Remove the Rot from the Allahabad High Court

 Justice Markandeya Katju once remarked about the Allahabad High Court, quoting the Hamlet of Shakespeare, that there was something rotten in the state of Denmark (paraphrase it with Allahabad High Court). There are three recent incidents related to the Allahabad High Court which further reinforce the comments of Justice Katju. Although he has not been considered a tongue-tied judge, yet it isn't easy to disagree with his views on Allahabad High Court.                                                                 

 Just think over it. Is it not ridiculous to request the astrology department of Lucknow University to determine whether a woman, who is an alleged rape victim is a ‘ Manglik ‘ or not? In this case, a person, who has been sexually exploiting a woman on the pretext of marrying her refused to marry on the most bizarre ground of her being ‘ Manglik’ ( a horoscope condition being born under the influence of mars(mangal). This was a case of cheating, fraud and rape by the man, but the High Court lent credence to his most stupid logic of woman. When he was repeatedly raping the woman by holding out the assurance of marrying her, he should have been tried and punished, if found guilty, under those provisions instead of verifying the horoscope computability of the man and woman.

The way, the High Court passed the order to find out whether she was ‘Manglik’ or not is atrocious, illogical and shameful. The country must be thankful to the Supreme Court of India that it took Suo moto cognisance of the appalling order of the High Court. The Supreme Court bench sat on Saturday and stayed the High Court order. Since the order is in the public domain, so every citizen has got the right to comment on such unheard-of order.

 Justice cannot be bereft of humanitarian consideration. It cannot afford to be asinine.  In the Supreme Court, it is commonly seen that if anybody has undergone long imprisonment or is too old, infirm or suffering from incurable diseases or may die soon due to those reasons, the prisoner is released to be at peace with his family.  But a 90-year-old man has been convicted in a 42-year-old case of mixing water in milk by the Allahabad High Court under the Food Adulteration Act. The convict has been sentenced to six months imprisonment and a penalty of Rs two thousand.   The person has been arrested a decade after the High Court order. This is a sad reflection on the functioning of the judicial system that a nonagenarian, who is seriously ill has been arrested on the orders of the High Court.

In the third instance, a retired judge of the Allahabad High Court Sudhir Agrawal said that there was a lot of pressure on him to buy time and not pronounce the judgment on the Ayodhya tangle. It is said that judges speak through their judgments, and they do not offer any explanation but here is boasting about his imaginary courage It may be noted that a three-judge bench of Allahabad High Court consisting of Justices S U Khan, Sudhir Agrawal and Daram Veer Sharma had delivered a 2:1 verdict on 30^th September 2010. Justice Agrawal now says that there was tremendous pressure on him from family members as well as from outside, not to have pronounced the judgement on the Ayodhya issue. He claims that if he had not given a verdict then, the issue could not have been resolved for two hundred years. One wonders how a retired High Court judge can make such infantile claims. It is only the minority judgment of Justice Dharam Veer Sharma that would be considered a landmark and that was what has been upheld by the Supreme Court. Otherwise, the majority judgement of Justices Khan and Agrawal was a specimen of a bad ambiguous and unimplementable verdict. Justice Khan and Agrawal’s names will go down in judicial history as judges without any clarity.

However, what is all the more condemnable is that Agrawal is not coming out with the names of external pressures that were brought upon him. Such judges try to take the credit for which they do not have any right to boast. Justice Agrawal has, in fact, made himself a butt of jokes by such an absurd claim and thereby he has brought a bad name to the judiciary, particularly to his parent High Court of Allahabad.  Such judges should be openly taken to task so as to maintain public confidence in the judiciary.

 

Female Wrestlers are Doing Injustice to the System and Eroding their Trust.

 

  Justice has to be dispassionate. It cannot be allowed to succumb to the demands of a mob or yield to agitations. The sit-in dharna of some wrestlers against the WFI chairman Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh for more than a month demanding his arrest and removal from his present post cannot, in all fairness, be acceded to. The complaint against Singh is that he outraged the modesty of a minor girl and sexually exploited many of the female wrestlers. It may or may not be true, but sexual exploitation of girls and that too, of any minor girl is certainly a serious matter. It is a cognisable and non-bailable offence. Nevertheless, the Police have no power to arrest the person unless something tangible is found against him in the preliminary enquiry. More so, when the allegations have been made many months after the commitment of the said crime or offence.

