Same-sex Marriages and Their Acceptability in Society

  My Odia Advocate friend Shri Purshottam Misra has requested the Supreme Court Collegium to recommend the name of a gay advocate Saurabh Kripal for the appointment as the judge in the SC itself instead of recommending his (for want of any better pronoun I have to use) name for the appointment as the judge of the Delhi High Court. This will send a strong message across the world that Indian Supreme Court is a great respecter of human beings irrespective of their sexual orientations. It must be mentioned here that Saurabh is a self-proclaimed same-sex married person to a Swiss gay, where same-sex marriages are valid. The aims of marriage in our culture are Dharma (Duty), Santanotpatti (Procreation), and Rati (Pleasure). All are intertwined, but in same-sex marriages, only the pleasure is the summum bonum. Among the Hindus, marriage is regarded as a socio-cultural duty. Marriage is solemnised not so much for sex or progeny as for obtaining a partner for the fulfilment of one’s religious duties.

The votaries and the supporters of same-sex marriage (gay and lesbian marriages) say that what is more important than Santontpatti and Rati is economic security, exclusive rights, benefits, protections, and responsibilities. Marriage is a stabilising source in society. It is very difficult for those believing in men-women traditional marriages to even think of any stability in same-sex marriages. For traditional marriages, same-sex marriages are anathema, which are perversions of the minds of two adults.

Same-sex marriages may be legalised by the Parliament and Judiciary but there is hardly any doubt that society is still not ready to make it a legit marriage. Marriage put the burden on men and women with responsibilities to the family and society which are totally new and unexpected in same-sex marriage. It is alright to lead a same-sex marital life but after a certain age, both will have the tinge and desire for the family, for which they have to recourse of adoption because they can never be biological father or mother of the child unless, of course, some scientific miracles happen. There is a difference between sex and carnality and that has been the reason that carnality has been made a criminal offence in India, which has now been decriminalised by the court.

Although some same-sex marriages have been regularised in some countries still they are vehemently opposed by religious and moral groups. All religions- Christians, Muslims, Buddhists or Hindus - disallow such marriages. Whatever one may say but there are no doubts that same-sex marriages are against nature and therefore they must be discouraged and deprecated. It is very difficult to imagine the mindset of those, who have entered into same-sex marriages. Lampooning, ridiculing and criticising apart, the momentum for same-sex marriage has been gaining ground at breakneck speed. The day is not far away when the supporters of heterosexual marriages will become the butt of jokes as opposed to gay and lesbian marriages.

If self-proclaimed gays and lesbians adorn the seats in the constitutional courts, nobody knows how much havoc they will cause in society. Therefore, it will be in the fitness of the occasion, that same-sex marriages should not be legitimised. Emotions and so-called progressiveness should not dim nature’s brilliance for heterosexual marriages that have stood the test for millions of years.

Petitions have been filed in many High Courts like; Delhi, Kerala, and Gujrat to bring same-sex marriages under the special marriage act. Now the Supreme Court has decided to transfer all petitions to itself and hear them to give finality. The court has appointed two advocates as nodal counsel. One of them Arundhati Katju claims to be a lesbian and is married to a senior advocate Menaka Guruswamy, who is also one of the arguing counsel for the petitioners. Their contention is that the non-recognition of same-sex marriage is discriminatory. These petitions are a sequel to the judgment in the Navtej Jauhar case, which decriminalised homosexuality.

The main demand of the petitioners is to make the Special Marriage Act gender-neutral and such marriages should get the same protection as are available to inter-caste and interfaith marriages. Let the people wait with bated breath whether the Supreme Court will issue a mandamus to the government to expand the ambit of the Special Marriage Act or would prefer to make a law under article 142 of the Constitution of India. Once it is legitimised then those who have been ridiculing and looking down on same-sex affairs will be silenced for always, regardless of its immorality and social disapproval.

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Double Speak, Deception and Ditching are traits of Pseudo Socialists

