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It is a paradox of Indian politics. Himachal Pradesh, which goes to the polls on 12 November, has seen a high-decibel campaign revolving around gender equity concerns. The Congress party has promised every adult woman a monthly Rs 1,500 stipend, and the Aam Aadmi Party has promised women Rs 1,000 per month. The Bharatiya Janata Party assures women 33% reservation in government jobs and government-run educational institutions and a hefty discount on state transport buses.

Despite these promises, parties continue to provide women with negligible representation in the State Assembly. While the BJP has given six women candidates tickets in a legislature of 68 members, the Congress has nominated only three women candidates. Important BJP women contenders include Sarveen Choudhary from Shahpur, Reeta Dhiman, who runs a boutique from Palanpur and Shashi Bala from Rohru, in the heart of the apple industry. Other candidates are Vijay Jyoti from Kasumpti and Kamlesh Kumari from Bhoranj. The Congress contenders include the seasoned Asha Kumari from Dalhousie and dynast Champa Thakur from Mandi, whose father, Kaul Singh Thakur, is an eight-time MLA.

Himachal Pradesh has the second-highest literacy rate in the country. In the 2017 election, the female voter turnout was 79%, as opposed to 70% for men. Women outnumber men in 16 key Assembly constituencies, yet they hardly get to represent a constituency. With an average of 5% of women MLAs, Himachal stands below the national average of 6 to 7%.

Politics and political parties in Himachal Pradesh epitomise patriarchal values. Most women MLAs, including the present contender, are from conservative Rajput or Brahmin communities. The mood of several women contenders denied tickets was summed by BJP politician Vandana Guleria, the daughter of seven-time MLA and minister Mahender Singh Thakur. Guleria has been an active Zila Parishad member. When informed by her father that her brother Rajat has been nominated to contest in the upcoming polls, she said, “Delhi se ticket mil sakti hai, vote nahin—nepotism can get you a ticket, not votes.”

Guleria also questioned why women are treated like sacrificial lambs, perhaps referring to the work she has done on the ground, from which a male candidate now stands to gain.

Interestingly, the Congress campaign was spearheaded by Priyanka Gandhi, assisted by Himachal Congress president Pratibha Singh, whose husband was the late Congress leader Virbhadra Singh. Pratibha Singh is a Member of Parliament and not contesting the Assembly election, but her son Vikramaditya Singh is in the running from the Shimla (Rural) constituency.

Given the Congress cannot match the resources of the BJP. Nor can it outflank the ruling party at the national level. That might explain why Priyanka Gandhi steered clear of issues with a strongly national character. She campaigned around youth employment in Himachal Pradesh, restoring the Old Pension Scheme for the state, filling the 63,000 vacant government jobs, fighting the drug menace and setting up English-medium schools in every Assembly segment.

In contrast, the BJP roped in a galaxy of leaders led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, addressing numerous rallies in this hilly state. The top BJP leaders have left no helicopter unturned as they hopped from one rally to another. Party president JP Nadda proudly declared that “anti-incumbency” is a thing of the past, while Modi elaborated on the “double-engine” pet theme. Highways, hydropower, and everything in between are featured in the campaign, but women voters have heard enough. In Himachal Pradesh, they are unwilling to take the BJP’s assurances at face value.

Shalini Singh, a housewife in Solan, says, “For five years, this ‘double-engine sarkar’ just raised taxes. We now pay GST on staple food, even rotis, and basic needs such as stationery and notebooks. My daughter is a pharmacy student whose college charges Rs 3,00,00 fees every six months. But there’s no guarantee she will get a job after graduating. Engineers whose families forked out Rs 5,00,00 as fees are earning Rs 5,000 a month. Where are the jobs the BJP had promised?”

Sushma Sharma, a ward councillor in Solan, also says, “Women in Himachal Pradesh have become politically active and aware. Half the municipal and panchayat seats have been reserved for them, but people elected women to 65% of these positions this time. There are more women mayors too.”

In other words, it is only the real political power—legislators’ seats—where women are denied opportunities to contest. “We are equally dedicated and hard-working [as men]. The main factor is acceptability,” Sharma says.

Since 1967, Himachal Pradesh has had only 88 women contest an election, of whom 38 won, mainly on Congress and BJP tickets.