 The Supreme Court has accepted the petition of the wrestlers that an FIR against Brij Bhushan Singh should be lodged which must be enquired. If any truth is found in the allegations, then and then alone Singh can be arrested. But in the meantime, the demand for female wrestlers has acquired political overtones. Many busybodies have also swung into action. These agitators must understand that justice cannot be held ransom by pressure tactics. Justice has not only to be done but must also appear to have been done.

 Nobody knows -who ill-advised these wrestlers to move their agitation from Jantar Mantar to the place of the New Parliament, which was to be dedicated to the nation by the Prime Minister on the 28^th of May. It was not only a national but an international event, which was seen on TV Channels by the whole world. Could Delhi Police have permitted such a spectacle to happen in the full glare of the media? Certainly not. If the Police had allowed it, then it would have placed itself in an extremely bad light. No civilised law enforcement agency could have taken that shameful risk. Thus, Delhi Police did what it ought to have done. However, the most surprising is why the wrestlers who have brought glory to the country thought of shifting the place of agitation to the new parliament building.

 The wrestlers and their advisers must now ask the police to file the chargesheet. If anything, grave is found against Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, the law will certainly take its own course because then it would be difficult for him to escape the dragnet. Even otherwise he is openly saying that if he is found guilty, he would himself get hanged. Although the punishment of hanging himself is not permissible, the least that can be expected from him is that he will cooperate in the investigation and not flee from the punishment.

 Therefore, the wrestlers must allow the law to take its own course and they must keep themselves away from the politicians and Khaps. It will reinforce the confidence of the countrymen among them. Their antics of throwing the medals in the Ganges have been all the more unfortunate. They must also understand that the prestige of the country is also attached to their medals, and they cannot rub the honour of the country the wrong way.  No legal system worth its name can dispense justice under the pressure of Khaps and politicians because that will seriously damage and erode the faith of the judicial system.

 

Digital Transaction is the only way to Root Out Black Money

 Digital Transaction is the only way to Root Out Black Money

The withdrawal of 2000 currency notes did not cause any ripple in the country. As a matter of fact, for nearly three years, it has not been in circulation because of it being inconvenient for people. The general public has been well aware of its imminent ban or withdrawal sooner or later. So, only those who were engaged in the hoarding of black money business would have felt the shock. That is why, when the people watch wads of 2000 currency notes concealed by the hoarders in the boxes or cupboards, they get stunned. According to reports over six lakh notes of Rs 2000 were printed by the RBI way back in 2016 and if they are not much in public circulation, it shows that most of those notes must have been hoarded as black money. This step of withdrawal would certainly bring them to the surface and thereby substantially reduce the accumulation of black money.

The second most important reason for the no effect of Rs 2000 currency notes is the extreme popularity of digital modes of payment in the last six-seven years. As of today, even very small traders, vegetable vendors, and tea or pan shop owners gladly accept payment through UPI, Payphone or Paytm. Cash transactions have become very limited. Big cash dealings are mostly done by Tax evaders. Needless to say, the human interface in money dealings is the root cause of corruption. This can be rooted out only by the extensive use of technology. Bribery will be controlled to a large extent with the help of AI.

Therefore, except for the corrupt politicians, officers and unscrupulous businesspersons, the rest of the people in the country are unaffected by the withdrawal of Rs 2000 currency notes. Thus, it will be in the fitness of cleanliness drive to remove black money that the Reserve Bank of India should discourage cash transactions and incentivise digital ones. In fact, replacements of notes and coins have been going on from time immemorial to safeguard the economy. 

It is said that the demonetisation of Rs 500 and 1000 in 2016 by the Modi government had also broken the back of Pakistan‘s economy. There were many modern printing presses in Pakistan, which were thriving and churning out fake notes of Rs 500 and 1000 of Indian currency but with the demonetisation, the Pakistani economy got bust. And today it is for everyone to see that devastated Pakistan is going everywhere with the begging bowl.

Demonetisation and remonetisation have undoubtedly brought positive results for the economy, but lasting results can be expected only when the economy is transformed to be cashless and digital.

