The delight which all right-thinking citizens of this benighted republic groaning under the incremental weight of open, uninterrupted and continuous corruption practiced by the Congress-led UPA government for nine long years experienced when the neophyte Aam Aadmi Party trounced the Congress in the Delhi state election of December, is fast turning into disillusionment. With each passing day, leaders of the AAP minority government are exposing themselves as a motley crowd of moffussil neo-fascists cloaked in self-righteousness, ignorant of democratic norms and practices.
The cloying sycophantic paens to the wisdom of the common man sung by AAP chief minister Arvind Kejriwal — a narrowly educated IIT techie with minimal awareness of the democratic ecosystem — and the lynch mob mentality of some of its even more ill-educated ministers, is turning the euphoria of AAP’s electoral victory into despair. On January 15, AAP’s law minister Somnath Bharti — live testimony of the pathetic quality of legal education being dispensed in the country’s law schools — at the head of a mob of vigilantes ordered the police to break down the door of a flat occupied by “Nigerians or Ugandans” in the national capital, on suspicion that they were engaged in drug-dealing and prostitution. Almost simultaneously Rakhi Birla, AAP’s 26-year-old women and child minister — last seen recklessly signing official documents while being interviewed by a television crew — led another mob to force the police to arrest suspects involved in a murder case.
All this chaos within two weeks of the AAP government being sworn into office and winning a vote of confidence in the legislative assembly, combined with the party’s leaders calling for nationalisation of airports, airlines, and utilities — reversion to the licence-permit-quota raj — has aroused considerable disquiet among the thousands of right-thinking citizens who rushed to sign up as members of the new party. They need to educate Kejriwal and crew that the people of Delhi have elected them to lead and govern, not to pander to ignorant and base elements of society. There’s a lesson in the imminent meltdown of AAP: we need to elect learned representatives with some awareness of the fragile ecosystem of democratic governance.
Proposition vs. harassment
Charges of sexual harassment belatedly filed by women students of a Kolkata law school against two retired Supreme Court judges with whom they were interning, has brought this hitherto covert issue into the national limelight. The charges forced the resignation of Justice Ashok Ganguly from his post-retirement sinecure in the West Bengal Human Rights Commission, and threatens to dislodge Justice Swatanter Kumar from his post-retirement position as chairman of the National Green Tribunal.
Regrettably neither the media nor women activists in positions of high authority in institutions such as the National Commission for Women and the legal profession, have made any meaningful attempt to distinguish between a proposition and harassment. It is entirely possible the learned judges misinterpreted the amiable disposition of the interns, and in lapses of judgement made improper suggestions and perhaps somewhat inappropriately touched them. Yet the public interest demands that such minor acts of indiscretion not amounting to repeated sexual harassment, are sorted out bilaterally. It is highly improbable that the judges endowed with high intelligence would have persisted if firmly told to cease and desist.
Justices Ganguly and Swatanter Kumar, with their excellent legal acumen reflected in several 2G spectrum and RTE cases adjudicated by the apex court, have done the State great service. It would be a shame if their contributions to the development of case law in Indian jurisprudence are allowed to pale into insignificance, and they are remembered only because two gullible young women unable to discern the difference between a proposition and harassment, have been encouraged by a monstrous regiment of women to go ballistic about minor acts of judicial indiscretion.
Bollywoodisation bane
An occupational hazard of editing the country’s premier education-focused news publication is that one often has to attend the annual days of schools and colleges. These events tend to be desultory affairs designed to showcase the talents of students for fond parents and to reassure them that academics apart, the institution is providing cultural and co-curricular education.
Regrettably, these are forgettable experiences with the chief guest having to endure the increasing Bollywoodisation of annual days. A not insignificant number of schools and colleges — especially institutions promoted by politicians and real estate magnates — tend to present low-brow Bollywood song and dance mimicry as evidence of cultural co-curricular education.
Recently your editor was cajoled into attending the annual day of a high-end boys’ residential school — which for purposes of (fading) business reasons shall be nameless — in which the 60-piece school orchestra celebrated 50 years of the output of a popular Bollywood music director. This was followed by a cringe-inducing all-male ‘fashion show’ in which narcissistic senior boys — being groomed to become leaders of industry and society — strutted the ramp to Bollywood tunes, striking the affected poses and mannerisms of fashion models.
Curiously, the packed audience of proud parents who are paying annual tuition fees of Rs.5 lakh per annum for the purported holistic education of their progeny was enthralled, and their thunderous applause almost brought the house down. O tempora! O mores!