The politics of the execution of Yakub Memon

Thursday, 30 July 2015

Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr

There is need for the right-wingers to be less belligerent in their attacks on their liberal opponents. In a similar manner, those who had pleaded for the commutation of Yakub’s death sentence will have to accept that the Indian legal system is not vindictive, and that Yakub was given a fair opportunity at all stages of the judicial process.

The sentiment across the jingoistic media, whipping up the emotion of people, is that the execution of Yakub Memon, the first accused (A1), in the 1993 Bombay Blasts Case, brings closure to the trauma of the victims – the families of the 257 dead and the 750 injured -- of the terror blasts on March 12, 1993. There was also the corollary that anyone who talked of commuting the death sentence of Yakub to a life term is unpatriotic. Both the views are misplaced.

It has to be understood that the closure to the families of the victims came the day Judge P.D. Kode of the TADA Court delivered the verdict in 2006. He sentenced the more than 100 accused different periods of imprisonment, and he gave the death sentence to Yakub Memon and 10 others. The Supreme Court had commuted the death sentence of the 10  to a life term, and upheld the death sentence of Yakub Memon. If in due legal course of review and curative appeals, the Supreme Court had reversed the death sentence of Yakub as it did in the case of 10 others, it would not have meant that there has been no closure. What brought closure to the blasts case was the legal verdict of the TADA court. Death sentence was not a necessary part of the closure.

In the meanwhile, there came to light an article by former Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) chief B.Raman, who had expressed the opinion that Yakub Memon had returned to India voluntarily and that he had cooperated with the prosecution and he had passed on crucial information about the location of the masterminds of the blasts – Dawood Ibrahim and Yakub’s elder-brother, Tiger Memon – in Karachi. This information was collaborated by senior journalist Maseeh Rehman, who had talked to Yakub in 1994. The family members of Yakub had also said that the investigation agencies had promised that they he would be dealt with leniently because of his cooperation. The point made by Raman and Rehman was that Yakub had come back voluntarily because he realised his folly, he was willing to face the punishment for his crime and he expected that he would be given a fair chance by the Indian legal system and his cooperation would be given due weight when fixing his punishment.

It is based on this information that Yakub had surrendered, that he had cooperated with the prosecution that many eminent persons and civil society activists came out pleading that Yakub’s death should be commuted to a life term. Some of them based their appeal on their belief that death sentence is a barbaric practice and that states should give up death sentence altogether. This is a principled plea. It is not necessary to agree with this view. But it does not follow that these people were supporting Yakub’s crime or that they are condoning terrorism.

There are others in the group who were of the view that there is need to include the information about his surrender and cooperation, and that these should form part of the extenuating or mitigating circumstances for the crime committed by Yakub. It is questionable that if this part could have ever been weighed as legal evidence because India does not follow the convention of ‘plea bargain’, where the prosecution pleads for a lesser sentence. It is a common practice in the United Stated legal system but it is not as yet part of Indian legal conventions. In the present case, the prosecution did not disclose that Yakub has turned an approver. Public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam had said that he did not know that there was any tacit understanding between Yakub and the investigating agencies. The question is as to why the investigation agencies did not take the prosecution into confidence, and as to why Yakub’s lawyers did not reveal this information about Yakub’s surrender and cooperation with the investigation agencies. It appears that the prosecution did not want to weaken its case in any way, and the defence team too believed that it would not be right to concede to Yakub’s guilt right at the beginning. But we will not know the truth unless Yakub’s family or lawyers reveal the facts. There is reason to doubt the versions of Raman and Rehman. What we need to know is as to why the investigators changed their mind as they prepared the case along with the legal team.

We turn now to the politics of it. Unfortunately, there is the political dimension to the issue. The political right-wingers, though majority of them belong to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies, the hardliners are to be found in all political parties, and they all believe that the hanging of Yakub Memon is necessary and that it will send out a strong message that India is not a soft state. There are the far-right supporters who hold the view that the death of Yakub Memon will bring a sense of justice to the victims of the blasts. The far-right activists are infuriated by the gesture of the civil rights activists who sought a life term for Yakub. They are interpreting it as an anti-national gesture and of sympathising with terrorists who had killed innocent civilians.

