“The Church inviting Hindus for an interfaith dialogue while going ahead with converting weaker sections of Hindu society through force, fraud and allurements, is like a pickpocket preaching virtues of renunciation to a man while relieving him of his purse. Hindu scholars and sanyasins must make stoppage of conversions by Church in theory and practice as a pre-condition to their participation in any interfaith dialogue.” - Virendra Parekh

“Vade vade jayate tattvabodhah” (Every debate brings forth understanding of principles), says a Sanskrit subhashita. In their long history, Hindus as a people have been fond of discussing matters of religion, philosophy and spirituality, among themselves and with others. In spite of what Islam and its votaries had done to Hindus and their civilization, Brahmins participated in discussions organized by some Muslim rulers between scholars of different faiths. When a German missionary Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg (1682-1719) sent in 1712 a large number of letters to a selection of Hindus inviting answers to a number of questions, he received no fewer than 104 responses.

Christianity, on the other hand, has traditionally preferred monologue i.e. it alone talked and others were made to listen. It was ensured in advance that the monologue was not disturbed by arguments from the other side. Convinced that it had the monopoly of Absolute Truth which others had to accept from it in all humility, it saw no need for holding any dialogue with any kind of paganism.

But times have changed. The collapse of Christianity in the West and the retreat of Western imperialism have forced the Church to change its methods. Buyers of its stale and discredited merchandise are becoming increasingly scarce. Gone are the days when the Church spoke and others had to listen. It can no longer use the might of the state (once described as secular arm of the church) to crush the adversaries. So, now the church is not just prepared to enter into a dialogue with heathens, it is actually organizing it.

But the Church is uncomfortable with the new environment. It knows, from its experience in the West, what reason and open inquiry can do to its dogma. At the same time, the closed and arrogant mindset, fashioned by centuries of dominance, has not changed. Short-term tactics have changed, but the long-term goal remains unaltered. There is a change in the language, but not in the ideology. These show a striking continuity over the centuries.

For instance, annals of the mission record one instance of a public debate in sixteenth century Goa, when Jesuits, aided by a convert, deputed with pundits. After a while, forty pundits were banished from the debate for “proving obstinate.” No more dialogues were held in Portuguese possessions thereafter.

Writing four hundred years later, Richard Fox Young, who records this incident in his Resistant Hinduism (Vienna, 1981, pp. 20-21), concludes that Hindu tolerance towards other religions is a myth because Hinduism resisted Christianity instead of accommodating it! The author sees nothing wrong with the wanton Christian onslaught of which he himself provides prolific proof.

In our own day, the ex-communication is practiced in a more sophisticated way. Fr. Francis Xavier Clooney, professor at Harvard Divinity School, says that in the past Swami Dayanand Saraswati and Swami Vivekanand had attempted a critical look at the West from a Hindu perspective, but post-colonial authors like Ram Swarup and Sita Ram Goel had politicized the Hindu-Christian relationship. In other words, even the adversaries of the Church need a character certificate from it before their contributions are recognized. And the grant of that certificate depends on the degree of accommodation shown by the Hindu scholar to Christianity, especially to conversions.

Fr. Clooney would have been within his rights as well as bounds of a healthy dialogue if he had pointed out where these authors had misquoted a source, or quoted it out of context, and how the context altered the apparent meaning, or used logic which was not straight, or passed a value judgment which was not valid. But that is not on his agenda. The Church has no use for authentic scholars like Ram Swarupji or Sita Ramji precisely because their critique is too comprehensive, too accurate and too fundamental for its comfort.

As to the closed mind, one example would suffice. Ziegenbalg, who worked in south India, travelled around and held conversations with Brahmins. He recorded these conversations in some detail and passed them on to Halle (Germany) which published them from 1715 onwards. Only thirty-four of these conversations were translated and published in English in 1719. The preface to the book Thirty-Four Conferences Between the Danish Missionaries and Malabarian Brahmans (or Heathen Priests) in the East Indies (London, 1719), sums up the Brahmana’s “Divine Law sent from Heaven” in the following eight Precepts:

“I. Thou shalt not kill any living creature whatsoever it be, having life in the same: For thou art a creature of mine and so is it: Thou art endued with soul and it is endued with the same. Thou shalt not therefore spill the blood of anything that is mine.

II. Thou shalt make a covenant with all thy five senses. First, with thy eyes, that they behold not things that be evil. Secondly, with thy ears, that they hear not things that be evil. Thirdly, with thy tongue, that it speaks not things that be evil. Fourthly, with thy palate, that it takes nothing that be evil; as wine, or the flesh of living creatures. Fifthly, with thy hands, that they touch not things defiled.

III. Thou shalt duly observe the times of devotion, thy washings, worshippings and prayers to the Lord thy God, with a pure and upright heart.

IV. Thou shalt not tell false tales, or utter things untrue, by which thou mightest defraud thy brother in dealings, bargains or contracts; by this consenage to work thy own peculiar advantage.

V. Thou shalt be charitable to the poor and administer to his need, meat, drink, and money, as his necessity requires, and thine own ability enableth thee to give.

VI. Thou shalt not oppress, injure or do violence to the poor, using thy power unjustly to the ruin and overthrow of thy brother.

VII. Thou shalt celebrate certain festivals; yet not pampering thy body with excess of anything; but shalt observe certain seasons for fasting, and break off some hours by watching, that thou may’st be fitter for devotion and holiness.

VIII. Thou shalt not steal from thy brother anything, however little it be, of things committed to thy trust in thy profession or calling; but content thyself with that which he shall give thee as thine hire; considering that thou hath not right to that which another man calleth his.”

Yet, according to the same Preface “there is not, perhaps, a more wicked race of men treading upon God’s earth (than the Brahmanas).” “The Brahmanas”, it continues, “are the greatest impostors in the world; their talent lies in inventing new fables every day, and making them pass for incomprehensible mysteries among the vulgar.” Brahimins of today would readily underscore the above summary of the precepts of their faith. Does the Church today have any different opinion of those who disagree with its dogma and resist its incursions?

“The purpose of this correspondence (of the letters referred to above),” writes Dr. H. Grafe, “as stated by Ziegenbalg, is three-fold:

1. To make for increased publicity of the missionaries’ work,

2. To reach people whom they are not able to meet personally,

3. To get better informed about Hinduism and particularly about Hindu objections to Christian Faith.” (“Hindu Apologetics at the Beginning of the Protestant Mission Era in India”, by H. Grafe in Indian Church History Review, June, 1972, p. 48.)

