Within the short span of 18 months after despairing about the open, uninterrupted and continuous corruption of the Congress-led UPA II government (2004-14) at the Centre, the nation’s silent majority is gradually discovering that by conferring the BJP led by prime minister Narendra Modi with the largest majority in the Lok Sabha since 1985, they have also voted in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) — the ideological parent of the BJP committed to transforming India into a Hindu nation — and its affiliates known as the sangh parivar. Although during his presidential style election campaign, Modi promised sabka saath, sabka vikas (unity and progress for all), one-third of the way into the term of the BJP/NDA government it’s becoming increasingly clear that for all his chest-thumping and bluster, prime minister Modi is either unable or unwilling to rein in spokespersons of the RSS and its sangh parivar affiliates. They seem hell-bent upon transforming the liberal and secular Indian State envisioned by the authors of the Constitution, into a Hindu majoritarian nation.
During the past few months, not a day has gone by without some leading light of the sangh parivar, including members of Parliament elected on the BJP ticket, making inflammatory statements to consolidate the Hindu vote by demonising religious minorities, particularly Muslims. Several sangh parivar sages have denounced sundry imaginary Muslim/Christian conspiracies against the nation or its majority Hindu community.
The latest explosive issue that sangh parivar strategists have hit upon is that of cow slaughter and beef bans across the country, knowing fully well that for Muslims and Christians (and Dalits) beef is a cheap dietary protein. With sangh parivar saints and savants including members of Parliament proclaiming their love for the cow which they insist is accorded maternal status in Hindu scriptures, an inflamed mob of Hindu vigilantes ransacked the home and murdered Mohammed Akhlaque in Dadri, a small town in Uttar Pradesh, on suspicion that he had stored beef in his refrigerator. A few days later, another mob attacked and injured a group of Muslims in UP while they were skinning a dead bovine for leather.
Through all this regression and polarisation of the country’s major religious communities, prime minister Modi has maintained a deafening silence which sangh parivar extremists interpret as tacit approval. Only after President Pranab Mukherjee made a public plea on October 7 for maintaining the nation’s “plurality”, “diversity” and “core civilizational values”, did Modi make a weak endorsement calling for national harmony.
A dangerous electoral game is being played out countrywide by neo-literates lacking the foresight and imagination to weigh the impact of their irresponsible utterances upon the vast majority of deliberately under-educated people. If unchecked, these petty players who strut and fret upon the national stage could plunge the country into anarchy and civil war.
Collegium better for judicial freedom
The supreme court’s majority 4-1 judgement of October 15, striking down the 99th Constitution Amendment through which Parliament had established a six-strong National Judicial Accountability Commission (NJAC) to appoint Supreme and high court judges, has provoked an impassioned nationwide debate. Last year both houses of Parliament and 20 state legislatures approved the NJAC Bill, 2015, which received Presidential assent on December 31, 2014 and became law on April 13.
The prime objective of the NJAC Act, 2015 was to replace the collegium system of selection devised by the Supreme Court based on its own judgements in three rulings (1981-98) known as the Three Judges Cases, following which a collegium comprising the chief justice and four senior judges of the Supreme Court, would appoint higher judiciary judges in consultation with the President. The collegium system became operational in 1993 after the apex court’s judgement in the Second Judges Case.
The rationale of the NJAC Act was that a judges-appointing-judges system is not mandated by the Constitution, and a broader consultation process involving the people’s representatives would best serve the public interest. Therefore the NJAC Act proposed a commission comprising the chief justice and two seniormost judges of the Supreme Court, the Union law minister (all ex officio) and “two eminent persons” (to be selected by the chief justice, prime minister and leader of the opposition) to select and appoint higher judiciary judges.
In the considered opinion of the majority, this elaborate arrangement could give rise to politicking and permutations and combinations which could compromise the independence of the judiciary and thereby damage the basic structure of the Constitution. On the other hand, the entire political class has protested the majority judgement on the ground that the collegium system establishes the “tyranny of an unelected minority”.
While critics of the majority judgement have an arguable case, their vigorous advocacy of people’s representatives in the judges selection process has to be assessed in the light of ground realities. Quite obviously the four judges have taken judicial notice of the country’s starved, beaten and deliberately under-educated general populace and their self-serving representatives in Parliament and the state assemblies — 34 percent of them charged with serious criminal offences — and decided they are best kept out of the selection process in the interest of maintaining judicial independence, although for reasons of political correctness, they (rightly) refrained from articulating this sentiment.
In the circumstances, the admittedly imperfect collegium system is less dangerous for the preservation of India’s democracy than the elaborate process designed by the NJAC Act. Therefore it should be supported by all responsible and right-thinking citizens.