An open letter to Justice Katju

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!