Is the purpose any different today? Like a multinational corporation marketing a dubious product, what the Church craves above all is attention tampered with indulgence. Hindu scholars and sanyasins are making a big mistake if they harbour the illusion that they are educating the Church in principles of Sanatan Dharma. The Church has no use for those principles. It wants Hindu intellectuals and Sanyasis for their brand value (such as it is) within the Hindu society – to market its own product. Their erudition, their carefully constructed caveats, provisos and arguments will be lost upon ordinary Hindus who will only remember that these worthies have something to do with what the Church is saying.

By participating in high-profile well-publicised dialogues with spokesmen of Christianity, modern-day Hindu scholars and sanyasins may be making the same mistake that Gandhiji did. As Sita Ram Goel observes, “Mahatma Gandhi’s meeting the Christian missionaries again and again and wasting so much breath in talking to them on the same point, namely, the uniqueness of Jesus and their right to convert in his name, made them respectable in the eyes of Hindus at large. Till the Mahatma started advertising the Christian missionaries in his widely read weeklies, Hindus had looked down upon them as an unavoidable nuisance deserving only contempt and ridicule. The Mahatma invested them with unprecedented prestige and made them loom large on the Indian scene.”

In any case, the Church has studied Hinduism and Hindu society in far greater detail than Hindu scholars have studied Christianity. Missionaries have studied Hindu scriptures not as Mumukshus, but like army generals mapping out the enemy territory before attacking it.

Hindus are committing a great mistake in regarding the encounter between Hinduism and Christianity as a dialogue between two traditions of Dharma. Christianity has never been a Dharma; it has always been a predatory imperialism par excellence. The encounter, therefore, should be viewed as a battle between two totally opposed and mutually exclusive ways of thought and behaviour.

“But can we not sort out differences in perceptions, attitudes and approaches through an amicable dialogue? What is the harm in talking?” one may ask. The harm is that the dialogue is intended to be a distraction from the merciless and incessant attacks of the Church on the roots of Hindu Dharma. The whole purpose of the interfaith dialogue is to wear down Hindu resistance to conversions, first among the elite and then, hopefully, among the laity.

As Sita Ramji points out, Hindus from seventeenth century Pandits of Tamil Nadu (who conversed with Ziegenbalg) to Arun Shourie have expended tremendous amounts of ink and breath to demolish the dogma of Christianity. But it has hardly made any difference to the arrogance of Christian theologians and missionaries. That is because dogma was never meant for discussion. It is meant for propagation, by any and every means permitted by times and circumstances.

The Church knows more than any Hindu that its dogma cannot stand any discussion. It is an axiom of logic that that which cannot be proved need not be disproved. And who can ever prove that the nondescript Jew (if at all he existed) who was crucified by a Roman governor of Judea in 33 AD had atoned for the sins of mankind for all time to come? Who can ever prove that those who accept that Jew as the only Saviour will ascend to a heaven of everlasting bliss and those who do not will burn for ever in the blazing fire of hell?

Glorified by high-sounding theological bunkum, the dogma is no more than a subterfuge for forging and wielding an organizational weapon for aggression against other people. It is high time for Hindus to dismiss the dogma of Christianity with the contempt it deserves, and pay attention to the Christian missionary apparatus planted in their midst. The sole aim of this apparatus is to ruin Hindu society and culture, and take over the Hindu homeland.

The Church inviting Hindus for an interfaith dialogue while going ahead with converting weaker sections of Hindu society through force, fraud and allurements, is like a pickpocket preaching virtues of renunciation to a man while relieving him of his purse. Hindu scholars and sanyasins must make stoppage of conversions by Church in theory and practice as a pre-condition to their participation in any interfaith dialogue. They should not fall prey to the sweet language that is designed to deceive them and other Hindus. For, Ko va durjanvagurasu patitah kshemeñ yatah puman? (Who has ever escaped unscathed after falling in the trap of words of a wicked man?) – Vijayvaani, New Delhi, Jan. 27, 2012

Acknowledgment

• History of Hindu-Christian Encounters: AD 304 to 1996 by Sita Ram Goel, Voice of India, New Delhi, 1996

» The author is Executive Editor, Corporate India, and lives in Mumbai

“In the matter of bringing up children, what the Norwegian authorities are demanding is not emotional sustenance but homogenisation. These are the hallmarks of a totalitarian system that believes children belong primarily to the state. Norway is not a totalitarian state but its social codes resonate with checklists of uniformity.” – Swapan Dasguta

The establishment of an all-embracing “nanny state” has been a cause of concern to many sensible, right-thinking citizens of the European Union (EU).

In Britain, to cite just one example, there is anger and exasperation over the way apprehended illegal immigrants have been able to avert deportation by falling back on the EU’s human rights legislation. The so-called right to family life has been successfully used by those who have broken the law to prevent constituent nations from acting against them.

So absurd is the situation that illegal immigrants were even able to cite the ownership of a cat and membership of a local cricket team to earn for themselves the right to stay in a country where they had overstayed their welcome.

It is against this bizarre backdrop of an over-regulated state, replete with gratuitous codification of daily life, that we must view the strange case of Anurup and Sagarika Bhattacharya, Indian citizens resident in the Norwegian town of Stavenger.

In May 2011, the child welfare department of the town took the couple’s two children, a son aged two and a daughter then barely five months old into custodial care. The Bhattacharyas were accused of dereliction of parental responsibilities.

What were the faults of the Bhattacharyas, a normal middle-class couple with the husband working as a geo-scientist with Halliburton, a well-known US company? In the courts where the case was heard, the account of parental negligence was provided. These included the absence of separate rooms for the children, the lack of appropriate toys, the absence of a separate diaper changing table and the fact that the son slept in the same bed as the parents and was fed by hand — which allegedly amounted to “force feeding”. The mother was also guilty of breast-feeding the daughter in an unsuitable way.

According to a report in an Indian newspaper, filed from Oslo, the authorities argued in court “that when the mother breast-fed the infant, she put her on her lap without holding her, holding the head against the breast but not close to her body”.

Taken together with the fact that the mother had admitted to once slapping her son — a prohibited act under Norwegian law — the Child Welfare Service concluded that the mother failed to look after the children’s emotional needs. The larger interests of the children, it felt, were better served by placing them in foster homes.

