I do know why, and frankly I felt quite relieved the day, when a seemingly harmless ruling by a High Court sent my spirits soaring. In the dark ages we seem to be enveloped by, the Allahabad High Court ruling in this particular case offered a ray of hope. Or, so I thought; I was conscious though that the UP government, which had “named and shamed” ordinary citizens, would be loath to lump it. And sure enough the most populous of the states of the Union, namely, Uttar Pradesh, had moved the Supreme Court challenging the Allahabad ruling.
The UP government, true to the Chief Minister Adityanath’s style, had chosen to put up hoardings and banners with photographs and personal data of citizens who had protested against the new citizenship law, compromising their privacy and reeking of vindictiveness of the government dismissing them all as “anti-national”.
The Allahabad High Court took suo motu cognizance of the bizarre “name-and-shame” hoardings. The more clearly imperiled the safety of the “named and shamed” citizens and the High Court said as much. Enough reason for UP to move the Supreme Court which admitted the state’s appeal agents the two judge Allahabad judgment and referred to a special Three Judge bench, an exercise yet to commence.
In a State that has witnessed public lynchings and where the police is accused of violating due process via encounters, the government’s act of branding people in the manner is fraught with danger for citizens. The measure, in the words of the High Court amounting to a colourable exercise of powers by the Executive. Normally one would have expected the State Government to pay heed to the fears expressed by the High Court but certainly that’s not Adityanath Government’s style. Even as the Supreme Court is set to hear the State Government’s appeal the UP Government has brought in an ordinance to breath fresh life into the digestive name and shame hoardings.
The new citizenship act has been contested by large sections of citizenry on the legitimate ground that it discriminates against the Muslim Community protests have been staged all over the country against the CAA and the proposed National Register of Citizens. Several non-BJP Governments in the States have responded to these peaceful protests with a certain positivity but the BJP in the words of its spokesmen will have none of it. The BJP ruled states are obviously taking the cue from Home Minister Amit Shah’s unambiguous condemnation of protests raging from North to South and East to West.
Mr. Amit Shah sounded very combative in both the houses of Parliament while responding to the belated discussion in the Parliamentary Chambers on the Delhi riots. Shah did not hesitate to defend the indefensible. He defended the provocative hate speeches of his party men including a colleague in the Cabinet Mr. Anurag Thakur, Mr. Kapil Mishra and the Delhi MP, Mr. Verma son of a former BJP Chief Minister of Delhi. Mr. Shah went a step further down the road shown by UP observing in the Rajya Sabha that the Government would impound the property of the rioters, make them pay for the damages.
No explanation but a lot of “Shabashes” for the Delhi Police for having brought the situation under control in “Just 36 Hours”. This, when no less an establishment person than Mr Doval, the National Security Adviser to the Prime Minister was openly applauded for having “activated” Delhi Police by his personal intervention, namely, by visiting the riots affected areas in North East Delhi. The communal rioting in Delhi does indeed merit a fair enquiry, not motivated but one based on the ground reality.
To conclude I would’t mind repeating a paragraph which hit the eye with blinding force. Finally, if the exaggerated specters of anarchism and communalism have worked, it is because it is convenient for us to believe in their power.
It simplifies our political life by blaming India’s weaknesses at the door of internal enemies. As the economic crisis deepens, the calls for order will only grow. The anti- CAA protests gave us the poetry to resist. But the hard plumbing of our alternative politics is yet to be worked out. The establishment in New Delhi, I know, don’t think much of such reactionary thoughts.