“Unka Sankalp, Vipareet Bharat”
“Sab ka Naash, Sab ka Vinaash”
IS our “mother of democracy” in a state of coma? There should actually be no valid reason to ask this question when we know that the “mother” has been in a deep sleep and unconscious for the last 10-and-a-half years. Some may reject this diagnosis since we have a government in place, a prime minister reportedly in office, parliament and state legislatures working and the doors of judiciary never closed! The question that WE, THE PEOPLE should ask is not whether our democracy is working but how effectively it is working?
Haryana will be going to polls on September 5. Yesterday, that is Wednesday, October 2, the “Dera Sachha Sauda” chief, Baba Gurmeet Ram Rahim, walked out of Rohtak jail for the 11th time after his conviction and incarceration from 2017 onwards. Seven out of 11 times, his parole was during or before elections in Haryana, Punjab or Rajasthan. The religious chief Baba has been convicted from raping two of his women disciples and also for his involvement in the murder of a senior journalist. The Baba is currently serving a 20-year-jail term in Rohtak jail in Haryana. This time, his release on parole just before the Haryana assembly elections is obviously a typical example of a drowning BJP catching a Baba straw. The Baba, under a government order, will be in his headquarters in Uttar Pradesh, and will not participate in any way in the Haryana electioneering.
In these days of technology, physical barriers do not make any sense. Nobody doubts Baba’s capacity to influence the voting behavior of his followers, whether he is in Baghpat or in Rohtak. But Baba or no Baba, the BJP was already expelled from Haryana long before the elections. That may be one of the reasons why Modi and Shah were not seen anywhere in Haryana for three days before the elections.
DEATH BLOWS
IT is not only the pre election parole of Baba Gurmeet Ram Rahim which inflicts a death-blow on our democracy, there have been many more similar examples during the last 10-and-a-half years of the BJP rule. Umar Khalid, a Muslim student activist from Jawaharlal Nehru University, was arrested in September 2020 for his alleged role in the Delhi riots, he has been languishing in Tihar jail for the last four years without trial or without bail. The hearing of his bail application in the Supreme Court was being postponed every time by the bench of Justice Bela Trivedi on grounds of lack of sufficient time for hearing. Senior Counsel Kapil Sibal withdrew the bail application from the Supreme Court, ostensibly out of disgust at the attitude of the bench. Justice Bela Trivedi was reportedly working many years back as a secretary in the government of Gujarat when Narendra Modi was the chief minister.
Arvind Kejriwal was in Tihar jail for 153 days, Manish Sisodiya for 17 months, 14 days and Sanjay Singh for five months and 28 days – all arrested without any legally valid reason and languishing in jail without any trial. Arvind Kejriwal was first arrested by the ED and later by the CBI. All three where finally released on bail by the Supreme Court.
Democracy has been given a series of death-blows. Law, instead of being used to put into practice a constitutional democracy was being misused to replace it with an unscrupulous dictatorship. Fourteen Opposition parties which represented 45.19% of the votes cast in the last assembly and UT election and 42.5% of the votes cast during the general elections in 2019, had moved the Supreme Court in March 2023 against the indiscriminate use of the Enforcement Directorate(ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against Opposition leaders. Abhishek Manu Singhvi, the senior counsel alleged that 95% of the cases filed by the ED and the CBI were against Opposition leaders. He wanted the Supreme Court to frame pre-arrest and post-arrest guidelines for the ED and the CBI. The Chief Justice of India observed that the Supreme Court couldn’t frame general guidelines for cases against politicians and advised Singhvi to come up with specific cases.
JUDICIARY IS NEVER SHUT
THE doors of the Judiciary are never closed. But a Judiciary which fails to protect the fundamental rights of citizens can be of a very little use to our democracy. Legal experts often point out that there are three sensitive cases pending in the Supreme Court that can allow it to stop misuse of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), but the Supreme Court’s inability to hear these cases on a priority basis is, to say the least, objectionable.
The mother of democracy has been in a coma. The Supreme Court seems to be watching helplessly. WE, THE PEOPLE have shown the way in recent Lok Sabha elections. It is only WE, THE PEOPLE who can now revive and protect our democracy.