The city court of Stavanger agreed with the Child Welfare Service and sent the children to foster homes. As an act of generosity, it allowed the parents to see their children — one of whom was still being breast-fed — twice each year for two hours. In a further revision by the Country Board of the Child Welfare Service it has now been stated that the children must remain in foster homes till they are 18 years of age but would be allowed to spend three hours each year with their parents in three separate visits of an hour each.

The sheer inhumanity of the Norwegian state defies belief. What happened to the Bhattacharyas is not merely the result of the perverted thinking of authorities that believe they know better than the natural parents of children.

It is also an outcome of insular Europeans not knowing and not bothering to appreciate the fact there is no prescribed way of bringing up children. That a child does not have a separate room and the fact that diapers were changed on the bed rather than on a table of a prescribed size are niggling issues. These have more to do with their parents’ financial priorities than a bid to wilfully scar the children emotionally.

Indian children routinely share a bed with their parents or grandparents. This is often a function of space or gestures of affection and they haven’t resulted in India becoming a nation of the emotionally traumatised.

Equally, if feeding a child by hand constitutes an inhuman act of force-feeding, more than 95 per cent of Indian parents would be found guilty of cruelty. Norway cannot dictate how an Indian family chooses to eat. By this absurd logic, Westerners in India should be advised that toilet paper is unhygienic and environmentally unsound!

Like many prosperous but insular countries, the authorities in Norway possess an infuriating sense of sanctimoniousness, believing that their habits, customs and worldviews are the only routes to well-being. There is no common sense view of right and wrong.

In the matter of bringing up children, what the Norwegian authorities are demanding is not emotional sustenance but homogenisation. These are the hallmarks of a totalitarian system that believes children belong primarily to the state. Norway is not a totalitarian state but its social codes resonate with checklists of uniformity.

It is heartening that the Government of India has responded to the sense of outrage at home by summoning the Norwegian ambassador to South Block. It is said that a solution may be worked out with the grandparents of the children giving a helping hand to the Bhattacharya couple.

In other words, Norway will be given a face-saving way out that stops short of its authorities admitting that what happened to the Bhattacharyas was a gross violation of their human rights, particularly their right to a family life and their right to pursue cultural practices. India has a moral duty to rescue two of its children who have become victims of judicial abduction. – Deccan Chronicle, Chennai, Jan. 27, 2012 

“Keeping in mind the expanded scope of policing in the country parliament must seriously consider the question if the police too should not be provided a mechanism like the Court Martial so that all offences by the police are investigated and tried internally by the police itself. After all, even the money-driven media industry insists on self-regulation.” – Radha Rajan

Sauce for the Goose is not sauce for the Gander

The Madras High Court and the Supreme Court dealt with the lawyer-police clash on February 19 in exactly the same manner that Sonia Gandhi and her minions in the UPA government, the CBI and the Supreme Court dealt with the Gujarat riots in 2002.

Just as the UPA government refuses even now to speak publicly about the burning alive of Hindu pilgrims in the Sabarmati Express at Godhra station which triggered the riots, the Madras High Court and the Supreme Court refuse to talk about the violent attack against Dr Swamy and other visitors in court on February 17 and the grave provocation offered by the lawyers to the police and burning down the police station in a horrific act of vandalism which caused the police to use force against the mob.

While the then Chief Justice of India, KG Balakrishnan promptly ordered five senior police officials to be transferred, Justice Ibrahim Khlaifulla of the Madras High Court pronounced the officials to be in contempt of court. Both judgments need to be read attentively by every intelligent ordinary citizen of this country to understand the brazen double-standards of the judiciary when it comes to dealing with their own species and sub-species; and the one-sided, hypocritical and downright unjust pronouncements which can erode the faith of the common man and our men in uniform in judges and the judicial process.

Justice Ibrahim Khalifulla’s judgment indicting the TN police in fact completely ignored and even set aside the Interim Report submitted by Justice Srikrishna Commission of Enquiry which was constituted to go into the events of February 19.

My view, albeit prima facie, is that the soft-pedalling policy followed by the Madras High Court Judges has led to the present piquant situation. The lawyers appear to have been encouraged by the wrong ‘signals sent out and seemed to think that they could do anything and get away within the Court premises. Regretfully, far from being the upholders of the rule of law, the lawyers seem to have behaved as hooligans and miscreants. The incidents that transpired over a last month or so make it clear that the lawyers seemed to be under the impression that, because they are officers of the Court, they are immune from the process of law and that they could get away with any unlawful act without being answerable to the law enforcing agency. It is most unfortunate that the soft policy adopted by the Acting Chief Justice of Madras High Court and its administration sent out clearly a wrong message that encouraged and emboldened the lawyers into becoming law breakers.

………………

I would submit that the Hon’ble Supreme Court should take this opportunity to exercise its extraordinary Constitutional powers and lay down sufficient guidelines for the behaviour of the lawyers within and without the Court premises as the Bar Councils have not been acting as an effective regulatory body of their professional conduct. It would be ideal if the Advocate’s Act is amended to ensure a better disciplinary mechanism of the profession of law, since it affects not only lawyers but also litigants, the administration of the justice in the country, and finally the rule of law itself. Until such time that appropriate Legislation is made, it is desirable that this Hon’ble Court should formulate appropriate guidelines to be followed by lawyers and enforced by all Courts of law. (Excerpt from Interim Report On the Incidents that Occurred on the 19th February 2009 at the Madras High Court by Justice Srikrishna, March 9, 2009)

To the best of this writer’s knowledge, neither the Supreme Court nor the Madras High Court has even begun to concretise Justice Srikrishna’s recommendations to discipline lawyers and make them accountable to the law. Lawyers of the Madras High Court predictably, staged violent protests against the Interim Report and besides burning copies of the report, also burnt the effigy of Justice Srikrishna inside the court. Every reader is urged to read the Justice Srikrishna Interim Report to experience the stench of the cesspool from which the state picks its judges.

• http://www.vigilonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1092&Itemid=1
• http://www.hcmadras.tn.nic.in/Suo-motu-(taken-up-WP3335of2009).pdf
• http://www.vigilonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1075&Itemid=1

Justices MY Eqbal and TS Sivagnanam from behind their judicial bench demanded to know of the police why they had not arrested their colleagues for rape and why, the law which was applicable to the common man was not applicable to the police. Incidentally, lawyer Pugalendi who filed the case against the police in the Irula tribal women case which inspired the first bench of the Madras High Court to harangue the police, is one of the goonda lawyers who assaulted Dr. Swamy in court on that fateful day and is mentioned by name in the Justice Srikrishna interim report on the event.