The people who had argued for commuting Yakub’s death to a life sentence were not condoning the terror act of Yakub and they are not soft on terrorism. And to be sure, they are not unpatriotic or anti-national. There is need for the right-wingers to be less belligerent in their attacks on their liberal opponents. In a similar manner, those who had pleaded for the commutation of Yakub’s death sentence will have to accept that the Indian legal system is not vindictive, and that Yakub was given a fair opportunity at all stages of the judicial process.

It is also very important to note the fact that Yakub had been sent to the gallows under Section 120B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which is being a conspirator. It is also necessary to remember that the Terrorist And Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act 1987 does not prescribe death sentence. Yaakub had been sentenced to death of conspiring to cause death of people. He was not condemned for treason. Yakub and his family are Indians and they hold on to their Indian nationality. Yakub had died for his crime and he died as an Indian. He had not renounced his national identity. 

As it was a terrifying fact that hundreds of people had died or were injured on March 12, 1993, the hanging of Yakub Memon will remain a grim act. The death of even a convict cannot bring cheer to even the families of the victims. This should indeed be the civil and humane way of dealing with each other. Yakub Memon’s family cannot be treated with either suspicion or hostility after this. It is cessation of bitterness on all sides that is the real closure. There is no room for triumphalism. Justice is not revenge.

Source: dnaindia

Marc Meets Obama

“This is a big day for our country, for me and for my cats. 

— Marc Maron

 

Marc Meets Obama

WTF with Marc Maron Podcast

Episode 613 - President Barack Obama

Marc welcomes the 44th President of the United States of America, Barack Obama, to the garage for conversation about college, fitting in, race relations, gun violence, changing the status quo, disappointing your fans, comedians, fatherhood and overcoming fear. And yes, this really happened. This episode is presented without commercial interruption courtesy of Squarespace. Go to MarcMeetsObama.com to see behind-the-scenes photos and captions.

Episode 614 - The President Was Here

From the minute the Presidential motorcade pulled away, Marc began recording his reaction to the momentous event that just occurred in his garage. Hear Marc’s ongoing reflections in the aftermath as well as a discussion with WTF producer Brendan McDonald about how this happened in the first place. 

This episode is sponsored by Stamps.com, Squarespace, Comedy Central, and Vegas.com.

Blogger Comment:

President of United States of America find time for conversation with Marc at his garage and it is the best one I ever listened. This event is one of a kind!!

How Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam's lived his last day

Tuesday, 28 July 2015 - 10:53am IST | Agency: dna webdesk

During their journey to Shillong, Singh says Dr. Kalam expressed his concern over the terror attacks in Punjab. He also discussed the dysfunctional running of the Parliament and tried to come up with solutions to make the institution run more productively.


Image credit: Srijan Pal Singh's Facebook page

Read Singh's full post here:

Srijan Pal Singh added 2 new photos — with Veekshit BMath and 30 others.
Public Figure · 42,655 Likes · 19 hrs ·

What I will be remembered for.. my memory of the last day with the great Kalam sir...

