Dear Justice Katju,
Greetings from the land that bears the burden of 90% idiots!
This is my first open letter to anyone. I am not writing this just because it
sounds cool or to garner any attention. I write this because I am compelled to
do so. I have been following your facebook posts for quite some time now and I
felt it was necessary to let you know a few things.
Let me begin with a bit of appreciation. I like it that you
are blunt and straightforward. I like it that you don’t mince your words. To
me, that means you are an honest and upright person if nothing else. So I think
it does hold some importance to write something to you. Were you a political
leader, in all probability, I would not have taken this pain to write this
boring letter.
My letter is going to delve broadly on two topics, Democracy
and secularism. Let me start with the
first. It seems that you don’t have a lot of respect for democratic process of
elections. You have admitted that you have rarely voted because of, well, “Sab
chor hain” theory, you are of the opinion that only violence is the correct
form of struggle for freedom and you have went on to call Gandhiji a ”British stooge”. You are a well read person sir and you must be
aware that it was a popular global opinion that soon after independence, India
would break down into several parts because of immense diversity and immense
poverty. While most of the so called Third world countries experienced
violence and bloodshed post independence, we remained united and our nation
provided a conducive atmosphere for democracy. We did this without any
dictator. Except for once during emergency, elections were always held on time.
Whereas the poor and illiterate took up arms and killed their fellow countrymen
in other parts of the world, the same category of Indians thought it better to
stick to the ballot. We might be idiots sir but nevertheless, we are mature
enough to understand the importance of elections and democracy for the
development of a nation. This is the reason that despite the insanely
growth-hindering policies of leaders like Indira Gandhi, we have come this far.
Do not under-estimate the power of a vote sir. You realize it only when it is taken
away from you. We are so mature because Gandhiji inculcated this in the
character of Indian masses. He brought out this brilliant technique of Satyagrah
to fight against the most powerful. He was a genius. To understand this, you
have to understand the nature of struggle. Violent struggles threw up people
like Robespierre, Marat, Napolean, Lenin and Mao. Satayagrah delivered Sardar
Patel, Ambedkar, Maulana Azad, Rajaji and Nehru. The defeat of Indira Gandhi a
few decades back and the victory of Arvind Kejriwal (regardless of what
happened post-election) recently are a testimony to the strength of the
foundations of our democracy. Power does not flow through the barrel of a
gun in this country sir. The social and political revolutions here are
bloodless. While I have all the respect for revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh,
Sury Sen among others, I still believe India is what it is today because we had
Mohandas Gandhi to lead us.
Coming to the functioning of our democracy, you stand
justified in your anger against the politicians. Political leaders have ashamed
us, looted us, squandered our resources at the cost of our development. They
should face justice. You are of the opinion that they must be shot. I would
love to know your views on judiciary and its components (judges and lawyers).
How about them? Should they be shot too? In my opinion, judiciary is the worst
performing pillar of democracy here. It does not serve as a means to provide
justice to one and all. It is simply used to protect the rich and the powerful.
Several politicians have been brought to the court of law. What happened then?
The case lingered on for several years in the lower courts. Then, one fine day,
if we were lucky, they were punished. Then, the same case which took so many
years to reach a decision was overturned and the rich and the powerful were
able to get a bail in a very short period of time. Don’t you think this is an
insult to the judge and the judiciary system? If it can be overturned so
quickly, why the hell did it take so long to reach a decision in the first
place? There was a time when decision
used to be swift. It was not always justice, but it was swift. Today, under the
garb of “due process of law”, justice is denied forever. Common people are most
repulsed at the prospect of approaching courts because to us, it only means
wastage of time and money and not a means of getting justice. Who is to blame
sir? In my opinion, Judges and lawyers are a hell lot more responsible for this
condition of our country than politicians. If we are to follow the medieval
method of killing by shooting people, I suggest we should begin with judiciary
and only then come to the executive.
However, to my relief, winds of change have already started blowing.