The Supreme Court and the Madras High Court jumped into the lawyer-police clash fingers to nose, both feet first without adhering to the fundamentals of the judicial process – that both sides need to be heard before pronouncing judgment and that justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done.

While the police have been judged, juried and executed by the Madras High Court and the Supreme Court, till date, the lawyers who assaulted Dr. Swamy, the writer and her friends and hapless policemen in court hall 3 on February 17, or the lawyers who called for the arrest of Justices PK Mishra and Chandru, or the lawyers who pelted stones at the police and proceeded to set fire to the police station within the court premises have not been arrested and thrown behind bars where they belong.

Even more shameful, there is no convincing explanation for why the five-member bench constituted to look into the conduct of the lawyers of the Madras High Court and other courts in TN, has not had a single sitting in the three years after February 2009.

Perhaps the time has to come to deny loose remarks and insulting observations of judges the shield of contempt-of-court. Perhaps the time has also come to record every observation and comment made by judges during trial as annexure to the final judgment and thus be placed on court record.

Samples of judicial wisdom

1. Swaminathan, why are you bringing stray dogs into this court?

Milord, their right to life….

You are speaking of rights Swaminathan, what about duties. Do you know that the constitution also speaks of duties of citizens?

There is nothing in the constitution that says animals have duties; while it is certainly true that animals have certain rights on paper. And yet, Justice Subhashan Reddy, the then Chief Justice of the Madras High Court let loose uninformed comments in court when a PIL filed against the government came for admission before the first bench.

2. You are bringing this case for animal rights into this court? Do you know I am a non-vegetarian?

These were the scintillating opening remarks by Justice VS Sirpurkar (now judge in the Supreme Court) in the second bench of the Madras High Court along with Jusitce Karpagavinayakam when the case against the Chennai corporation for serious violations of the Dog Rule Act 2001 came up for hearing before him.

What does the eating habit of judges, no matter how unfortunate, have to do with the law and implementation of the law?

3. Fish-stalls? You are saying fish-stalls have come up in the place of a temple? (Smile) It is easier to remove fish-stalls from the road than to remove temples. (Uproarious laughter)

Justice Elipe Dharma Rao, second bench of the Madras High Court hearing the writer’s arguments against government action razing Hindu street temples without notice or prior intimation.

4. Temples? You say these are temples. First they will build one room and call it temple. Then they will build a kitchen and then bedroom.

This was Justice MY Eqbal, Chief Justice of the Madras High Court, on the first bench along with Justice Sivagnanam, hearing the writer’s case against Supreme Court directive to remove street temples which the government considered encroachment on public land.

A few months later a church in Chennai which had come up illegally, not on the road but on state government land belonging to the Tamil Nadu Housing Board, went to court seeking stay on demolition. The case came up for hearing before the second bench headed by Justice Elipe Dharma Rao. The learned judge stayed the demolition and advised the state government to accept appropriate compensation for the land that the church had usurped and occupied illegally.

Operative part of the judgement? The court recommends to the government that the church should not be demolished. Readers are requested to re-visit the learned judge’s comments on Hindu temples and fish-stalls.

• http://www.vigilonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1413&Itemid=71

5. If your government is unable to protect minorities, then you quit office. We can’t tolerate persecution of religious minorities. If your government cannot control such incidents, then quit office.

The writer’s all-time favourite judge, Justice Markandey Katju retd., in the Supreme Court from a three member bench headed by the Chief Justice of India, hearing a petition filed in the Supreme Court by Raphael Cheenath, Archbishop of Orissa.

6. In a little village of Tamil Nadu, in Dindigul district, the Harijans of Balasamudram village refused to allow Muslims of the village to pass through their habitation to the Muslim burial ground. The Muslims were asked to take another route to their burial ground. Now this is a very small local issue confined to the borders of the village which the Muslims rightly ought to have settled by dialogue with the Harijans. Instead they chose to approach our secular courts for redress. The following excerpt is from the writer’s Plainspeak in www.vigilonline.com in 2005 about another case heard by Justice Markandey Katju in his capacity as Chief Justice of the Madras High Court.

“Allowing the petition, the Bench observed that the Muslims in the village were entitled to take the bodies of the dead through public streets. The authorities should ensure that there were no communal clashes or disturbance of public order by any one.

“‘Whoever tries to create communal tension or ill-will must be dealt with, with an iron hand in accordance with law, including the relevant provisions of the IPC, Cr.PC and other penal statutes’, the Bench said.

“The Bench also observed that India was a free, democratic and secular country. People of all religions, castes and communities were equal under the Constitution, vide Articles 14 to 18 and they had a right to freely practice their religion, vide Article 25.”

“‘India does not belong to the Hindus alone. It belongs equally to Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Jews and all are equal before the law, the Madras High Court has observed.’

“‘It is not that the Hindus can live in this country as first-rate citizens while others can live only as second-rate citizens. In our country all citizens are entitled to live as first-rate citizens,” the First Bench comprising Chief Justice Markandey Katju and Justice FM Kalifulla observed while allowing a Public Interest Litigation on Friday.’

“‘Hence the only policy which will work in our country, hold it together and take us to the path of prosperity is the policy of secularism and equal respect to all communities. This was the path shown to us by our great emperors Ashoka and Akbar, who gave equal respect to all religions and communities,” the Bench said and added that without such a policy India as a democracy could not survive for long.’” (The New Indian Express, July 16, 2005, page 4, “Give all sections due respect: HC”)

This will not be the first or last time that Justice Markandey Katju will deliver homilies to chief ministers, bureaucrats, litigants and anyone who had to perforce listen to him. Besides this startling word-for-word repetition of Gandhi’s idea of this nation, as reproduced by the author in the book Eclipse of the Hindu Nation: Gandhi and his Freedom Struggle, Katju’s other learned observation is that this nation is a country of immigrants; a strange opinion with no historical evidence to back his claim, which Judge Katju repeats from every forum that invites him to speak.

7. Before parting with this case we would like to mention that India is a country of tremendous diversity, which is due to the fact that it is broadly a country of immigrants (like North America) as explained in detail by us in Kailas & Others vs. State of Maharashtra, JT 2011 (1) 19. As observed in paragraph 32 of the said decision, since India is a country of great diversity, it is absolutely essential if we wish to keep our country united to have tolerance and equal respect for all communities and sects (see also in this connection the decision in Hinsa Virodhak Sangh vs. Mirzapur Moti Kuresh Jamaat, AIR 2008 SC 1892 vide paragraphs 41 to 60). It is due to the wisdom of our founding fathers that we have a Constitution which is secular in character, and which caters to the tremendous diversity in our country.