Nirmal Chandel heads the Ekal Naari Shakti Sangathan in Kasauli, which takes care of single and destitute women. She has been demanding political parties give more women a chance to contest elections. She believes discriminatory policies are why women are denied access to schemes and programmes oriented toward women. Despite their exclusion and neglect, women remain the backbone of the animal husbandry, horticulture and agriculture industries.

Women in the small hilly state are all praise for former prime minister late Indira Gandhi, who helped carve out the State from Punjab. They also recall how former chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal introduced 50% reservation in all Panchayati Raj and local institutions. During his tenure, 55% of women candidates won a round of local body elections. But the BJP has sidelined Dhumal though he was reportedly keen to contest from Hamirpur. A local BJP woman politician said on condition of anonymity why she thinks this happened: “Not only are they [BJP leaders] anti-women, they never hesitate to also sideline leaders who contributed to developing the state.”

In the last leg of this election, BJP and Congress leaders made beelines for temples. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath was roped in to address rallies too. At a rally held in Kangra, he claimed that if the Congress came to power, it would support the mafia. He also said it would destroy the piousness and religiosity of the place. This did not go down well with the crowd.

Many left the rally early, and one of the attendees, a woman, told me: Himachalis are peace-loving. Instead of focusing on unemployment and inflation, and issues which directly concern us, these [BJP] leaders give issues a communal twist. They lack understanding of our problems and deserve a drubbing in these polls.”

The author is an independent journalist. The views are personal.

Courtesy: Newsclick

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Former Supreme Court judge Justice Madan B Lokur has called for a deeper examination of how a committee of the Gujarat government recently granted remission to eleven men convicted of mass murder and gang rapes in the Bilkis Bano case. Speaking to NewsClick, Justice Lokur said he found the remission in this case “rather astonishing”. The former judge said, “I think we need a White Paper on the entire episode.” 

The remission granted to men convicted of brutal criminal assaults during the communal conflagration in Gujarat in 2002 has become a litmus test for women’s rights in India. It has also made people wonder if the judiciary can protect these rights against State overreach. What makes matters worse is remission for the brutal mass murderers and rapists came on Independence Day. 

It is important to note that Justice Lokur is not the only former judge who has spoken out against the remission. It prompted former Bombay High Court Justice UD Salvi, who led the CBI court that convicted the eleven men, to describe the remission as a “rebellion against the judicial apparatus”. Retired justice Deepak Gupta of the Supreme Court of India has also termed this remission immoral, unfair and unjust. Justice Lokur, who retired from the Supreme Court in 2018, earlier said that news of the remission came as an “unpleasant surprise”. 

NewsClick asked Justice Lokur if the Supreme Court could undo the injustice done to Bilkis Bano. He responded that the law is “very much in favour of overturning the remission”. He also said, “I am quite hopeful that justice will be done.” However, since the remission order is not in the public domain, he could not comment on the grounds relied upon by the committee to allow the remission. In this context, he said, “Prima facie, granting remission to all eleven convicts will require strong justification. The remission order will certainly be worth seeing.” 

A key question, in this case, is what signal it has sent to women. Justice Lokur said, “The remission order sends out a message that conviction does not mean that justice has been done. Gender justice has a long way to go.” 

This remission also has socio-political ramifications. For example, there is a demand of the Shiromani Gurudwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), which oversees Sikh religious matters, to release Sikh prisoners who are known to have completed their life terms. Members of the SGPC staged a protest at Harmandir Sahib after the remission in the Bilkis Bano case, reiterating this demand. Some prisoners whose release the SGPC seeks were arrested during the phase of militancy in Punjab. 

Justice Lokur says, “Of course, this [remission in Bilkis Bano case] could be a precedent for granting remission even in case of heinous crimes. The fallout of the remission order is quite obvious. I’m not surprised by the [SGPC] protest.”

Remission of crimes seen as rarest of rare, or extreme in their cruelty and danger posed to society, could encourage other criminals and convicts, not to mention state governments seeking to benefit from polarising society or lowering the status of women. 

Convicts may also feel entitled to release on specious grounds, considering a member of the committee that granted remission in the Bilkis Bano case defended the convicts as well-behaved for they belonged to the elite Brahmin caste. 