The rigorous scrutiny of the first year of the Modi government is a testimony
to that. Perhaps no other government in the past had to face such a situation
where its ministers were held answerable to their actions in full public view. Their
answers were seen and discussed by common people on social networking
platforms. If such an atmosphere of accountability is successfully established,
we will see a sharp decline in mis-governance very soon. Political leaders will
begin to realize that they will need to show up more than once in 5 years and
they will have to answer the questions. They will ignore this at their own
peril.
Sir, Social media has provided everyone with a lot of
information. Information is power. If Congress party had realized the
importance of this power, they would not have been routed so badly in the Lok
Sabha elections of 2014. I am hopeful of the better days to come where the same
information will also bring about the social changes which are desirable in
India. In other words, I am hopeful of a much better and stronger India in the
near future. May be if there is some way to scrutinize the work of judiciary in
a similar way, the near future may come still nearer. I know you don’t share my
enthusiasm and optimism but it doesn’t really matter to me.
I will come to the next issue sir, which is secularism. You
seem to be following the flawed and stupid model of Nehruvian secularism which
is totally unfit for India. It involves on the one hand, calling someone
communal if s/he shows slightest inclination towards the religion of the
majority community while on the other hand, appeasing the bigots of one or more
minority communities in the name of secular justice. The ideals of the
democracy are also selectively applied. Thus Nehru cruised ahead with Hindu
code bill despite fierce opposition from the Hindu community. I agree to this because
a truly secular state must have a uniform civil code irrespective of what the religious
laws say. The same Nehru, however, was found avoiding a Muslim code bill under
the excuse that after partition, Muslim community must feel safe. The result
was that this community was reduced to the status of vote bank and they were
manipulated on the basis of fear-mongering by the later generation of political
leaders. Thus they preferred to vote for someone who would provide them with
protection against a non-existential threat instead of someone who would
provide them with jobs and education. Even today the minorities are made to
feel the threat that doesn’t even exist and our social harmony as well as
national identity has been severely compromised due to this bizarre model of secularism.
A few days ago, I read that you called Gandhiji a British agent because he
invoked Hindu beliefs like cow protection in the national movement that
repelled Muslims. I want to ask you sir, why were the Muslims repelled by that?
I am a Hindu myself but I use the expressions like “Ya Allah” “Khuda Haafiz”
and “Khuda se khauf kha” several times a day. I am not repelled by
it and neither are my other Hindu friends. Those who considered their religion
above their nation would boycott the movement for any reason and are currently
residing in Pakistan. You seem to have totally forgotten about those who chose
to stay back in India, who participated in the struggle and who have well harmonized
their identities of being a Muslim and an Indian. A few days ago, Muslims of
Bihar donated a land for building a temple. They didn’t feel isolated sir. On
your post, I had given a slightly lengthy reply mentioning that several
regiments of Indian army have war cries related to Hindu religion. You think a
Muslim soldier of say, Rajputana regiment feels repelled or isolated when he
thunders, “Raja Ram Chandra ki Jai”? Or when a Christian judge sits in
the court and sees the slogan “Satyamev Jayate”, he feels isolated
because this slogan is not in the bible? Or any non-Hindu policeman of
Chhattisgarh feels isolated because the motto of his department is “Paritranay
Sadhunam”? You never answered. I hope you will this time. There are always
going to be people who are fundamentalist by nature and take religion to
ridiculous levels. For example, a few member of the Muslim community were
opposing Yoga and Pranayam because apparently, it offended their religion. We
do not need to pay a heed to such people. India is 80% Hindus and several
things in this country are going to be affected by its culture. End of story.
There is no threat to any religion through this. It weaves the secular fabric
of India very well. The sooner we accept it, the sooner we would have a country
with a proper religious harmony which has occasionally failed due to this
confusing and nonsense model which aims just at the vote bank politics. If you
are still reading this letter, Thank You! Jai Hind!