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Irrelevant controversy about the Degree of Prime Minister

Is it not amazing that a Chief Minister has got himself embroiled in the controversy over the educational qualifications of Prime Minister Narendra Modi? How does it matter if he does not possess a university degree? After all, the people of India have not elected him based on his educational qualifications. He enjoys the confidence of the people and his party for the leadership qualities that he has. The country has made giant strides in many fields due to his innovative ideas and the unique capabilities of getting them implemented at the ground level. Thousands of crores of Rs are sent every four months to lakhs of farmers in the country without an iota of corruption, which is unknown and unheard of in our country. The money goes directly to the accounts of farmers without a loss of a single penny. What is the use of a highly qualified Prime minister if he/she cannot get delivered to the targeted people without getting drowned in the cesspool of rampant corruption?
Some thirty years ago the then General Secretary of the Congress Party Shri VN Gadgil had made a ridiculous statement that Sharad Pawar could never become the Prime Minister of India because he was not proficient in the English language. His hostility towards Sharad Pawar was well known. So, journalists rushed to Sharad Pawar and talked about the opinion of Shri Gadgil, then he replied that if English was the criterion to become the Prime Minister, the Professors of English in the universities would be better than most of the politicians. But can they become Ministers or Prime Minister? The myth of English has been broken by the present Prime Minister. The country will remain indebted to him for the pride of place that he has given to Hindi. Now in the twenty-first century, it can be safely said that knowledge of Hindi is essential to become the Prime Minister of India.
However, if no less than a Chief Minister is raising the meaningless controversy about the educational qualification of the Prime Minister, then one can only laugh at his shallowness and imbecility. There are certain areas and professions where educational qualifications do not matter. For example, a good lawyer may not have good academic records but those having brilliant academic qualifications may be very dullard and unworthy of properly defending their clients. A doctor having mediocre qualifications may be a good one in comparison to a person having shined educational qualifications. The same is true, more or less, for other professions like journalism.
This is not the first time such controversies have been raked. Questions have been asked about the academic degrees of Mamata Banerji, Smriti Irani and many others but any Chief Minister has not got mired him/herself in such inanities. There was one Jitender Singh Tomar, a minister in the previous Kejriwal government, who was jailed for fake degrees, but it was not because of his politics but because he attempted to get himself enrolled as an Advocate based on his fake LL. B. degree from a university, that he never even once visited.

Names of Places are not changed by PILs but by Governments

By Parmanand Pandey 

Supreme Court of India may be final in certain respects, but it is definitely not infallible. It has dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL), which prayed for the constitution of a Renaming Commission for suggesting the change of names of those cities and places which were named after invaders by trampling upon their historical, cultural and religious identities so as to restore their old glory. How it will create a schism among different communities, as the Supreme Court has said while dismissing the PILs, is difficult to understand. There is hardly any bigotry in changing the names.

How can we shut our eyes from the fact that the country and its people had been pillaged and mauled by the invaders? There is no doubt that history cannot be eroded or wiped out but we can certainly remove those wrongs of the past, which continue to scrape the wounds and rub salts on them. Names of countries, cities and roads have been changed all over the world. Not far away Ceylon was changed to Sri Lanka, Burma became Myanmar, and Cambodia became Kampuchea. Turkey is now known as Turkiye.  Similarly, Southwest Africa has been renamed Namibia. There is nothing new in it. Change is part of nature.

Why do our judges get so upset that with the change of the names of some cities, our secularism will be endangered? After all, what is the point of having a city like Bakhtiarpur commemorating the name of Bakhtiar Khilji who had destroyed a world-famous university like Nalanda and its rich library? Names signify not only the history but also the importance attached to it. Why should Prayagraj or Ayodhya be known as Allahabad or Faizabad? There is a wrong perception that a section of society will be annoyed if such changes are made. People welcomed when the name of Leningrad was changed to old Petersburg or Peking as Beijing. In India itself, everybody welcomed when Madras became Chennai or Baroda as Vadodara and Bombay as Mumbai.

 What is more perplexing is why some lawyers think that changes can be brought about only by judicial interventions. After all, many names even in India have been changed by the governments and there have been no directions from the judiciary for those changes. It is the will of the people and the government(s) that are responsible for carrying out such changes. In fact, such PILs are meant more for publicity than for achieving the desired goals. Therefore, it will be better if public opinions are built, and the people’s representatives are made to realise which place should be rechristened or retained.