Strange are the ways of the governments! It is very difficult to understand why, at all, the Padma Vibhushan was announced for the late Mulayam Singh Yadav. There is hardly any contribution, which can be attributed to him to the country. He held many important offices but to the best of our understanding, he has never been known for any innovation or development in the country, cohesion or harmony in the society. It does not mean that awardees in the past were all worthies and deserving. There have been many Padma Awardees in the past, who have been abominably undeserving. However, if it is conferred on some politicians, people dissect them with a microscopic lens.
The only qualification that went in favour of Shri Yadav was that he was a pseudo-Samajwadi. He lived and behaved like a feudal lord. In fact, the general impression about Samajwadis is that they are double-faced. Deception and ditching are inherent to their nature. They will say one thing and do another, which will mostly be contrary to each other. There is no dearth of Samajwadis who will talk about dedication and simplicity but in real life, they are most possessive and ostentatious.
There is one old journalist in UP, who has been very close to Mulayam Singh Yadav, who would swear by socialism but would adopt all nasty and nefarious tactics to collect money. To grab the membership of some committees and commissions, he would pose to be a trade unionist but would not show even a trace of any work or struggle for the cause of the working class. The wonder of all wonders is this trade unionist will not work to save the job of any fellow worker but would assiduously play all dirty games to throw his colleague out of his job.
So much so, he would make all-out efforts and gimmicks to see that another worker becomes jobless. It is because of these traits; he has now become the most hated person, and everybody wants him to keep him at arm’s length. When he turns hostile to anybody, he stoops very low to adopt the most devious methods to harm him. It is a different matter that this imbecile is absolutely incapable of harming anybody because all his schemes and designs boomerang on him. Shockingly, his soul never pricks him even at this old age for what he does.
In the same way, Mulayam Singh Yadav had no qualms of conscience or regrets for what he had done against Karsevaks at Ayodhya or for that matter the protestors at Rampur or other places waging the struggle for Uttarakhand. But why the BJP government incentivise this double-faced, double speak socialist is hard to understand.

Judicial Functioning Needs Complete Overhauling

                                          

      I would like to recall two recent instances in the Supreme Court of India. Both are, of course, casual, and off the cuff, yet as Fali Nariman says that even obiter dicta remarks made by the judges during the hearing of the cases convey some message, although they do not have any bearings on the case. The first was made by Justice Ajay Manikrao Khanwilkar, who was a Presiding Judge in Court Room Number 5. An elderly advocate did not address the bench as ‘My Lord’, which has become the habit, but rather the nature of most of the advocates, particularly Senior Advocates when saying or submitting anything to the court. So much so, even if an adverse order is passed most of the advocates bow their heads and say, ‘obliged my lord’. In fact, this is an inexplicable expression when there was nothing to be ‘obliged’.In fact, it is the height of the sycophancy that lawyers have inherited from British courts. It is the time when the Indian judiciary with the help of Artificial Intelligence must adopt such ways and means of conducting the courts which should not be intimidating as it is in the present scenario.

      Most of the Advocates use the ‘my lords’ without conjuring any meaning for the same. So, when an order was passed against the submissions of an elderly advocate,.he simply said ‘it’s okay’ but this was like a red flag to Justice Khanwilkar and he started fulminating and sermonising to the advocate that 'you seem to be quite senior but it looks like you have not gained experience about court craft commensurating with your seniority'. The elderly advocate was aghast and flabbergasted at this sudden outburst and lecturing by Justice Khanwilkar. A judge is known by his sagacious and well-reasoned orders or verdicts and by his fragile ego.

     The expression of the words like My Lord(s) is the reflection of the servile mentality of the advocates. This was normally used in England where the judges were considered to be the representatives of the King but In India judiciary is one of the three pillars of governance. It must command respect and not sycophancy from anybody, much less from the lawyers. But this expression-my lords-has gained acceptance, that too, after Independence defies all logic. And a judge if instead of showing erudition, brilliance and congeniality depict his irascibility in the courtrooms, then it cannot be appreciated or applauded. Therefore, the way Justice Khanwilkar reacted towards the Advocate was unbecoming of him, although he has been known for gentlemanliness. These days most of the courts conduct their business in a hybrid mode i.e., hearings of the cases are allowed in both physical as well as virtual modes. In some of the courts live streaming is also permitted, which is a welcome move by all means.

    In fact, the Bar Council of India must take strict steps to ensure that the use of My Lord(s) is stopped immediately. Those who are found violating the Bar Council rules should be penalised firstly, by paying fines, and thereafter ‘warnings’ but if it is not mended even after two warnings then the license to practice may be snatched for a month or two. Otherwise, this fawning would continue to flourish because the new breed of lawyers would continue to follow their seniors who literally bend over backwards to please the judges with all humiliations and insults.

   The second incident is a very recent one of 4^th January 2023, when two advocates started eulogising the late Ashoke Sen and the late LM Singhvi. They started narrating their own experiences about those two eminent lawyers who could argue their cases for hours together without even properly going through the ‘briefs or files’. One Advocate boasted that he used to brief Mr Sen in the lobby of the court and yet he has seen him on his legs for many hours. Not to be outdone, another lawyer said that he used to brief Dr LM Singhvi at the breakfast table for a few minutes, yet he has seen him arguing at stretch in the courtrooms for many hours. They were renowned lawyers which were why they must have been getting hefty fees from their clients. Justice Ajay Rastogi echoed the views of both advocates and he said that he has also seen Ashok Sen holding forth in the Supreme Court for many hours without much preparation and judges used to listen to him with rapt attention. He possessed the charisma of court craft, particularly on constitutional issues. So far so good, but nobody narrated how those very eminent lawyers had been handling the non-constitutional matters, where an advocate has to be well prepared with facts.