It has been eight hours since we last talked – sleep eludes me and memories keep flushing down, sometimes as tears. Our day, 27th July, began at 12 noon, when we took our seats in the flight to Guhawati. Dr. Kalam was 1A and I was IC. He was wearing a dark colored “Kalam suit”, and I started off complimenting, “Nice color!” Little did I know this was going to be the last color I will see on him.
Long, 2.5 hours of flying in the monsoon weather. I hate turbulence, and he had mastered over them. Whenever he would see me go cold in shaking plane, he would just pull down the window pane and saw, “Now you don’t see any fear!”.
That was followed by another 2.5 hours of car drive to IIM Shillong. For these two legged trip of five hours we talked, discussed and debated. These were amongsthundreds of the long flights and longer drives we have been together over the last six years.
As each of them, this was as special too. Three incidents/discussions in particular will be “lasting memories of our last trip”.
First, Dr. Kalam was absolutely worried about the attacks in Punjab. The loss of innocent lives left him filledwith sorrow. The topic of lecture at IIM Shillong was Creating a Livable Planet Earth. He related the incident to the topic and said, “it seems the man made forces are as big a threat to the livability of earth as pollution”. We discussed on how, if this trend of violence, pollution and reckless human action continues we will forced to leave earth. “Thirty years, at this rate, maybe”, he said. “You guys must do something about it… it is going to be your future world”
Our second discussion was more national. For the past two days, Dr. Kalam was worried that time and again Parliament, the supreme institution of democracy, was dysfunctional. He said, “I have seen two different governments in my tenure. I have seen more after that. This disruption just keeps happening. It is not right. I really need to find out a way to ensure that the parliament works on developmental politics.” He then asked me to prepare a surprise assignment question for the students at IIM Shillong, which he would give them only at the end of the lecture. He wanted to them to suggest three innovative ways to make the Parliament more productive and vibrant. Then, after a while he returned on it. “But how can ask them to give solutions if I don’t have any myself”. For the next one hour, we thwarted options after options, who come up with his recommendation over the issue. We wanted to include this discussion in our upcoming book, Advantage India.
Third, was an experience from the beauty of his humility. We were in a convoy of 6-7 cars. Dr. Kalam and I were in the second car. Ahead us was an open gypsy with three soldiers in it. Two of them were sitting on either side and one lean guy was standing atop, holding his gun. One hour into the road journey, Dr. Kalam said, “Why is he standing? He will get tired. This is like punishment. Can you ask a wireless message to given that he may sit?” I had to convince him, he has been probably instructed to keep standing for better security. He did not relent. We tried radio messaging, that did not work. For the next 1.5 hours of the journey, he reminded me thrice to see if I can hand signal him to sit down. Finally, realizing there is little we can do – he told me, “I want to meet him and thank him”. Later, when we landed in IIM Shillong, I went inquiring through security people and got hold of the standing guy. I took him inside and Dr. Kalam greeted him. He shook his hand, said thank you buddy. “Are you tired? Would you like something to eat? I am sorry you had to stand so long because of me”. The young lean guard, draped in black cloth, was surprised at the treatment. He lost words, just said, “Sir, aapkeliye to 6 ghantebhikhaderahenge”.
After this, we went to the lecture hall. He did not want to be late for the lecture. “Students should never be made to wait”, he always said. I quickly set up his mike, briefed on final lecture and took position on the computers. As I pinned his mike, he smiled and said, “Funny guy! Are you doing well?” ‘Funny guy’, when said by Kalam could mean a variety of things, depending on the tone and your own assessment. It could mean, you have done well, you have messed up something, you should listen to him or just that you have been plain naïve or he was just being jovial. Over six years I had learnt to interpret Funny Guy like the back of my palm. This time it was the last case.
“Funny guy! Are you doing well?” he said. I smiled back, “Yes”. Those were the last words he said. Two minutes into the speech, sitting behind him, I heard a long pause after completing one sentence. I looked at him, he fell down.
We picked him up. As the doctor rushed, we tried whatever we could. I will never forget the look in his three-quarter closed eyes and I held his head with one hand and tried reviving with whatever I could. His hands clenched, curled onto my finger. There was stillness on his face and those wise eyes were motionlessly radiating wisdom. He never said a word. He did not show pain, only purpose was visible.
In five minutes we were in the nearest hospital. In another few minutes the they indicated the missile man had flown away, forever. I touched his feet, one last time. Adieu old friend! Grand mentor! See you in my thoughts and meet in the next birth.
As turned back, a closet of thoughts opened.
Often he would ask me, “You are young, decide what will like to be remembered for?” I kept thinking of new impressive answers, till one day I gave up and resorted to tit-for-tat. I asked him back, “First you tell me, what will you like to be remembered for? President, Scientist, Writer, Missile man, India 2020, Target 3 billion…. What?” I thought I had made the question easier by giving options, but he sprang on me a surprise. “Teacher”, he said.
Then something he said two weeks back when we were discussing about his missile time friends. He said, “Children need to take care of their parents. It is sad that sometimes this is not happening”. He paused and said, “Two things. Elders must also do. Never leave wealth at your deathbed – that leaves a fighting family. Second, one is blessed is one can die working, standing tall without any long drawn ailing. Goodbyes should be short, really short”.
Today, I look back – he took the final journey, teaching, what he always wanted to be remembered doing. And, till his final moment he was standing, working and lecturing. He left us, as a great teacher, standing tall. He leaves the world with nothing accumulated in his account but loads of wishes and love of people. He was a successful, even in his end.
Will miss all the lunches and dinners we had together, will miss all the times you surprised me with your humility and startled me with your curiosity, will miss the lessons of life you taught in action and words, will miss our struggles to race to make into flights, our trips, our long debates. You gave me dreams, you showed me dreams need to be impossible, for anything else is a compromise to my own ability. The man is gone, the mission lives on. Long live Kalam.

