THE right to use violence against beef traders in Goa seems to have become as commonplace as UP (nicknamed Ulta Pradesh) and Madhya Pradesh. Celebrating Christmas without sorpotel (pork) or beef cabidel is unthinkable for Catholics in Goa, which is why violence was allegedly used in Margao to reportedly attack beef traders and shut them down. They were allegedly forced to shut down on December 23 and 24 by stick-wielding hooligans which could not be verified although there were videos alleging attacks on these beef traders.
General Secretary Anwar Bepari from Quraishi Meat Traders Association said beef supplies would be resumed from December 25 after Chief Minister Pramod Sawant assured these beef traders that they would not face harassment. “Beef sales will begin from 7 am on December 25,” said Bepari. Even after this assurance, it appeared that there was a subdued demand for beef this month, dampening Christmas celebrations.

LAWYERS THREATS
AT Varanasi in UP an SDM was threatened by a lawyer who did not want his case to be adjourned on December 24. The SDM was accompanied by a trainee IAS officer Ashrith Shakamuri, who bagged the 40th rank in the UPSC exam in 2022 and has a BTech degree from BITS, Pilani who ought to know the law. What prompted the SDM to hold court from his SUV was a lawyer who had submitted an application seeking an order around 11 am on Tuesday The report attached to his application was several months old, so the SDM decided to give a fresh date for an updated report to be attached.
This aroused the ire of the lawyer who got into an argument with the SDM. The lawyer threatened the SDM saying he would not allow the court to function, culminating in several other lawyers backing him to block the main gate of the court so that litigants could neither enter nor leave the premises.
As the SDM was prevented from discharging his official duties, he decided to hold court from his SUV. “I decided to hold court proceedings from my official SUV and announcements were made from the loudspeaker installed inside the vehicle to summon the litigants.”
This drama continued for over an hour as a bemused crowd gawked at the spectacle of an orderly shouting out the court cases using a loudspeaker installed inside the official vehicle of the SDM which was parked outside the court premises. Statements of parties were recorded near the vehicle parked outside rather than within the courtroom.
This prompted senior lawyers to approach the SDM with a request to return to the courtroom to conduct the proceedings. The SDM then went back to his chamber and later the proceedings continued.
What is astounding is there are provisions in the repealed Indian Penal Code and in its new avatar that clearly define what amounts to a threat. The lawyer who threatened the SDM with dire consequences and his colleagues who prevented ingress and egress from the court’s main gate were obstructing the administration of justice which constitutes criminal contempt of court.

ARREST LAWYERS
THE SDM did not have contempt powers but he should immediately have phoned the Allahabad High Court administration and also the DGP to arrest the irate lawyers who were obstructing him from discharging his duties. The police would have had no alternative but to arrest these lawyers and charge-sheet them. That the SDM did not act promptly maybe because of ignorance or because he did not want to escalate an ugly situation.
Sometimes lawyers threaten magistrates because the Delhi bar like those who practice in the Tiz Hazari courts are known to be aggressive. But lawyers are officers of the court who should not stall the functioning of the court in support of a disgruntled colleague.
We must realize that when our MPs physically attack each other outside Parliament culminating in FIRs, like the one lodged against Rahul Gandhi, lawyers cannot be expected to act differently. There was a case when lawyers in the Karnataka High Court physically prevented Justice Bangalore Nagarathna from leaving her courtroom in 2009. She was later elevated to the Supreme Court and will become the first woman CJI.
Another disturbing trend is to intimidate minorities like Christians from celebrating Christmas because there were stray incidents of Sangh Parivar groups and others from the saffron brigade threatening Christians and others in convent schools in some districts of UP and MP to prevent them from celebrating Christmas.
The opposition to Valentine’s Day as allegedly promoting promiscuity is well-known, but the attempts of the Sangh Parivar to intimidate schools and others from celebrating Christmas needs to be condemned given the fact that the Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI) invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi as their chief guest to celebrate Christmas on December 23.

RIGHT TO VIOLENCE?
SO, we must accept that the right to violence has become a way of life for the Goan Catholic minority within Goa and elsewhere. The right to violence may be defined as the opposite of the right to life as guaranteed by Article 21 which states that nobody can be deprived of their right to life or liberty except by following the due procedure laid down by law.
But when our lawmakers themselves proscribe non-violence and have been accused by the Opposition of allegedly standing outside the main gate of Parliament with sticks to prevent the Opposition from entering, we realize that our MPs who represent the state have a monopoly on violence which has permeated down to the Sangh Parivar.
The concept that the state alone has the right to use or authorize the use of physical force has been widely regarded as defining the characteristic of a modern state. The German sociologist Max Weber defined the state as a “human community” that successfully claims a monopoly on the use of physical force within a given territory.
Without the use of force, the Sangh Parivar cannot achieve its objective of one religion, one people, one language, one culture, one nation. Just as the dream of Akhand Bharat of SP Mukherjee, who justified the use of force to reunite what was then Pakistan with India, the Ba’ath Party in Iraq dreamt of one great unified Arab nation, eliminating all discordant voices of the minorities.
Ipso facto, just as the CBCI has arguably accepted majoritarian rule in Bharat, minorities who include SDMs and other subordinate taluka-level judicial officers in far-flung areas of India, will be chary of rousing the fury of lawyers who form a majority in these courts and throughout India. Mobocracy disguises itself as democracy in Goa. Catholics have the right to eat what they please during Christmas.