 

India Needs to be Protected from Snakes in the Ganga

By Parmanand Pandey

‘Snakes in the Ganga- breaking India 2.0’ by Rajeev Malhotra and Vijaya Viswanathan is a highly revealing and eye-opening book. It is a mine of information and it exposes the forces with convincing evidence that have been active in dismantling India, its traditions and cultures etc. These forces are active inside as well as outside India but the main role is played by some of the western universities. The book is a tome of nearly 800 pages containing some 22 chapters but the subject matter and the style is very engrossing. The book explains with copious evidence how these forces have been working to brainwash, manipulate and evangelise the rural poor with the end goal of destroying the civilisation fabric of India. It is very shocking that the premier educational centre of the world, Harvard University is playing the lead role in building a troubling alliance between a few leading Black Americans and ambitious young Dalits encouraging them to map India’s caste system onto the western concept of race. Theories known as Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Critical Dalit Theory are built on this framework and taught at Harvard as established facts in their curriculum.  Most surprisingly no counter position is either presented or entertained at Harvard.

Snakes in the Ganga brings forth the Indian funding of far-Left scholars’ activists that push the tenets of the new moral orthodoxy. Why some Indian capitalists are promoting it is a puzzling question. The book has successfully debunked the western theory of the Aryan/ Dravidian divide. The proponents of Critical Race Theory have no qualms in declaring Sanskrit as an oppressive language. They are of the view that Sanskrit perpetuates Brahmin privilege as a tool for exploiting the lower castes and Dalits. The Critical Race Theory’s application to Indian society comes wrapped in a bundle of lies and exaggerations that nobody is allowed to question.

     Ruse of Wokeism to Dismantle India

A new term ‘Woke’ is the popular equivalent of the more academic term for Critical Race Theory. It started in the Black American Community as a means of spreading awareness and being woken up to the social realities. Snakes in the Ganga is a metaphor for some foreign institutions that are mapping ideas of Wokeism to India, thereby undermining India’s ancient civilisational fabric. A praiseworthy effort has been made through the book to inform Indians who might be supporting Wokeism, often unintentionally, without an understanding of the endgame of these projects.

The book throws light on many philosophical theories like those of Kant, Hegel, Karl Marx and Herbert Marcuse etc, who explained how capitalism had won over the oppressed masses psychologically. At the same time. Postmodernism has been characterised by its scepticism of any objective reality; the influence of Nietzsche, Immanuel Kant, Hegel and others is evident. Postmodernism is based on the principles like general scepticism about the existence of objective knowledge or universal truth. Boundaries between categories are considered inherently blurry and are merely arbitrary human conventions. It says that power structures and hierarchies exist in all societies, and this is how knowledge gets created. Language itself embeds the power of elites who have developed it. Hence, the use of language is always biased and oppressive.

     Alignment of CRT with Queer Theory

The proponents of Critical Race Theory, which is aligned with Queer Theory make a ridiculous comparison with Vedanta and Buddhism. This theory also takes the liberty of comparing skin colour as the marker for caste. It is assumed, which is highly erroneous, that low caste persons in India are dark-skinned and upper casts are light-skinned. This section conveniently forgets the fact that most Hindu deities like Ram. Krishna, Kali and Durga are dark-skinned. The book quotes Isabel Wilkerson, who in her book ‘Caste is the Grammar of Racism’, says the relationship between caste and race is simple and direct. In a way, she is partially correct when she says that while race is flexible, caste is rigid. Hence, most of the time caste is the real problem, because it is like bones and race is like skin. It is fluid and superficial, subject to periodic redefinition to meet the needs of the dominant class.

She is more influenced by Dr BR Ambedkar, who was also of the view that caste is frozen in social structure. However, a fact can hardly be denied that different regions of India have had different dynamics of caste. The situation in the north is not the same as in the South. Hindus in the Caribbean countries do not have the same caste dynamics as in India. Hindus of all castes were brought to the Caribbean and enslaved under the cover of indentured labour, but Madam Wilkerson is silent on this. She appears to be unaware of the fact that Hinduism has got itself transformed in different countries. It is not uniform and homogenous like other Abrahamic religions. She (Wilkerson) does not realise that the Indian people, even when poor take pride in their specific community. It is an identity with cultural significance: festivals, traditions and specific deities. So, in the West, every attempt is made by some people to find fault with Hinduism and they try to dismantle its belief in Karma theory.