Another key concern in the remission in the Bilkis Bano case is why none of the eleven convicts ever appealed to the Supreme Court against the Bombay High Court order sentencing them. It is generally understood that convicts seek remission whenever the option becomes available to them under the law. Justice Lokur expresses surprise in this aspect of the case. “Frankly, I find this rather astonishing. In most such cases [of convictions for heinous crimes], where a life sentence is given, the convict will file an appeal in the highest court, but this did not happen with even one of the eleven who had been convicted,” he said. He then said a white paper is required on the entire episode. 

The question arises, can the Supreme Court step in once the committee in Gujarat has granted remission? Reportedly, the consent of the CBI court judge who convicted these eleven men is necessitated by the law but was not taken. However, there are not enough details in the public domain to arrive at a conclusion.

“The law is intended to protect people and enable them to live an orderly life,” Justice Lokur said. He added, “Unfortunately, the law is now being weaponised to prosecute and persecute people. Tragically, we are passing through this phase.” He rued that things have come to this pass because “some are more equal than others” in our country. 

Justice Lokur agrees “absolutely” that the remission in the Bilkis Bano case is a symptom of majoritarian rule with the tacit support of the government. This is also because some convicts in the Bilkis Bano case were found guilty of committing numerous heinous crimes. He said, “Some (if not all) of the eleven have been given more than one life sentence—two definitely, and perhaps more. If such people are entitled to remission, we need to introspect and seriously consider where we are heading.”

Most importantly, Justice Lokur said, “As it is, women have a tough time dealing with offences such as domestic violence, dowry demands, sexual harassment and so on. Dealing with sexual offences has always been a problem.” 

It is no wonder that on hearing of the release of the eleven convicts, Bilkis Bano said, “Is this the end of justice?” The question before Indian women is, where must they turn if justice is no longer dispensed with an even hand.

The author is a freelance journalist. The views are personal.

Courtesy: https://www.newsclick.in

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Air Vice Marshal Kapil Kak (retd.), a former deputy director at the Centre for Air Power Studies, is one of the petitioners who have challenged, in the Supreme Court, the abrogation of Article 370. Kak, a member of the Forum for Human Rights in Jammu and Kashmir, recently spoke to NewsClick over email. In its latest report, ‘Three Years as a Union Territory: Human Rights in J&K’, the forum has criticised the central government’s heavy-handed tactics in the former state. He sees the recent call by Sanjay Tickoo, president of the Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Community, for Pandits to migrate out of the Valley as a “strident indictment” of the central government’s policies towards the region. Edited excerpts:

The government claims normalcy has returned to the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) following the abrogation of Article 370, but your latest report records a very different situation. Could you highlight why this variance exists?

The claim of “return to normalcy” needs time-metric co-relation. In the immediate aftermath of reading down Article 370, nothing was normal: the incarceration of the entire political leadership, communications lockdown, a civil disobedience movement, shut down of business and commercial establishments, major dislocation of healthcare, closure of the education sector, stoppage of public transport, et cetera. Normalcy in these sectors has largely returned to the pre-5 August 2019 situation.

But on the flip side, a large number of political persons taken into preventive detention remain in jail, in many cases outside the former state. Civilian fatalities due to militancy remain inordinately high. Anti-terror and sedition laws continue to be disproportionately employed against political leaders and journalists. Clampdown on the freedom of the press through police harassment, intimidation and arbitrary detention reportedly persists. As [former chief minister] Mehbooba Mufti aptly put it, “Every resident of J&K has become cannon fodder in Delhi’s quest for manufactured normalcy.”

How would you describe the present human rights situation in the Valley, and how do people living there view the situation?

As we aver in our report, people view the denial of civil rights (freedom of speech and assembly, right to peaceful protest, the right to regular free and fair elections and a right to free press) as the choking of democracy, end of politics, death of expectations and unambiguous signalling that the Centre would no longer listen to Kashmiris.

The moderate Hurriyat leader, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, has not been allowed to deliver his weekly sermons at the iconic Jama Masjid for all 156 Fridays in the last three years, during which he has remained under house arrest.

Journalism faces a very adverse ecosystem, and media practitioners have an overwhelming sense of fear. People no longer view them as the fourth pillar of democracy. People report that the crackdown on the media and civil society groups continues unabated, including through draconian counter-terrorism and other laws, like the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2003, Public Safety Act, 1978, and Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, 1967. The Union Territory government’s New Media Policy, 2020, has made censoring news easier.

