Translating political independence into freedom
This editorial is being written on the day of India’s 60th anniversary of political independence following almost two centuries of British rule over the subcontinent. Certainly, the survival against all expectations and predictions of independent India — arguably the most culturally heterogeneous and pluralistic country of the contemporary world — as a genuine political democracy is good cause for celebration. Yet three score years on after the British Union Jack was hauled down from the ramparts of the Red Fort, Delhi and replaced by the Indian tricolour, the ground reality is that over 70 percent of the one billion strong population of independent, democratic India is compelled to subsist on less than $2 per day, and over 700 million citizens experience chronic deprivation of food, clothing, shelter, education, healthcare and meaningful law, order and justice. While contemporary India is indeed an independent nation, the great majority of its people have yet to enjoy freedom.
But even though to make up for the lost decades a lot needs to be done in every sector of the economy, there’s the danger of the renewed national development effort being spread too thin. Therefore an emergency development strategy with clearly defined national priorities needs to be adopted to enable this laggard democracy to reap its fortuitously abundant demographic dividend.
It is submitted that India’s top two priorities at this critical juncture in its history are state provision of law, order and justice and high quality education for all. Imposition of the firm rule of law will enable the country’s productive citizens to go about their business without let and hindrance and drive up annual rates of economic growth. And provision of upgraded, near-equal education to all of India’s children will secure the future. If these two pre-conditions of development are given the priority they deserve, all the other problems of Indian society will be automatically resolved.
Of course this prescription is easier written than administered. It requires the establishment in New Delhi and the state capitals to bite the bullet and insulate the country’s 18 million police personnel from political interference by adopting the Sorabjee Committee’s model Police Act (2006). Simultaneously the provision of timely justice requires the judicial establishment to insist that the ratio of 10 judges per million citizens is increased to 100 per million, on a par with the judge-population ratio in the US. And on the education front — as has been consistently argued and road-mapped in this publication — the annual national outlay for education has to be raised to 6 percent of GDP with immediate effect.
While 60 years of independence is certainly a momentous landmark in the nation’s history, the lack of establishment and middle class empathy for the cruel deprivation of basic necessities suffered by 70 percent of the population is deplorable. As deplorable as the establishment’s failure to draw up simple development priorities to translate political independence into true freedom for rising India’s cruelly short-changed majority.
Sanjay Dutt case: grave miscarriage of justice
A maelstrom of confusion and ignorance of fundamental principles of criminal law is evident in the conviction and incarceration in prison of film star Sanjay Dutt on July 31. A harsh sentence of six years rigorous imprisonment was imposed by Judge P.D. Kode, specially appointed to try over 129 accused charged for conspiring and executing the deadly Mumbai bomb blasts of March 12, 1993 which resulted in 257 deaths, 1,400 injured and destruction of property valued at Rs.160 crore. Though Dutt was absolved of involvement in the serial bomb blasts which devastated India’s commercial capital that fateful day, he was convicted for illegal possession of firearms, including a rapid fire A-56 assault rifle.
Although the details of the case for the defence are not in the public domain, media reports seem to indicate that several important issues and arguments which could have persuaded Judge Kode to deliver a modest cautionary sentence were not advanced and/or rigorously argued.
For instance it’s not clear whether the defence established a linkage between the communal riots in Mumbai of December 1992 and January 1993 (following vandalisation of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya on December 6) with the bomb blasts which followed in March 1993. In the post-Babri demolition riots of 1992-93 in which an estimated 900 citizens of the minority Muslim community were killed, Sanjay Dutt’s father the late Sunil Dutt, M.P, was active in lending help and succour to the Muslim community and had received several death threats against his family. It was against this backdrop of police inertia during the anti-Muslim post-Babri riots and death threats to the Dutt family that Sanjay illegally purchased lethal firearms for self defence. It is regrettable that this sequence of events was not given sufficient weightage by Judge Kode.
It’s true that the Arms Act 1959 decrees that the mere possession of arms and ammunition in a notified area is a criminal offence punishable by a minimum prison sentence of five years. Yet the fundamental principle of criminal jurisprudence is proving mens rea or criminal intent of the accused with the burden of proof required to be discharged (beyond reasonable doubt) by the prosecution. But despite the prosecution having failed to prove any criminal intent except self-defence in anticipation of mob violence in a provenly under-policed metropolis, the judge imposed a heavy sentence on Dutt.
Mere possession of illegal weaponry for the purpose of self-defence, particularly when there is clear and present danger to life or grievous bodily harm, should at best attract punishment for the lesser charge of illegal possession of firearms.
In the case of Sanjay Dutt, following confusion about the sequence of events and ignorance of fundamental principles of criminal jurisprudence, a grave miscarriage of justice has occurred. The national interest demands that the ambit of the right to self defence and of the vital importance of proving mens rea are spelt out by the Supreme Court when this case is heard in appeal.