   Thanks to another judge of the Bench Justice Ms Bela M Trivedi, who put things in the right perspective by intervening in jest that it could happen only in the Supreme, not in other courts. Some of the Advocates with accented English compel the judges to tolerate them otherwise, there is no justification to ask the advocates to carry on their unending arguments. She said that many times a mountain of irrelevant arguments does not have any relevance. If an Advocate conducts his/her case without reading the files and understanding the briefs without weighing and understanding the points on the legal scale, the advocate is certainly doing an injustice to the client (s). She was right in saying that this could be possible only in the Supreme Court and not in any other court.

Fakery of NDTV Owners Stands Exposed

No Tears Should be Shed for Wily Wolves of NDTV

One often wonders that why there is so much brouhaha by a section of pseudo-intellectuals over the sale of NDTV by a crafty capitalist duo, claiming to be the espousers of public interest to a proclaimed industrialist. This duo made a huge amount of money by adopting all the tricks of the trade, which could be unbecoming of any ethical and intellectual person. But by their intellectual posturing both accumulated stinking amounts of wealth. They are said to have assets worth thousands of crores, that too, within a span of two/ three decades. It is said they were living in a Barsati of a house but in a very little time, they made hundreds of crores, mostly because of their connections with powers that be. They are, thus, classic examples of crony capitalism.

There was an Income Tax Officer, some Srivastav, who used to publicly say that husband and wife duo- Pranoy Roy and Radhika Roy owned a ramp consisting of hundreds of acres of land in an African country. So, NDTV was like any other business for them and there is nothing wrong with it. But they played the victim card to get the milage of sympathies from the gullible public was indeed condemnable. After all owners of big media houses, be it Print or Electronic do their business, not for any social service but to make profits. In fact, it has been seen that media owners indulge in far more unethical practices than businesspersons of other varieties. Therefore, those shedding tears for the Roy couple are thoroughly mistaken about their so-called altruistic deeds.

There is no dearth of such people who are shedding tears over the drama of the resignation of a journalist, who has been associated with the Channel for a long time and is known for spearheading a campaign against a certain political party and a leader. These people possibly do not know the fact that power consists of the ‘ruling party as well as who is in opposition. Hence, those who are in opposition also fall within the realm of the ‘Power’. Therefore, this journalist, who was part of the NDTV was also part of the power structure.

Here it is a larger question arises whether this journalist and the NDTV owner’s duo were in any way different from other exploiting capitalists. In fact, when a person claiming to be against exploitation becomes an integral part of the exploitative machinery then his/ her exploitation becomes more intense and tortuous than other capitalists. Only a few years ago nearly 350 employees of the NDTV were very unceremoniously thrown out of their jobs but the entire class of progressive journalists and intellectuals kept mum as if they were hamstrung by paralysis. When we approached the Labour Commissioner of Delhi to help those hapless workers, he said that victimised employees must themselves approach the Labour department. We talked to many employees, but they did not come forward to complain about it for fear of being branded as the embedded agents of the government.

What was most astonishing was that a few days after the termination of workers the owners of NDTV organised a meeting in the Press Club of India, which was addressed by a whole lot of anti-workers ranging from reactionaries like Arun Shourie, and Fali Nariman to many shameless and rank opportunists, who did not say even a word against the unfair labour practices of the NDTV owners. The stony silence of this sermonising and preachy journalist (his name need not be mentioned here) over the termination of hundreds of workers was painful to the core.

I am sure that workers will now have more freedom in the NDTV to raise their voices against exploitation than they had in the regime of Roys, who were marauders masquerading as being pro-people businesspersons. They must be exposed, who have been worse than the enemies of the workers.

 

Parliament and Assembly Elections must be held Simultaneously

  

    Frequent elections have made the manifestos redundant. They have now become an exercise in futility, although they were never taken seriously by most people. The general impression is that manifestos are merely for discussions and debates of some elites, who claim to be intellectuals but hardly have any say in the decision-making process of political parties or the electorates because elections are mostly held on the castes and religious considerations. For example, Muslims except for a group of Shias, never vote for the BJP irrespective of its highly promising manifestos. More or less the same is the case with Christians. Manifestos are, therefore, meaningless for them because their only agenda is to defeat the BJP.

 Look at the schemes of the BJP governments, which have been benefitting all sections of society regardless of their castes or communities and yet they are clear-headed that they would go for any candidate, who can defeat the BJP.   In some places, certain castes of Hindus also vote for a specific party, even if the candidates fielded by it are unworthy of contesting any election. Hence, the manifesto is of no use to them. Unemployment and inflation are the issues that are raised only against a particular party i.e., the BJP but all other works done by it are conveniently overlooked.