Your team also interviewed members of the Kashmiri Pandit community in Jammu and the Valley. Could you talk about the film Kashmir Files and how it has affected the relationship between the Kashmiri Muslims and the Kashmiri Pandits, which was disturbed after the 1990s?

Our report addresses this issue in great detail. The Bollywood film The Kashmir Files is based on the testimonials and stories of the hapless Pandits who got clawed out of their millennia-long geo-cultural mosaic of peaceful coexistence in a sacred geography. This story needed to be told. But on the worrisome flip side, the film seeks to slander, vilify and delegitimise the Valley’s majority community’s own pain and suffering of over three decades during which tens of thousands of its youth were killed.

Clearly, the victimhood of Pandits has been appropriated as a crude political-ideological and commercial weapon for the cause of majoritarianism. The exultation and celebration of the film by Pandit migrants in the rest of India sullied the sense of coexistence in Kashmir, which was perhaps on its way back but appears to have got disturbed yet again.

Roughly 4,500 Kashmiri Pandits were part of former prime minister Manmohan Singh’s employment package of 2010 and returned to the Valley. Relaunched by the present regime, it also promises safe homes for Kashmiri Pandits who return. But many have decided to return to Jammu. Can you explain this scenario?

We must underscore that the 4,000 Pandits who never migrated out of the Valley have lived in nearly a hundred locations over three decades, invariably under the watchful eye of their majority brethren. For 18 years since Nadigram [killing of Kashmiri Pandits in 2003], no Pandit was targeted. But the killing in October 2021 of ML Bindroo, a popular medical store owner, did raise fears of insecurity and vulnerability among them. The impact of the killing of Prime Minister’s package employee Rahul Pandita was far more on such workers. Nearly fifty per cent of them have stopped work and moved to the relative safety of Jammu.

The fatal shooting of Sunil Kumar Bhat, a Pandit orchardist, on 16 March and the severe bullet injuries inflicted on his relative Pitambar Nath Bhat has again sent shockwaves among the microscopic community. In a strident indictment of the government, Sanjay Tickoo, president of the Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Community, which never migrated, said that while tourists and Amarnath yatris were safe, non-local Muslims and Kashmiri Pandits were [becoming] the targets of terrorists. He called upon the Pandits to migrate out of the Valley. It remains to be seen how such an appeal would resonate and pan out with the community he represents.

A respondent in the Vessu camp in Kulgam has said that 60 per cent of camp inhabitants had left for Jammu.

Perhaps more people have moved out of the Vessu migrant location, but the overall figure for all camps put together remains about 40-50 per cent.

The Modi government has often highlighted how it facilitates Kashmiri Pandits’ return. But from the 6,000 homes to be built for them, only 1,025 have been constructed so far.

Yes, it was so encouraging to know that the political dispensation that came to power in 2014 made the return of Kashmiri Pandits the central plank of its J&K policy. But to paraphrase the British poet, TS Eliot, between the idea and the reality fell a shadow. The 2010 policy on providing government jobs to returning Pandits was repackaged in 2015 to include the construction of secure and gated temporary accommodation for 6,000 employees. But as you say, only 1,025 units have been constructed so far—a cause of enormous disappointment for Pandits.

Your report highlights the tremendous odds that 3,900 panchayat members in J&K face. For one, a number of them have been shot by militants. Do we know how many such killings have occurred?

Yes, the 3,900 panchayat members working at the grass-roots level in a militancy-affected region do face daunting challenges. Twenty-six sarpanches and panches were killed by militants during 2012-22.

Panchayat members had complained to your forum that their movements were severely inhibited after these attacks, prohibiting their interaction with the public.

Yes, some panchayat members do complain of restrictions. It appears that members aligned with the ruling party at the Centre feel a greater sense of vulnerability. On the other hand, the impression one gathers during interactions with their organisational leaders is that members are going about their jobs as best as they can in the prevailing security situation.

Many complain they have no power to work on the ground. Others complain the bureaucracy is marginalising them. How do ordinary people perceive these elected representatives?

Yes, the widespread feeling among panchayat members is that they have not been empowered as promised. The all-powerful bureaucracy, especially when the state and then the Union Territory have been under direct central rule for over four years, is loath to delegate powers to the panchayats, whose members understandably feel marginalised.