It may be mentioned that when India became independent in 1947 there were partition riots in many parts of the sub-continent, and a large number of people were killed, injured and displaced. Religious passions were inflamed at that time, and when passions are inflamed it is difficult to keep a cool head. It is the greatness of our founding fathers that under the leadership of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru they kept a cool head and decided to declare India a secular country instead of a Hindu country. This was a very difficult decision at that time because Pakistan had declared itself an Islamic State and hence there must have been tremendous pressure on Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and our other leaders to declare a Hindu State. It is their greatness that they resisted this pressure and kept a cool head and rightly declared India to be a secular state.

This is why despite all its tremendous diversity India is still united. In this sub-continent, with all its tremendous diversity (because 92 per cent of the people living in the sub continent are descendants of immigrants) the only policy which can work and provide for stability and progress is secularism and giving equal respect to all communities, sects, denominations, etc. (Justice Markandey Katju in the Haj Subsidy case, 28-01-2011)

• http://www.vigilonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1634&Itemid=1

Justice Markandey Katju is now Chairman, Press Council of India. Judicial hubris is not satisfied with the blood of the police, elected representatives, high bureaucrats, Hindu sensibilities, street dogs and street temples. Ancient Hindu temples and their hoary traditions too have not been spared from the depredations of the lawyer-judge nexus.

Justices RV Raveendran and AK Patnaik of the Supreme Court had the unprecedented temerity to ask for the sacred vaults of the Sree Anantha Padmanabha Swamy temple to be opened simply because one lawyer Sundararajan went to the Kerala High Court alleging mismanagement of temple wealth by the Thiruvananthapuram royal family who by self-definition were the First Servants of the Bhagwan.

Lawyer Sundararajan dragged the royal family to court; and with the family the temple was dragged to the court too. Having ordered the vaults of the temple to be opened, in what Hindus perceive to be an act of unforgivable sacrilege, the judges took umbrage when the King invoked devaprasnam to ascertain Bhagwan’s wishes and views about the crisis which had befallen the Hindus of Kerala.

The devaprasnam explicitly forbade the opening of Vault B and advocate for the King of Thiruvananthapuram, Senior Counsel KK Venugopal, conveyed the content of the devaprasnam to the Supreme Court.

The Honourable Supreme Court was not amused. To think a devaprasnam could overrule the learned judges and actually warn of dire consequences if Bhagwan Anantha Padmanabha Swamy’s voice was disregarded, was insult to the dignity of Milords; and they made their displeasure with Bhagwan amply clear.

8. Faced with a sensitive issue of making an inventory of the temple wealth, devising ways and means for its protection and public exhibition of selected items of cultural value, the bench asked, “Are you (royal heirs) presenting the case before the court or before Deva Prasnam?”

• http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-09-03/india/30109896_1_royal-family-sree-padmanabhaswamy-marthanda-varma
• http://www.vigilonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1562&Itemid=71

It bears mention that the royal family did not approach the courts but were forced to be present there because the country’s polity has set two ugly precedents-

• That Hindu temples alone will be administered by the government which includes not only pirating the wealth of the temples, moveable and immovable, but also interfering in the religious affairs of temples too
• That judges will be placed over temples, temple deities, faith and tradition

The sacred tradition of devaprasnam is undertaken by temples around the country under different names. Devaprasnam invokes the presiding deity of the temple to speak through an individual who is chosen with great care and after rigorous procedures, to be the temporary abode of the deity. The presiding deity after being invoked in the body of this person speaks through him. The devaprasnam is conducted whenever the trustees and the bhaktas feel a overwhelming need to invoke the deity.

The words uttered during devaprasnam are therefore the voice of Bhagwan or Devi and is sacrosanct and inviolable. This is the way of dharma and this is how Hindus conduct their lives. This is faith and this is tradition. Hindu bhumi breathes and lives only by faith and veneration.

Judges deciding the fate of Sree Anantha Padmanabha Swamy temple and Srirama’s janmabhumi, placed themselves right on top of the Hindu bhumi – over faith, over tradition, over Hindu temples and above all, over Hindu Gods. And they are not going to take kindly to any attempt to dislodge them from these undeserved and un-Hindu heights.

Judges appoint themselves

Judges, in keeping with their exalted larger-than-gods status in the country, are the only species in the ruling elite who appoint themselves; they are svayambhu.

Judges have been appointing themselves since 1995 and if anyone thinks de-linking the selection process from the influence of politicians has improved the selection process think again. Judges to the higher judiciary – High Courts and Supreme Court, are selected by a panel of judges comprising the Chief Justice and senior-most judges in the concerned court.

Let us assume the panel is a mixed group of the good, the bad and the ugly. Good proposes one name for judge and Bad and Ugly have their names ready too. If Good Judge wants Good Candidate to be accepted as judge by the panel he will have to accede to Bad and Ugly judges proposing Bad and Ugly Candidate for appointment as judges too.

Anything is possible thereafter – that Good Judge may swallow the poison of having to say yes to Bad and Ugly if he can push in one Good Judge into the nation’s assembly line. It is equally possible that Good may be horrified at the names proposed by Bad and Ugly and so make the decision that while it may not be possible for him to push for a good judge at least he can make sure Bad and Ugly do not push in more bad and ugly into the assembly line.

For ordinary citizens, it is heads Ugly wins, tails Good loses. If readers keep this in mind every time we read about this judge or that making loose observations about the police, about the armed forces, every time a judge harangues a politician or an ordinary litigant, every time there is an order that destroys street temples, kills animals, wounds Hindu sensibilities, it is because the selection process of judges is opaque; it is opaque because most advocate-pools from which judges have to be picked are cesspools.

Police, like the army, must be insulated from our judges

As pointed out earlier by the writer in her column on the orders of the Supreme Court to open the vaults of the Sree Anantha Padmanabha Swamy Temple, anyone can go to our courts and file a writ patently anti-police, anti-armed forces and anti-Hindu in nature and our courts jump at it ignoring the motives and character of the person filing the writ. The late Soundararajan (who went to court asking for the vaults to be opened), Teesta Setalvad, Traffic Ramaswamy, Pugalendi, Henry Tiphagne and foreign-funded NGOs being serial offenders in this regard.

The Supreme Court has now bared its fangs now against the army and has demanded from the army why court-martial proceedings have not been initiated against officers accused of killing “innocent civilians” in an encounter in Patribhal, in South Kashmir in the year 2000. The army suspected them of being Lashkar-e-toiba terrorists and naturally do not want to take punitive measures against what was a decision taken on the ground under difficult circumstances.