 The elections are no longer once in the five years affair, they are held around the year in some or other part of the country. Almost every year some or other assemblies are in election mode giving little time to the parties to strictly adhere to their manifestos. Winning elections, somehow or other, therefore, becomes their agenda. In the process, these parties instead of sticking to their manifestos make tall promises to their electorates, which can give them immediate gains.

 This keeps the Election Commission and other state machinery busy with poll activities rather than doing other normal work. The ultimate loser is thus the general public. Therefore, the good thing will be to hold the elections of parliament and other assemblies simultaneously, after five years, which is what has been contemplated in 83(2) for the Parliament and 172(1) for the state assemblies under the Indian constitution. The Rajya Sabha and the Vidhan Parishads are never dissolved because one-third of their members retire every two years after completing six years term.

 There have been no problems because the Elections for assemblies and the Lok Sabha used to be held simultaneously until 1967 when in many states voters threw up hung assemblies. Similarly, mid-term polls were also held for the Lok Sabha disturbing the set schedules for holding the elections once in five years. Frequent elections allow the political parties and their leaders to give wide berth to the promises made in their manifestos. This is the reason that many irresponsible politicians make such wild promises as cannot be translated into reality, but their real intent is to come to power anyhow.

 Therefore, there is an urgent need to go to the old days and make such laws that come what may, there would not be mid-term polls of the assemblies and they would be held simultaneously throughout the country. If no party gets an absolute majority, then President's Rule automatically gets imposed till the absolute majority is cobbled by any leader or party. Therefore, there would not be any problem in the states, but the problem would arise at the national level because there is no constitutional provision for President's Rule at the Centre. This is a very complex and knotty problem, which will need the collective wisdom of all stakeholders to solve it. Since it is a problem of the entire country, so it is not difficult to get all the stakeholders on board for finding an acceptable solution.

 Thus, it is amply clear that manifestos are inextricably linked to elections. If any party is given time to be in power continuously for five years, it will be accountable to the public and will be cautious enough in making promises. However, if the political parties are not sure of getting a majority they will continue to play with the emotions of the electorates. They will adopt the policy of appeasement by giving a complete go-by to the interests, progress and welfare of the people and the state. Therefore, hopefully, politicians of all hues and colours, the Election Commission of India and the Judiciary will have to apply their minds to ensure that Constitutional mandates are not defeated and allowed to go haywire.

The demise of Professor D N Dwivedi of Allahabad is a Huge Loss to Philosophy

   It is very sad that in less than a month two eminent retired Professors of Philosophy of Allahabad University- Dr D N Dwivedi and Dr Ram Lal Singh- left for their heavenly abode. Both of them were in their eighties and were the giants of Indian and Western Philosophy. I knew them through my father-in-law Dr Sabhajit Mishra, who is also a retired Professor of Philosophy from Gorakhpur University and who formed the distinguished company with them along with Dr (Professor) R R Pandey of the Banaras Hindu University. All of them have been very eminent and highly respected by their students and colleagues as well.

  They have been foremost in developing the scientific temper of reasoning and logic among the students of philosophy. They inculcated the ambience of learning and thinking to the seekers of knowledge. It is because of these illustrious teachers most of the students coming from eastern Uttar Pradesh normally opted for philosophy as a subject for their undergraduate and postgraduate classes. In addition to it, at one point in time, Philosophy became a popular subject for competitive examinations.  The other commonality in all these four outstanding teachers has been that they all came from humble backgrounds and never wore any air of arrogance. They have always been available to their students to help and guide them as and when needed.

   Professor DN Dwivedi, it must be stated, was a powerful speaker who, although used to be ordinarily reticent, had exemplary command over western philosophy. It was a rare delight to listen to his lectures in classrooms be it the Greek Philosophy of Plato, Socrates, Aristotle and Heraclitus or rationalist thinkers like Rene Descartes, Leibniz and Spinoza or empiricists like John Lock, George Berkley, and David Hume. Clarity about the existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre and the Dialectics of Hegel, the Critique of Pure Reason of Immanuel Kant etc. could be grasped by hearing him without any distraction. Away from pomp and show, Dr Dwivedi never aspired to come too close to the powers that be, although most of them held him in very high esteem.

 Professor Dwivedi was closely associated with Uttar Pradesh Darshan Parishad. After his retirement, he settled down in Allahabad. He originally belonged to the rural background of the neighbouring district of Pratapgarh. He is survived by his wife, two sons, two daughters, and their children. 

May his soul be free from the cycle of birth and death!