It was the best of times,
it was the worst of times.
The country had become the mother of democracy,
yet democracy felt orphaned.
International observers were invited to witness free and fair elections,
but prominent opposition candidates were in jail.
One party’s coffers overflowed with bonded money,
but another’s purse strings were cut.
Achhe din had been ushered in,
but pichhle din felt a lot safer.
It was the time of the cross-roads,
it was the time when all roads were crossed
It was the time of two Indias.
(Written with a nod to Charles Dickens’ opening lines in The Tale of Two Cities)
In the nation’s capital, at the centre of public life, stood the GIANT MACHINE. It loomed over all buildings and institutions – parliament, courts, government offices – dwarfing them with its size and menacing appearance, causing fear, panic and terror in all. This creature of Frankenstein was called the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). It was a guillotine which slashed the lives and fortunes of the hapless fed to it. Cart-loaded tumbrils fetched the wretched accused from captivity to be placed under its swinging arc. And from its extended multiple arms flew out piercing knives across the breadth of the land – the dreaded Enforcement Directorate raids – they came without notice, without cause, the paralysed victims never to see the light of day for years.
The Machine was all-powerful because it was legal, sanctioned by an order of the highest tribunal which ordained that due process, right to liberty and the constitution had to bow to it. So said Khan Will Care, tenderly ministering to the needs of the state. The only recourse was a slim virtually non-existent key, Section 45. Inverting the time-honoured presumption of innocence, it said that the judge had to find the offender innocent before releasing them on bail. This minuscule key lay buried like the needle in the judicial haystack. Searching for it was onerous, far easier to focus on the hay.
One knight was bold enough to challenge the controllers. He was the custodian, the Wal of the capital city called Kejri. The controllers and he were always at odds, he matching their might with hit-and-run raids. They feared his popularity with the masses. Elections were announced, and in line with their Code of Conduct, the Machine struck and the Wal was sucked into it.
In desperation, the Wal’s comrades began a feverish search for justice. They went first to the top of the haystack using a fork named Article 32 meant for the most serious cases. Never before has a sitting chief minister been arrested, we are a federal country. How can a top opposition politician be jailed during a general election, we are a democracy. This case is one and a half years old, why now? Look at the favours granted to approvers after implicating him. His chief associates have already been sucked by the Machine, one Sisodia languishing in its caverns for 14 months. And this is a Machine meant to deal harshly with drug and narcotics offenders; Wal heads a popularly elected government. Don’t we have a constitution and its basic structure?
But the haymakers at the top were sending these cases to the bottom stack. Never mind that we all know how difficult is it to get the key there; the chief haymaker said so himself recently. Free and fair elections and constitution and the like are all very well, but we have the Khan’s legal knots, which resemble Madame Defarge’s knitting needles. Never mind that Justice Vivian Bose chastised his peers for out Shylocking Shylock by confining the writ to the bond, and Justice Khanna made personal liberty trump the suspension of fundamental rights during the Emergency; now the Khan is the Emperor.
So began the dejected and rejected trudge from the bottom to the middle and again to the top. Finally, after 50 days of captivity, and half the election over, the Wal is released. Because the timing of arrest is inappropriate, during an election. But Sirs, everyone knew that all along, right from the day of arrest. What took you so long? The court made reference during the hearing to Wal’s right to life; doesn’t democracy also have a right to life? And some conditions on him run counter to the great Judge Learned Hand’s dictum – Thou shalt not ration justice.
Meanwhile, the Machine’s jubilant friends have had the campaign field all to themselves. The chief made speeches threatening one-sixth of the country’s population. Complaints were made to the election commission, but that body was handpicked by him, elbowing out the head of the judiciary. For them to find spine, and then to exert it, was a far cry and might draw the Machine’s attention. They seemed afflicted by a curious eye infection, unable to look offenders in the eye. Meanwhile, the public readied to speak, no one sure how.
But down South, another story is told in God’s Own Good Country, somewhat different from Ayodhya where the Lord is coopted into politics. Here a minister named after prophets Thomas and Isaac goes to the middle heap in his state against the Machine. That haymaker responds in simple basic terms on April 9. By all means, let the onerous machining take place, but wait till after the elections, what’s your hurry now? Cause for a little cheer. It might benefit this country to look south for some lessons.