Whatever action may be contemplated and even if no action is taken at all, it has to be the army’s internal decision and under the Army Act and not under the crack of the judicial whip.

The Supreme Court and the Madras High Court punished police officers for dealing with a violent mob of lawyers in a manner they deemed fit. Our men in uniform respond on the ground to threats and challenges to national security. It is always possible that there are errors in judgment in decisions made and actions executed to meet these threats.

India polity must grapple with the question if the judiciary can be vested with overarching powers which punishes the police and questions the army for decisions taken in the line of duty. The nation owes our men in uniform this much. While the pressures on the army are well-known, very little is known about the pressures on our police force. Our police force is called upon to deal with varied threats to society and state; they are now dealing with:

• Anti-social elements posing threats to law and order
• Criminals indulging in offences from the petty to the heinous,
• Organized gangs networked with international cartels smuggling drugs, weapons, currency, live and dead endangered species, and contraband
• Naxal/Maoist insurgency and targeted anti-police violence
• North-East separatist Christian terrorists
• Islamic jihadis

Keeping in mind the expanded scope of policing in the country parliament must seriously consider the question if the police too should not be provided a mechanism like the Court Martial so that all offences by the police are investigated and tried internally by the police itself. After all, even the money-driven media industry insists on self-regulation.

If judges were paid back in the same coin, maybe, just maybe the judiciary which resembles the Augean Stables today may yet be cleansed. (Concluded)

» Radha Rajan is the editor of www.vigilonlone.com

Anti-Police Bias

The heavens would fall in judicial wrath for contempt of court! The right to make insulting observations, the right to be offensively rude and the right to denigrate individuals and institutions, statutory authorities and constitutional bodies in open court with sweeping generalisations and unfounded assumptions of moral turpitude is the sole prerogative of judges.

The writer is not even going into fanciful and insulting notions of history of this nation and its civilisational ethos which Justice Markandey Katju has expressed in open court with the sanctioned impunity which comes with his profession. It bears mention that Justice Katju on more than one occasion has cited his capricious and even irrational opinions as the basis for some of his judgments. While these judgments are not the subject of the column, his un-Hindu, anti-Hindu worldview and his frequent outbursts in court however are germane to the article.

The Gujarat High Court on December 1, 2011, directed the Central Bureau of Investigation to take over the investigation into the Ishrat Jahan ‘fake’ encounter case. As is often the case, the judicial directive was accompanied by a generous dose of gratuitous insults.

Stating that the Gujarat police could not be “relied upon” to conduct an impartial probe, the High Court asked the CBI to consider the case as an “exceptional one having national ramifications”.

Rejecting the state government’s plea to allow the police to investigate the case, the Bench (a Division Bench comprising Justices Jayant Patel and Abhilasha Kumari) said such an inquiry would not only be not “reliable”, but also fail to instil confidence among the victims and the public in general because of the involvement of a number of senior police officers in the fake encounter.

Besides, “all top officials of the state up to the rank of the then DGP may fall within the ambit of the investigation in connection with the registration of another/fresh FIR,” and therefore investigation by the state police would not be desirable. The Bench also recorded the possibility of the police tampering with evidence to protect its officers. (The Hindu, Friday, December 2, 2011, page 14)

Sum and substance of the court directive -

• The CBI should take over from the Gujarat police because the Gujarat Police is unreliable
• By implication, the CBI is reliable
• The Gujarat police cannot be trusted to carry out investigations because senior police officials are involved
• The judges have already concluded that senior police officials are involved in the ‘fake’ encounter on the basis of the SIT report
• If the judges have accepted the SIT report that the encounter was fake then why ask the CBI for more investigations and to what end purpose unless by insidious implication the court wanted the CBI to find Gujarat’s top police officials guilty
• Even before the CBI has started its investigations into the Ishrat Jahan encounter case, the Division Bench stated in open court that senior police officials up to the level of the then DGP are involved
• Stating that senior police officials could be involved is tantamount to indicting them without trial when the words are spoken by judges hearing the case
• Having pronounced senior officials to be guilty, should it be construed that the statement is equal to a verdict of guilt or should it be perceived as loose observations by the two judges amounting to anti-police bias and judicial hubris
• Was the Division Bench of the Gujarat High Court imputing motives to the Gujarat Police when it stated that the police cannot be relied upon to investigate with fairness and integrity other police officers?
• If, according to the judiciary, the Gujarat Police cannot be trusted to carry out fair investigations against the police department, would it be just as fair to say that the judiciary cannot be trusted to hear cases involving their fraternity – lawyers and judges?

Of course every judge in the country – from judges in the Munsif Court, from Assistant District Judge, Additional District Judge and District Magistrate upwards, like Justices Abhilasha Kumari and Jayant Patel of the Gujarat High Court thinks every case before them is “exceptional one having national ramifications”; this enormous sense of self-importance is an integral part of their contrived eminence.

However, in the best interests of democracy, the ordinary citizen from whom democracy derives its legitimacy and power, must now begin to take a good hard look at not only what is said in our courts but also at the conduct of our judges when they are holding office.

Justices Abhilasha Kumari and Jayant Patel rejected the plea of the Gujarat government to allow the police to investigate the case on two grounds – that senior police officials up to the rank of DGP may have to be brought within the ambit of the investigation and “also fail to instil confidence among the victims and the public in general because of the involvement of a number of senior police officers in the fake encounter”.

If, as the judges are claiming, the involvement (not possible involvement but certain involvement) of senior police officials has failed to instil confidence among the victims (read Muslims) and the general public, then the writer must respectfully point out to the judges that when they state that the law which is applicable to the ordinary citizen must be made applicable to the police, then the ‘ordinary citizen’ rule and the indices by which the judiciary judges the police force must be equally applicable to judges too.

The series of mind-numbing scandals involving the judiciary, to quote the very words which the judges of the Gujarat High Court hurled at the police, “also fails to instil confidence among the victims and the public in general because of the involvement of a number of” senior and high-ranking judges in these scandals –

• One former Chief Justice of India and his close family members
• One Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court, elevated to the Supreme Court who resigned after threat of impeachment
• One former judge holding the post of Karnataka Lokayukta
• Justice Ashok Kumar of Tamil Nadu and later Andhra Pradesh
• Justice CS Karnan also from Tamil Nadu

But the country is yet to see even one judge placed behind bars; and this is only the needle-point tip of the scandal-iceberg tainting the judiciary. There are also accusing whispers of conduct unbecoming of judges, rampant nepotism, portfolio management/manipulation and raw bribe-taking doing the rounds in several courts across the country. Portfolio management/manipulation is the country’s worst kept secret – the ability of some advocates and litigants to get a judge of their choice to hear their case and thereafter get the judgment of their choice.