Your indebted student,

Srijan Pal Singh
(pic .. Dr APJ Abdul Kalam meeting the jawan who stood in the gypsy)


Srijan Pal Singh's photo.

Source: dnaindia

Security as a broadcasting bogey

July 27, 2015

K. Venkataramanan



In the wake of the denial of security clearance to the Sun TV group, a fresh look at the law is needed at a time when visuals are disseminated over the Internet.

Both subversive activities and state surveillance to curb them require advanced technology. New, invasive laws are said to be required to regulate freedoms in the name of protecting national security. This situation may imply a dynamic and ever-evolving relationship between the exercise of fundamental freedoms and the reasonable restrictions that the state wants to impose on them: a relationship in which old processes are constantly revisited and new forms of communication are factored into regulations. No, not always. There are situations in which outdated procedures and archaic requirements can easily pose a potent threat to the very existence of some form of legitimate activity. The Union Home Ministry’s denial of security clearance to the Sun TV group, which operates 33 television channels and several FM radio channels, is one such example. After over two decades of operations, the group promoted by Kalanithi Maran finds that a regulation that says the MHA’s security clearance is required to be renewed from time to time has placed its television and radio stations under the threat of closure.

Regulatory laws routinely contain provisions that operate more as emergency powers than as routine requirements. The idea of requiring a broadcaster to obtain security clearance implies that such clearance can be suspended or denied to bar some entity from operating a network. It is inherently a power that can be used when some contingency arises that needs to be dealt with urgently, and the Government of India finds that it has no other means to shut down a network. It involves taking a call on curbing the freedom of not only the entity or institution or individual concerned, but also the right of their regular customers or subscribers to viewing their content. Security clearance for broadcasters is somewhat outdated and requires a fresh look as visuals and images are now disseminated to a global audience through the Internet and social media too, and except for the potential for a cyber-shutdown, there is no prior clearance provision for the worldwide web.

Strange reason

In the case of the Sun TV network, the reason for denying security clearance is quite strange: that the promoters face criminal cases, one concerning corruption, one of money-laundering and one related to operating an illegal telephone exchange. Regardless of the outcome of these legitimate prosecutions, shutting down a media house during the pendency of investigation or trial raises a number of constitutional questions concerning freedom of expression. It is not clear if there is a precedent for an operational network to be denied security clearance for the sole reason that some cases are under investigation or prosecution.

The link between a pending criminal prosecution and the alleged threat posed by a media house to national security is hopelessly tenuous, unless the charge itself is based on the content available on it. There is a good deal of content regulation already in place, and the Information and Broadcasting Ministry diligently issues notices, advisories and warnings to private television channels for violations of the content code. Moreover, the principle is alarmingly extendable to non-electronic media too, as there are registration requirements for the print medium too. It is somewhat strange that the Union Home Ministry is doggedly holding on to the opinion that a particular channel is ineligible for security clearance even after the Attorney General has given a fairly strong opinion that the stand is illegal.

Freedom of expression

There is a long list of cases in which the Supreme Court has recognised that freedom of expression includes the right to disseminate information as well as receive it. In the context of an election, it has even recognised the voter’s right to know details about a candidate’s qualifications and criminal antecedents, if any, as part of the same freedom. In the light of the direction in which the law has evolved, it is unimaginable that the government could believe that it can force a network to shut down by merely denying it security clearance, without regard for the injury it does to the freedom of expression, which covers both dissemination and receipt of information, communication and knowledge, of both broadcasters and the general public.

