Sedition and other traditions

Once in a while I look at my horoscope and follow directions. My forecast said: “You are far too willing to make value judgments at the moment. You must understand that, even though there are many issues about which you feel very strongly, this may be no time to impose your own moral standards.” I think Peter Vidal overestimated me. My enemies are not sure if I have any moral standards. I follow planetary dictates, first dump your moral irritants. So the first thing I wish to say is that I am all for the turncoats in Bengal, the ones who came all the way from Kolkata to rightfully pledge fealty to the Home Minister. True that they had the best of it for 10 years under Mamataji, car, ministry, private secretary, even goons when they wanted them. Incidentally, goons are recognised as genuine perks in the Indian political landscape. (So I wish them good, solid-muscled goons to whichever camp they have got into). Then, all of a sudden, conscience starts pricking TMC types. How can true gentlemen resist? And there are of course the Narcotics Bureau, NIA, CBI and ED, watching you with your record of misdoings earlier. Except in that one seat, Nandigram, may the turncoats (meaning floor crossers, ship-jumpers) win. May laurel wreaths encircle their ever so slightly moth-eaten brows. It is a fine war, the raucous versus the shrill. I would prefer the whimsical side to the one with telescopic rifles. But much can be said for ideology spread out on the beaten track, mixed with gravel and tar, and levelled by a steam-roller from Gujarat. Jai ho, I abide by Peter Vidal’s advice, and take no sides.

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I also commend the Home Ministry’s plan to send 50 companies from Central police forces to Bengal for election duties. Small question, have they sent this kind of force for similar duties in BJP-ruled states?

And I lambast the naysayers who scream, why have these Central agencies not targeted a single BJP man? Because BJP is a swacch party, clean, newly washed in the Ganga. Gujarat is its stronghold. Apart from Nirav Modi and a Choksi or two, Gujarat has a very clean record, a land of vegetarians. It also makes life easier for the agencies. With two-thirds of politicos in BJP, they have only a few people to watch — meaning pursue their hawala contacts, diwala papers, fake bankruptcies, accounts in Panama or Jersey islands, that kind of stuff.

Keeping Peter Vidal in view, one has to offer behind-the-scene support to the raids on the premises of film-maker Anurag Kashyap and Taapsee Pannu, never mind if the film industry provides the only entertainment during this dour, humourless, sedition-bandaged regime. By which I mean the polity is bound by our saviours, 153A, 120B and all such laws promulgated to straighten the crooked; 168 tax officials were searching 28 premises, from Mahim to Sion and the Thane creek. The numbers are mind-boggling.

In the same vein, am all for the Haryana initiative in reserving 75 per cent of jobs in private establishments for locals. Thank God I am not looking for a job in Haryana. What would happen to a pianist and a violinist from the Delhi School of Music, aspiring to a living in Haryana? Their dreams of playing a requiem in Rohtak or a sonata in Sonepat would not be realised. May reservationists thrive as long as they do not go over 100 per cent. People think this will be struck down, but the judiciary is short of time. The courts have not looked at the Malegaon bomb case for years since Pragya Thakur became an MP.

Talking of courts, I was taken aback when a Bench presided over by the Chief Justice of our Supreme Court asked a rapist if he would marry the victim, a minor. It will give ideas of an escape hatch — first rape, then marry. A High Court Judge of the Nagpur Bench, Justice Pushpa Ganediwala, acquitted a rape accused, saying “highly impossible (sic) for a single man to gag the victim and remove her and his clothes at the same time without a scuffle”. Paralysis through fear did not occur to her. She also talked about skin-to-skin contact when it came to a man groping a 12-year-old girl.

Law and order is a state subject, and crime and its investigation is a part of it. In a disturbing move, the MHA has handed over the Ambani terror scare case to the NIA without even consulting the Maharashtra government, which has described the move as “fishy”. With its allies, NIA, CBI and Narcotics Bureau, an aggressive Home Ministry thinks it can take over and do what it likes. The move will have a fallout on federalism.

Seeing the Home Minister folding his hands in front of the portrait of Bal Gangadhar Tilak on his 100th death anniversary, a stray thought struck me. It was the very same Tilak, great leader in the struggle for freedom, who was first charged under the sedition law (124B of the IPC) in 1897. Did this innocuous coincidence occur to Amit Shah that the police under him has gone into an overdrive on sedition? Jamia Millia and JNU bear the bruises, with the Delhi Police under the direct control of the MHA implementing this ghastly law, which has been dumped in UK. Is there an answer to this? Several, but one will suffice. Indian rulers are reluctant to do away with coercive laws once they come to power.