Many panches and sarpanches received no training, and people see them as novices or rubber stamps. Has this fuelled cynicism towards them in public?

Yes, it is a fact that sarpanches and panches have received no worthwhile training other than basic familiarity with documentation and rules. The promise to take some of them on tour to selected places in the rest of India where panchayats function efficiently has also not fructified. But given the overarching situation and circumstances in which the panches operate, those who elected them are not too cynical.

Is it that the central government wanted to use the panchayat elections to devalue and bypass the political parties in the erstwhile state? Did the ‘experiment’ succeed?

People in the Valley term these efforts as ‘Mungerilal ke sapnay (dreams of Mungerilal—an Indo-Gangetic proverb) which have reached nowhere. After all, nationwide, three distinct levels of governance exist: the panchayats, the district or block level administrations, and then the state or Union Territory-level legislatures. It would be futile to imagine one can supplant the other!

Your report refers to a real estate summit held in Jammu in 2021, which was to be followed by another one in Srinagar. [See background and developments in land-related issues in Kashmir here and here.] What feedback did you receive about it?

Yes, a real estate summit, the first of its kind, was held last year in Jammu. But due to a lack of clarity on the government’s policy on land use and circle rates, real estate players appear chary of making investments. Construction of factories or buildings on khud land (where water emerges), permitted earlier, is now disallowed. This imposes another constraint. It appears the Jammu Chamber of Commerce and Industry has sought clarifications from the government on these issues, but the forward movement has been slow, to the utter disappointment of the Jammu business community. Another real estate summit is scheduled in Srinagar in October 2022. It remains to be seen what issues would emanate from that one.

(Rashme Sehgal is a freelance journalist.)

Courtesy: Newsclick

The post Kashmiris no Longer Believe the Centre Will Listen to Them—Kapil Kak appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The Supreme Court’s recent judgement upholding the amendments made in 2019 to the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, has created a stir. Several Opposition parties have been saying the Enforcement Directorate, implementing authority for this legislation, targets their leaders and parties. Senior Advocate Sanjay Hegde talks to Rashme Sehgal about why the process in PMLA cases itself becomes a tool for harassment and why convictions are bound to remain insignificant in such circumstances. Edited excerpts.

Opposition parties have dubbed as ‘dangerous’ the recent Supreme Court judgment upholding amendments made in 2019 to the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002. What did you think of this?

It is good that political parties have woken up to the dangers of this law, but they should have been more alert at the stage of legislating in Parliament. There was not too much discussion when it was passed in the Lok Sabha, and the question of passing it as a Money Bill to avoid the Rajya Sabha is still to be adjudicated. Parliamentarians cannot always expect courts to repair their shoddy work.

Over 250 petitions had challenged the 2019 amendments, and many people find them draconian—would you agree?

There were a number of petitions in court, including pleas from politicians, but the court does not interfere with laws simply because they are ‘draconian’. Judicial review is more concerned with the process and not the ‘product’. Legislation is normally checked for power, that is, legislative competence, and for possible violation of fundamental rights. It is apparent that the process argument has been kept for a larger bench, and the questions of fundamental rights have been answered by upholding the doctrine of executive necessity.

The Supreme Court ruling essentially means the Enforcement Directorate can arrest without providing the accused with a copy of its Enforcement Case Information Report or ECIR, which would be seen as an ‘internal document’. The concern with this aspect is that it is unconstitutional. Would you agree?

This judgment holds it to be constitutional [not to give a copy of ECIR], but I do think that on this aspect, the court itself will have to reconsider some day in the future.

Some say the PMLA provisions upheld by the court will deny bail to an accused, who faces the double burden of having to prove his innocence. Does this make bail next to impossible?

These are the provisions of the PMLA upheld by the court. The same judge, Justice AM Khanwilkar, now retired, upheld similar provisions in the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), and he was being consistent. The UAPA judgment has been watered down by other judgments, and I expect a similar process with the PMLA judgment.

Is the ED indeed empowered to seize all properties of the accused?

Yes, that is the provision of the law wherein properties can be attached. They can then be sold off if the prosecution ends in a conviction. However, very few cases end in a conviction, and the process of attachment and inquiry itself becomes the punishment.