    Attacking the meritocracy

There are some professors at Harvard like Ajanta Subramaniam who in her book the Caste of merit: Engineering education in India has tried to prove that IITs in India are the main centres of the upper castes, what she eventually insinuates is that the lower castes cannot compete on merit when provided equal opportunities so the merit has been confined to the upper castes instead of diligence, discipline and frugality of the other castes, it has been considered to be the tyranny of merit. She has compared the academic qualifications at IITs with a form of cultural capital in which the upper castes are the capitalists and this form of capital is considered as merit because it appears to be the objective, autonomous and genuine type of competence. The leveraging of merit is an upper-caste conspiracy to perpetuate its capitalism. She further says that this is the reason IITians stick together and close rank to prevent the emergence of an egalitarian society because that will wipe out its cultural capital advantages, she has further gone on to stipulate that merit is mainly a male-dominated capital.

Thus, caste in India has been equated with American-style racism. There is one gentleman Sooraj Yengde who claims himself to be a Dalit and he is a professor at Harvard University who spares no stone to be unturned to defame Hinduism and particularly upper caste Hindus, although Baba Sahab Ambedkar staunchly argued against the Indians converting to Christianity and Islam. He adopted Buddhism before his death because he could not find anything better than Buddhism but Sooraj Yengde has only one point agenda to run down Hinduism at any cost. He has hardly gone through the wholesome study of Doctor Ambedkar although he claims to be a Buddhist but has clearly stated that he does not practice Buddhism therefore his claim to be a Buddhist is a mere subterfuge to go hammer and tongs against Hinduism. He is absolutely unaware of the fact that a large number of temples in India have priests other than Brahmins. Most of the temples are in the government's hands and the collection from it is used for the welfare of all communities regardless of religion but it is not the case with mosques and churches. He uses Brahmanism as a stick to beat Hinduism and says that the caste is similar to that of American Supremacy.

    Harvard and Indian Billionaires

In the second part of the book, the authors demonstrated the role of Oxford University in denigrating or demonising Indian traditions. Harvard has tried to appropriate some of the philosophical theories like Buddhism and yoga to digest them. The book says that ’when Harvard claims it wants to help India’s public health, most assume it would be financing cures for dengue, malaria or other widespread tropical diseases or help champion India’s medical tourism industry that brings in foreign patients for treatment but no such was extended by it. What is most disturbing is that the Hindi courses at Harvard strive to promote Urdu rather than Hindi. The curriculum of Hindi has been prepared in such a manner as women students would bemoan their culture. Hindi content is generally negative, unlike positive Urdu content where interesting and enjoyable issues are discussed.

At Harvard, the Chinese government's point of view is at times projected as the only relevant point of view on China. China’s human rights abuses are seldom studied and have in fact been covered up. But Harvard regularly chides India on such issues. Harvard has continued to educate Chines students and government officials on technology that would help China’s development but it does not lecture China in the humanities and social sciences. Harvard does not portray China in a manner that the worst type of human rights violation is normal in the country. It does not talk about the issue of Tibetan freedom, the democracy movement in Hong Kong, Taiwanese independence China’s crackdown on Mongolian culture and language is the human rights crisis of Uyghur Muslims. Harvard is silent and the Chines government muzzling and suppressing the billionaire founder of the Ali Baba Group for becoming too successful and outspoken. However, no such concession is given to India. The hypocrisy of Harvard’s claim to champion free speech is clear from the fact that it terminated the economics professor Subramaniam Swami because he has been championing the cause of Hindu culture. Take the example of Covid handling by India. While China miserably failed to handle it, the Indian record has been superb yet the Harvard always praised China and criticised India. The prejudice of Harvard against India and bias in favour of China has been all clear to see.