• http://www.vigilonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1438&Itemid=1
• http://www.vigilonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1454&Itemid=1
• http://www.vigilonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1482&Itemid=1
• http://www.vigilonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=990

The Madras High Court, not to be outdone in the annual All India High Court Police-bashing Competition, also jumped into the fray.

The first bench of Chief Justice MY Eqbal and Justice TS Sivagnanam was hearing a PIL filed by advocate P Pugalenthi seeking CBI probe into the alleged rape of Irula women by the personnel attached to the Thirukovilur police station.

The bench made it clear that it would be constrained to pass appropriate orders “if the investigation is not found to be satisfactory”. The bench said, “We fail to understand the submission made by the public prosecutor. If a lady goes to a police station complaining about sexual harassment or rape by a person, the police officer will not hesitate to arrest that person immediately. Why should a law which is applicable to the common man not be applicable to the police officers?”

• http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-12-08/chennai/30489579_1_tribal-women-police-officers-police-station

The observations made by the first bench merit unsparing scrutiny because the opinions and pronouncements which the judges made in court have far-reaching consequences and this is cause for worry.

These insulting observations were made in the course of the hearing on a PIL filed by some advocate in the Madras High Court asking for the case to be taken over by the CBI. Points to be noted from the observations made by the first bench -

• Investigations are far from complete and still underway
• The advocate’s PIL implied mistrust of the entire TN police because it asked for the CBI to take over the case
• The Chief Justice of the Madras High Court when he made harsh observations against the police even before investigations were complete, did so without thought to the fact that he was not only encouraging a small-time lawyer to question the integrity of the entire police force but that as judge he was undermining the dignity of the uniform
• The chief justice for good measure compounded the insult with the threat that he would be “constrained to issue appropriate orders” “if the investigation is not found to be satisfactory”
• Two questions beg themselves – what are “appropriate” orders and what constitutes “satisfactory” investigations?
• Can an ordinary citizen be blamed if he thinks that the opinion “if the investigations are not found to be satisfactory” actually means that the judges, like lawyer Pugalendi have a pre-determined course in mind wherein the investigations must proceed along a certain path which will find the Thirukovilur police guilty?
• The first bench of the Madras High Court has failed to apply its mind to make the distinction between charges of rape levelled against ordinary persons and charges of rape levelled against the armed forces and police force
• While false charges of rape are reprehensible no matter who makes them, the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court should have borne in mind that charges of rape and assault against the police are sometimes motivated by previous animus or are politically motivated
• When the clothes of the Irula women had already been sent to forensics to determine rape or otherwise, and the results were awaited, there was no cause for the judges to pre-determine the issue and imply that the investigations were not satisfactory

It is nobody’s case that rapists, especially so if they are policemen, should be placed beyond the reach of the law or that they do not merit punishment under the law; but because the growing industry in human rights targets our uniformed forces, it becomes imperative that judges do not bring the investigating process and the entire police force under a counter-productive cloud of suspicion and mistrust; more importantly, this places the police force at an undeserved disadvantage vis-a-vis the judiciary and demoralises the entire force.

The manner in which Justice Ibrahim Khalifullah of the Madras High Court and former Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan of the Supreme Court dealt with senior police officials of Tamil Nadu in 2009 is a case in point which the writer will deal with in just a while.

Our courts of law must learn the right lessons from Teesta Setalvad and Co. who cleverly used the contrived anti-police hysteria of a complicit media to manipulate judges against the Gujarat police. Add to it the ever-tempting cry Muslims-are-in-danger of the secularists, Islam-is-in-danger cry of the Muslims and “secularism is in danger from Hindu communalism” shrill rhetoric of the Generic Church and our men in uniform – the police and armed forces are faced by a double whammy – they are often compelled because of politics-of-minority-ism to function with both hands tied behind their backs and they have the Damocles sword of an anti-police judiciary forever hanging over their heads.

The judiciary must be compelled to see why it should restrain its impulse for overreach and not call for arresting police officers until their guilt has been conclusively established. The Supreme Court admonition to the Delhi police not to file misleading or wrong reports in court with regard to the midnight crackdown on Baba Ramdev and his bhaktas in June 2011 is yet another instance of the judiciary picking the police as whipping boy.

The Delhi police would do well in the highest interests of the country’s police force to refuse to be the fall guy in the shameful event of June 4, 2011. That the UPA government had worked out all options to deal with Baba Ramdev was public knowledge when Kapil Sibal admitted as much to the media.

For the Supreme Court to now pretend that the Stalinist midnight assault on Ramlila Maidan was conceived of, cooked and served up to Baba Ramdev by the Delhi police is to assume that the ordinary people of the country are just a vast, mindless, credulous mass of flesh.

The Delhi police chief, after obeying Home Ministry orders to carry out the midnight crackdown should however have stepped down in protest the very next day, for being compelled to disregard and violate every rule in the Police Rule Book; this would have laid the blame squarely where it belonged – right at the doors of the Home Minister and would have jolted the government to its senses.

Fact of the Matter – The CBI

The CBI can take over investigation of a case only under two circumstances –

• The state government must make an official representation to the central government asking the CBI to take over a particular case or
• Under directives of the High Court or Supreme Court which bypasses the state government.

Serious accusations of collusion between judges and the political ruling class have been made whenever courts have issued directives for the CBI to take over investigations in cases loaded with political overtones. This collusion happens when ambitious judges want to go places and need political patronage to get there.

The Director of the CBI is appointed from the ranks of the Indian Police Service; and yet, whenever the CBI has been called upon to investigate complex cases with anti-police slant, the CBI consciously ignored its nativity and has either acted like an extended arm of the Congress party or jumped obediently like a helpless circus lion when the judiciary cracked the whip.

CBI investigation into the Vachathi tribal village affair and the subsequent verdict of the Dharmapuri District and Sessions Court which found 269 state government officials guilty of rape and assault against tribal women of Vachathi village is a good example not only of shoddy CBI investigation but also of selective judicial activism.