Opposition parties have accused the government of misusing the Enforcement Directorate to pursue vendettas against political opponents. They cite several opposition politicians who, once they switched sides, found Enforcement Directorate went silent on their alleged misdeeds. What do you think?

There appears to be substance in that statement. The examples are widely known, and the Enforcement Directorate as a weapon of political compliance is a tool often resorted to. Of course it is being used against politicians. Take the case of Nawab Malik, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) minister presently in jail. His was a two-decades-old complaint whom Enforcement Directorate went after now. The agency swung into action against him, arrested him, and attached his property. If it fails to prove the charges against him, the property goes free. The Enforcement Directorate process is a tool for detention and harassment and is not focused on conviction.

During the last eight years, Enforcement Directorate raids have gone up 26 times, and it conducted 3,010 money-laundering searches but secured only 23 convictions. Why do you think this discrepancy exists?

The Schedule of the PMLA has been drawn so broadly that all kinds of offences come within its purview. Even an ordinary fight leading to the filing of an attempt to murder case can see the Enforcement Directorate at your doorstep. Hence, over-broad legislation will naturally see a low conviction rate.

Do not forget that the PMLA was originally designed for [tackling] drug money and arms money. But the government has put all kinds of criminality within its ambit, including even an attempt to murder. When ordinary Indian Penal Code offences are brought in, and these cannot be proved, it will bring down the entire edifice [of the PMLA] and allow it to fall.

But what could be the reason to all allow this situation to arise?

The PMLA can be traced in the United States to the prohibition era, where the Mafia earned a lot of money from bootlegging and then set up laundry services where this cash could be recycled. Essentially, illegitimate money from drugs and terrorism was legitimised. But now, any money from all kinds of crimes and belonging to criminals has been brought under its purview. Following a catch-all principle is one of the main reasons for the low conviction rate, whereas what the Enforcement Directorate needed to do was more focused investigations.

Can you explain why the Enforcement Directorate is in action, not the local police or the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)?

In West Bengal (where the Enforcement Directorate has raided Trinamool Congress leader Partha Chatterjee), the state government did not allow the CBI to function. The CBI cannot take over a case unless it has permission from the state government. But they were being denied permission on a blanket basis. Wherever a state government is in Opposition [hands], the CBI was being denied permission on a blanket basis which is why the Enforcement Directorate was then brought in.

Nevertheless, the Opposition accuses the government of conducting a political vendetta.

That is correct, but all these raids and arrests provide very good political optics for the ruling party. Take the example of how [Congress leaders] Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi have been summoned for questioning but not arrested. All the publicity around this serves a political purpose. The government gets the political dividends. One thing Indians understand and get enraged by is when others make money through illegal means. I believe the essence of tyranny is when harsh laws are used selectively against opponents. The converse is to turn opponents into supporters by the use of threats.

And the Opposition plans to move a review petition against the verdict that has upheld the 2019 amendment.

Yes, but it will go to a chamber of the same judges who cleared it [the amendments]. One judge has retired, but it will go to the two other judges on that bench. The ground of review will not be that the judgment was horribly wrong. It will be a review on very narrow grounds. [For example,] particular missed out material is now being shown to the judges [which] was not shown earlier for very valid reasons. Normally, all reviews get discussed without even an oral hearing. It is when subsequent judges doubt the decision by the earlier bench that it would be sent to a larger bench—but that is a different process.

Harsh laws have existed in the past too, but do you think all such laws need to be questioned?

The Supreme Court also has its limitations. The court can check if a law has been passed correctly, and if that is not the case, it becomes ineffective. The PMLA was passed as a Money Bill in the Rajya Sabha because the government did not have a majority in the Rajya Sabha. If the Supreme Court says it has not been correctly passed, the law becomes ineffective. In that case, Parliament will have to re-enact the law. And now that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has a majority in Parliament, they can get it through.

On the question of erosion of fundamental rights, I agree that it has been done without checking for impact. During the 1970s, while giving reasons for implementing the Emergency, the Supreme Court declared that if fundamental rights have been suspended, you do not have those rights. Some judges commenting on this judgment said they were more executive-minded than the executive, but when a conviction is based on a technical definition, it misses the spirit of the Constitution.

(Rashme Sehgal is an independent journalist.)

Courtesy: Newsclick

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