Legal framework

The existing legal framework for the broadcasting media is acknowledged to be inadequate. A draft bill for a broadcasting legislation was open to public debate in 2007 but is yet to be acted upon. The idea of a broadcasting law came about because of the Supreme Court’s landmark verdict in 1995 declaring airwaves as public property and calling for an independent public authority to regulate them. The draft envisaged the creation of an independent Broadcast Regulatory Authority of India, and it is precisely the absence of such a credible body that makes actions such as denying security clearance to a particular network appear dubious. Any use of discretionary power has to appear to be truly independent, and vesting it in the political executive without clear guidelines on the manner of using that power is bound to seem to lack legitimacy. It is not that security considerations will have to be abandoned altogether and unfettered or unregulated freedom conferred on those applying for broadcasting permission. Even the draft bill envisaged vesting the Central government with certain powers to be used in times of external threat or war or extraordinary circumstances. It is futile to argue that pending prosecutions constitute such an extraordinary circumstance.

“ The existing legal framework for the broadcasting media is acknowledged to be inadequate. ”

Admittedly, regulations and conditions of licensing for the broadcasting sector operate as constitutionally permissible reasonable restrictions on those freedoms, and that national security is a clearly identified ground for such curbs. The Supreme Court has held that any heavy-handed measure that places an “excessive or prohibitive burden” on a newspaper is violative of the freedom of expression under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution. In the case of broadcast media, as airwaves, which are public property, are involved, the right is both subject to reasonable restrictions and regulation by a public authority. Yet, it cannot be denied that a bland denial of security clearance, citing an indeterminate concept of ‘economic security – an issue said to arise out of the fact that the accused in the relevant cases are accused of economic offences – will undoubtedly have a chilling effect on free expression, especially the media. It is not difficult to see that linking the prosecution of one of the promoters in cases unrelated to the content of any of the channels and their right to function is one such measure. Even if it was conceded that the amount involved in the alleged money-laundering case arising out of the Aircel-Maxis transaction is huge, accepting the denial of security clearance on that ground would set a dangerous precedent for the rest of the media industry. In times when non-government organisations are under the scanner for strident criticism of some aspects of policy that the government is particularly sensitive to, when activists are seen as “anti-national” for campaigning against major projects on environmental or ecological grounds, and when the government appears to closely monitor the extent of coverage by private media houses of its pet projects and seeks to classify them into those in ‘compliance’ (media outlets that give adequate coverage) and those in ‘default’ (those that do not seem to show much enthusiasm), any precedent will be good enough to justify a sudden crackdown on such ‘defaulters’. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the government to avoid the impression that extraneous considerations are at work in its enforcement or use of existing regulations.

venkataramanan.k@thehindu.co.in

Source: thehindu

Our man in Dublin, Yeats

Gayatri Jayaraman    25-07-2015

It is the Irish poet's sesquicentennial and the world is rediscovering him. Why has India forgotten him?

If you were in England this summer, you would have seen Yeats verses up all over the Tube... "Sailing to Byzantium", "Versus he made when a stranger asked who he was" by Lady Gregory, (of the Irish Literary Reform movement and whose son, Robert Gregory's death is the subject of Yeats' "An Irish Airman Forsees his Death"), and "What is Truth" by Louis MacNeice, whose criticism of Yeats and his beliefs is crucial to knowing the poet and the man.

I was reading Yeats in the rain recently and was reminded of American poet Vijay Seshadri's evocative casual recitation of my personal favourite lines from "Sailing to Byzantium" at the Kitab Khana in Mumbai on a trip late in 2014, to illustrate another point he was making.

"Had I the heaven's embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half-light;..."

Writing for Poetry Ireland this month to commemorate the year, Seshadri writes: "His subject matter wasn't exactly incidental to the pleasure I got from him, but it was improbable enough, even though it was often political, to a teenager living in the American Midwest during Vietnam and the civil rights movement, and in the rising tide of second-wave feminism. His feeling and allegiances were just as distant. At the same time, though, his language was immediate and stirring, and his voice was recognisable because he was a major, often unacknowledged, influence on a whole generation of contemporary American poets, black-and-white, I was reading at the same time I encountered him."