    The perversity of Westerners Against India Knows no Bounds

The perversity of Westerners can be gauged by the way, they look at our age-old Kumbha Mela at Prayagraj which falls every twelve years. Harvard is more interested in exploring uncomfortable issues rather than looking at them as a sacred Hindu event. Harvard asks whether Mela is dominated by males. Do Sadhvis have equal rights as sadhus? Are women being exploited at the event? Are there rapes and harassment? Are there Tantric sex orgies? Are Dalits being oppressed? Do the Hindu groups have equitable representation of LGBTQ? Are people from the south and northeast discriminated against? The fact is that such things never even cross the minds of the people. But the so-called researchers have tried to make it an anthropological hunting ground for exotica and erotica. Some of them even demanded large-scale distribution of condoms at the Kumbha Mela.

The worrying part is that some Indian billionaires like Lakshmi Mittal, Anand Mahindra and Ajay Piramal have given huge amounts of money to perpetuate their names by establishing their seats in the university and those seats work overtime to destabilise India. Some scholars like Homi K Bhabha, and Devdutt Pattnaik play a major role in creating Hindu phobia. Unfortunately, these institutes funded by Indian billionaires support the cause anti -Indian forces like Rohingyas, and Mizos, and decode the Supreme Court verdicts on homosexuality. Harvard University has been able to get a grip and significant control over the media ecosystem., which openly supports the agitations like Shaheen Bagh or the farmers' movement. The book has rightly asked the question that why Harvard never organises any seminar on the spiritual legacy of Kashmir but discusses the separatist issue.  

     The third part deals with the issue; Is India for Sale?

The writers of the book are of the definite opinion that Christian missionaries and Marxists resort to ruse and inculturation to indoctrinate the hapless public. It has also exposed the nexus of Saudis, American and Indian billionaires, who work against the sovereignty and integrity of India although they are strange bedfellows. For example, Saudi Arabia is dead against LGBTQ, yet it supports Americans when it comes to sabotaging the cause of India. Some new Indian Universities are also involved in working against India and the burning example is that of Ashoka University, which is funded by the Indian government yet -plays into the hands of the forces like Harvard and other anti-Indians.

The book deserves not only to be read but to be deeply cogitated by all Indians, who are fired with nationalism, patriotism and the progress of the country with pride intact. The book can be treasured as it is more like a reference book.

 

 

 

Advocates should not be Apologetic About Virtual Court Hearings

   Virtual hearings in the courts are no less than a boon for the advocates and litigants and the need is to make them more user-friendly and flawless. But as they say, old habits die hard, and therefore some of the advocates still find it difficult to adopt them. It is very strange that some of the advocates become apologetic while appearing before the courts. They apologise to courts for not having appeared physically-this attitude of theirs is hard to explain. This speaks of their unscientific temper and anti-technology bent of mind at a time when Artificial Intelligence (AI) is going to make big headway in court functioning. Later or sooner, AI is bound to play a very important role in judicial work throughout the world. It will revolutionise the system as it will go a long way in eliminating the banes of corruption and delay in the judiciary.

  As a matter of fact, the concept of virtual courts is aimed at considerably reducing the presence of litigants and lawyers in the courtrooms. This method is a great saving of time and money for all stakeholders. In this age of heavy traffic, it takes a lot of time in commuting from the residence to the courts and vice versa. If one goes by car or taxi or any other mode of transport, it costs money and increases pollution. When going from home to court, the advocates or litigants invariably incur expenses on tea/coffee, snacks or meals.

  The biggest advantage for advocates is that they can handle many cases of different courts by working from their offices or home-cum-offices, which is highly difficult during physical hearings. Apart from it, the courtrooms normally get crowded, which can be avoided by adopting the virtual mode of hearings. However, there is not all hunky-dory in the virtual hearings. Sometimes electric and electronic machines create problems The other disadvantage that I feel is that it leaves the advocates isolated and they remain deprived of socialisation, which is very necessary for healthy mental equilibrium.

   But there is no denying that the advantages of virtual hearings far outweigh the physical hearings in the court. Therefore, the advocates should not feel shy about adopting the new method of virtual hearings. At the same time, the government and the courts should come forward to augment the facilities for virtual hearings. Some investments must also be done by the advocates for arranging better gadgets and internet facilities so that they do not have to face glitches during the virtual hearings.