The village of Vachathi was raided on 20 June, 1992 by government officials for sandalwood illegally cut by the tribal people from the village in active partnership with the sandalwood mafia around the region. The state government handed over the investigation to the CBI in 1995.

Considering the touching faith that the Supreme Court and the High Courts have in the investigating ability and professional integrity of the CBI, the judiciary will find it very difficult to explain how, if according to early testimonies of the people of Vachathi village, the raiding group of forest, revenue and police officials numbered only around 50 with no mention of rape, the CBI finally indicted 269 government officials for the offence including 84 state police officials besides finding and convicting 17 persons for rape of 18 women!

Accusing the police and our armed forces of rape, mass rape and sexual assault, long after the alleged event, thus making the crime impossible to prove has become a pernicious political trend; political because the end objective of accusations of rape and fake encounters is two-fold: destroy the reputation of the police/army officer concerned and destroy the morale of the force with character assassination and accusations of misconduct so that the police and the army will eventually not act against anti-social and anti-national entities for fear of being maligned and /or dragged to court.

Human rights organizations and activists have therefore been accused of being the over-ground face and voice of underground terrorists.

In the 19 years between the event in June 1992 and the judgment in September 2011 the Vachathi narrative seems to have expanded impressively in action and scope and the numbers of the offenders multiplied by so many times as was guaranteed to get the attention of that section of media and human rights activists who for sustenance feed upon the dead reputations of our police and armed forces.

The writer knows exactly how the original raiding party of 50 became 269 in the CBI report; and what the writer knows the CBI would have known as well. The Madras High Court now owes us all an explanation not only about the CBI’s investigating abilities but also the High Court’s selective application of its own rules “to pass appropriate orders if investigations are not found to be satisfactory”. It is time the first bench of the Madras High Court put action where its mouth is.

So much for the CBI’s investigating ability; its integrity fares no better. Considering the shameful antics of the CBI in Gujarat, the Gujarat and Madras High Courts must now tell us the basis for court directives to the CBI to take over cases bypassing the state police; and also tell us the basis for their own anti-police harangue in the courts.

The CBI, like the shadowy Congress core group member from Gujarat widely perceived to be playing Rasputin to the Congress President, has been made Sonia Gandhi’s executing arm against Narendra Modi. The CBI, by its own admission lied in the Supreme Court to get the Sohrabuddin encounter case transferred out of Gujarat. In November 2011, the CBI was forced to confess in the Supreme Court that it had lied when it alleged that several persons accused in the Sohrabuddin encounter case had relatives serving as magistrates, prosecutors and judges in Gujarat’s lower judiciary.

Ram Jethmalani, lawyer for Amit Shah, former deputy Home Minister of Gujarat and an accused in the case, made a sensational disclosure in court when he alleged that the CBI was brought into the case by Justice Tarun Chatterjee of the Supreme Court who was/is facing charges of corruption in the Provident Fund scandal and that an obliging Sonia’s Congress not only did not pursue investigations against the judge accused of corruption but even gave him a “post-retirement cushy assignment” for his obliging anti-Narendra Modi position.

• http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-11-25/india/30440819_1_cbi-probe-cbi-scanner-justices-aftab-alam
• http://www.vigilonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1376&Itemid=1

Suffice it to test one grain of rice in the pot; and the CBI has been exposed on two counts in the last year alone!

Fact of the Matter – Madras High Court

Nothing exposed the naked duplicity, double-standards, hypocrisy and anti-police bias of the Supreme Court and Madras High Court than their reaction to the violent lawyer-police clash in the Madras High Court on February 19, 2009.

The Madras High Court and several subordinate courts in Tamil Nadu were almost totally paralysed between 2006-2009 because a vast majority of lawyers who are politically affiliated to some Dravidian Tamil-chauvinist party or the other, refused to attend work as expression of their solidarity with the Tamil terrorist organization the LTTE and its chief Velupillai Prabhakaran.

The total number of work days lost by Tamil Nadu’s courts between 2006 and August 31, 2009 is a mind-boggling and utterly shameful 11,840 days. In 2009 alone, as of end of August with four more months to go till end of year, the Madras High Court and all subordinate courts across TN districts lost 5003.5 work days!

• http://www.vigilonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1232&Itemid=1

On 17th February, 2009 a big group of goonda lawyers barged into Court Hall 3 of Justices PK Mishra and Chandru and physically assaulted Dr. Subramaniam Swamy who had on several occasions spoken out against the LTTE and its Chief. While some thug lawyers threw eggs at Dr. Swamy, other rowdy lawyers roughed him up and landed punches on Dr. Swamy’s head and face.

The writer and two friends were also present in court that day and were witness to the whole sordid episode besides being assaulted and abused by the lawyers in the court hall as price for closing the doors of the courtroom to prevent more violent lawyers from coming in and for summoning the police standing outside the doors into the hall.

Justices Mishra and Chandru, rare specimens within their species (who ought to have been elevated to the Supreme Court as they deserved), refused to be cowed down by the violence and after asking Dr. Swamy to hand over to them his written complaint which they promised to forward to the Chief Justice of the High Court, also sternly castigated the lawyers for their lawlessness in the order they delivered in court that day.

Ominous clouds portending violence gathered over the Madras High Court in the morning of 19th February because the lawyers suspected that Dr. Swamy may come to court to meet the Chief Justice. Several TV channels which had gathered there video-graphed the violence let loose by the lawyers within the Madras High Court premises in the afternoon.

The writer who saw one such unedited video of the events of 19th February can attest to the naked provocation offered by the lawyers to the police who had assembled in large numbers within the court premises to avert any repetition of February 17. This vast section of high court lawyers marched in a procession to the police station located within the court premises and demanded the arrest of Justices Mishra and Chandru for expressing disapproval of lawyers’ conduct in court room 3 on February 17.

The video captured the lawyers on camera as they threw large stones and bricks at the police and then proceeded to vandalise the police station and set it on fire. The lawyers refused to allow firemen to put out the fire and drove them away with threats of physical violence. The violence unleashed against the TN police in the Madras High Court on February 19 was worse than the routine and sustained violence let loose by stone-pelting Sunni Muslims against the J&K police and the paramilitary in Kashmir.

Once the police station was set on fire the police swung into action and used deserved force to dispel the violent mob. Forceful police action against the violent mob in the Madras High Court provided lawyers across the state yet another cause to continue their boycott of courts; only this time they demanded that the judiciary punish all senior police officials including the then Commissioner of Police for their search-and-evict operation. (To be concluded)

» Radha Rajan is the editor of www.vigilonline.com