaster has been used as a political “gotcha” moment.
Who built the part of the Delhi airport roof that collapsed? The UPA government — go ask Sonia Gandhi. Who built the Rajkot airport whose roof collapsed? The NDA government — why is Modi silent? Delhi is flooded — Kejriwal should accept responsibility and resign. Ahmedabad, Surat and other cities in Gujarat are flooded — where is the double-engine government? And so on, and on, and on.
When will it occur to us that what is happening around the country is a climate emergency of biblical proportions, and that all this hue and political cry is distracting from the fundamental question that needs answering in a hurry: to wit, do we have a plan to climate-proof our cities, our infrastructure? (Never mind an actual plan, have we at least begun thinking that maybe this is something that needs attention?)
I’ve read the manifestos of the major political parties. The BJP focusses on “energy independence”; it has set a renewable energy target to be achieved via mega solar and wind farms and rooftop solar etc.
The Congress has talked of increasing allocations to the National Adaptation Fund for Climate Change (though what that body is supposed to do with the increased funds is not spelt out) and of creating an independent environment authority. It has also, in common with the CPM, spoken of looking into the serial landslides and floods causing crop losses, and promised to rescind what it calls the “anti-people” amendments to India’s environmental laws made by the Modi government.
Nothing in what I’ve read in the various manifestos gives me confidence that those at the helm of affairs — or those wanting to get their hands on that helm — have grasped the seriousness of the climate crisis that is escalating with each passing year. But oh look, the roof of a building inaugurated by politician X has just collapsed, haha, break out the memes.
Related: A problem with an incompetent government is that it is blissfully ignorant of one basic aspect of infrastructure: Building stuff is only half the story; systematic maintenance is the other, key, part of smooth functioning.
A case in point: After the Delhi T1 collapse, the Minister for Civil Aviation Minister (quick, do you know his name, without googling?) said he has ordered a structural audit of all airports around the country. Seriously? Does it take the collapse of the roof of an airport in the nation’s capital to do what should be a matter of routine?
Politics, in briefs
The BJP takeover of Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) is now complete. A week ago, a senior BJP leader in the Bihar unit of the party had unilaterally announced that the BJP would lead the next government in the state. (Elections are due for the state assembly in the last quarter of 2025). Now, Kumar has announced that the party’s Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Kumar Jha will be the party’s working president, while Kumar retains the post of national president.
Who was the previous working president? Simple — no one. This is a newly created post — and the catch is that Jha, formerly a crony of the late Arun Jaitley, has since transferred his allegiance to Amit Shah, who therefore now holds the remote control for the JD(U). Consider this move the BJP’s insurance cover against Kumar suffering one of his periodic attacks of conscience and flipping sides again.
In the ongoing battle between Amit Shah and Adityanath, score one for the latter. The UP CM has managed to torpedo a possible fourth extension to Chief Secretary Durga Shanker Mishra, a Modi/Shah appointee in Lucknow, and has named his most trusted bureaucrat Manoj Kumar Singh to the post.
Also in UP: Various media houses have published stories on the outcome of a meeting held to review the recent poll debacle in the state. Here is one such, from The Print:
Sabotage by BJP MLAs and ministers in the Yogi government, a lack of synergy between the government and the party, non-cooperation from state government officials, a disconnect between BJP candidates and voters, and the drifting of Dalit and OBC votes away from BJP — these are the reasons cited by the BJP’s task force, consisting of 40 leaders, for the party’s poor performance in Uttar Pradesh in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. This report, compiled and shared with the BJP high command, is based on visits to 78 of the state’s 80 Lok Sabha seats. The team did not visit Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency Varanasi and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s Lucknow.
That is a fairly comprehensive — though incomplete — laundry list of reasons for the party slipping to second place behind the Samajwadi Party in the recent Lok Sabha polls.
The party, we are told, has taken swift action. Which is?
Earlier this week, Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath transferred 12 district magistrates (DMs) from constituencies where the BJP lost to the SP in the Lok Sabha polls. The transfers, which took place Tuesday, affected DMs in Sitapur, Banda, Basti, Shrawasti, Kaushambi, Sambhal, Saharanpur, Moradabad, and Hathras. Additionally, DMs in Kasganj, Chitrakoot, and Auraiya, which come under Etah, Banda, and Etawah constituencies, respectively, were also reassigned. These changes reflect the BJP’s losses in all these constituencies except for Hathras.
Since the 18th Lok Sabha kicked off with a series of condemnations of the Emergency declared by then prime minister Indira Gandhi on 25 June 1975, it is worth pointing to the proximate cause of that action.
On 12 June 1975, Justice Jagmohanlal Sinha of the Allahabad High Court found Indira Gandhi guilty of election malpractice, annulled her election from Rae Bareili, and barred her from contesting elections or holding elected office for a period of six years. (Gandhi appealed to the Supreme Court, and on 24 June was given a conditional stay; a day later, she imposed the Emergency).
What was she accused of? The full text of the judgment is worth reading. Quoted below is one particular passage (emphasis mine):
That the respondent No.1 and her election agent also obtained and procured the assistance of a number of Gazetted officers and members of the Police Force for the furtherance of her election prospects, inasmuch as the services of the District Magistrate of Rae Bareli, the Superintendent of Police, Rae Bareli and the Home Secretary, UP Government, were utilised for the purposes of:
(a) construction of rostrums and installation of loudspeakers at various places within the constituency where the respondent no.1 addressed her election meetings, and
(b) making arrangements of barricading and posting of police personnel on the routes by which the respondent no.1 was to travel in her constituency and at the places where she was to address meetings, in order to give publicity to her meetings and to attract larger crowds…
Those were the days, when use of government machinery could get your election annulled and ban you from any elected post for several years. These are the days, when failing to “help” the ruling party during elections can get District Magistrates transferred.
NB: On 18 March 2024, the TMC’s Rajya Sabha MP Saket Gokhale had filed a complaint with the Election Commission of India regarding PM Modi’s use of an army helicopter for an election rally in Bihar. Nothing has been heard of that complaint since.
Personal aside:
Last evening, The Goa Project (follow on Instagram and Twitter) hosted an online discussion on the present and future of news. I, being chronically discipline-deficient, did not prepare advance notes for my talk. My fellow panelist and old friend Supriya Nair (Twitter), by contrast, did.
For those who don’t know, Supriya is one of our finest writers, covering a wide range that encompasses sport (her football writings are timeless treasures), culture, books, and pretty much everything else that captures her attention. She later moved on to edit and present FiftyTwo, a site dedicated to beautifully researched, written and edited in-depth articles on a wide range of themes. (The site has ceased operations, but dig through the archives and you’ll strike gold.)
Supriya, being the meticulous sort, did make speaking notes. Here, read. (And subscribe to her Substack). (Must say that compelling as she was, the best part of the evening was the extended question and answer session with a highly engaged audience).
PS: As and when The Goa Project puts up the recording of the session, I’ll post it here.
Hello Prem, hope you’re doing well.
Thanks for all the insightful articles over the last few months.
Do you have a “buy me a coffee” link by any chance? Or one if its equivalents