Seshadri, who is better known as he who composed "The Disappearances", which ran on the back page of The New Yorker in the aftermath of 9/11, but whose best known work I see as "The Long Meadow" which bears the distinct mark of the Mahabharata, admits he has been deeply influenced by Yeats, whom he says taught him to read John Ashberry, while yet claiming to bear an Indianness that is incidental to his Midwest upbringing. Seshadri is more an American poet, a Pulitzer-prize winning one, than an Indian, a self-deceit I wager borne out by the stamp of Yeats, who was equally an influence on a generation of Indian poets, upon him.

Not only did Yeats write the introduction to Tagore's Gitanjali, and push for his Nobel, which he would never have got left to the opinion of those such as Philip Larkin (who referred to him as "Rabindrum Tagore", "some Indian" and his work as "f*ck all"), but was instrumental in having The Post Office performed at the Abbey Theatre in 1913. While he disagreed on Tagore's later books, he was not the be all and end all of Yeats' Indian influence. Influenced early on by Vedanta, the Vivekachudamani, via Mohini Chatterjee whom he met in Dublin, the Bhagavad Gita, and striking up a friendship with Purohit Swami with whom he translated the Upanishads in 1935, but also built lasting friendships with Indian poets, the likes of Sarojini Naidu and Manmohan Ghose. It was much of Yeats' ready embracing of the mysticism of India that found in him the problematic for critics like Ernest Rhys and Louis MacNeice. It spawned a poetic pagan Irish possessiveness of Yeats, with Rhys saying of him: "It was Ireland, not India, gave Yeats his poetical birthright and mystical bias."

Yet, Yeats fought for the integrity of the poetic identity of India like few before him and none till TS Eliot, though more detachedly, had done. From Mansarovar to the Himalayan shrines they reminded him of Irish pilgrim trails and he spoke of consciousness like it was but natural to Irish mysticism that he have one.

Among the later poets, Yeats and his trimetre would continue to haunt Dom Moraes' lyricism, early Nissim Ezekiel, in the antithesis that he was to Kamala Das, and in Keki Daruwala's longing for mythological escapes, amongst others.

It is amazing, and gratifying, that the nationalistic Yeats is not turned into a Hindutva icon, a Max Mueller of sorts, in the deeply divisive modern day Indian sociopolitical context. So monumental is the channelling of Yeats that he becomes the unwitting (though Yeats would surely argue otherwise) catalyst by which a poetic identity of India is passed on.

So when Seshadri begins by saying "There were almost no points of contact, external or internal, between Yeats' experience and my own," he is hurting to be reminded:

"Who has not felt a little of the despair the son of righteousness now feels, staring wildly around him?

The god watches, not without compassion and a certain wonder.

This is the final illusion,the one to which all the others lead."

... You, Seshadri my friend, are in denial of all the India we are steeped in. As are we.

Source: dailyo  

Justice or vengeance?

Lubhyathi Rangarajan

July 24, 2015

 Illustration: Satwik Gade

The procedure followed to obtain a death warrant for Mumbai blasts convict Yakub Memon suffers from serious constitutional flaws. If seen through, it will set a very wrong precedent.

There is a worrying certainty around the hanging of Yakub Abdul Razak Memon, convicted for planning and executing the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts. The Maharashtra government seems determined to execute him on July 30 despite several omissions on its part and constitutional options still remaining open for Memon. These concerns have gone unaddressed, given the obsession with both the manner in which Memon is likely to be executed and his demeanour on hearing his fate. Unfortunately, there has been virtually no discussion around the death warrant proceedings of April 2015 at the TADA court in Mumbai, which have now come to light. There is even less reportage on the multiple legal options available to him, the exercise of which is his constitutional right, and on which the crimes he has been convicted for have no bearing. The widespread sentiment appears to be that this is the end of the road for Memon, though this is far from true.

Death warrant or ‘black’ warrant proceedings, as they are colloquially called, are held in the court that first ordered the sentence of death. The contents of a death warrant can be found in the Code of Criminal Procedure, in the innocuously named Form No. 42. The form states the name of the person to be executed, the offence for which he was originally sentenced and, most critically, the time, date, and place of execution. This kind of specificity is embedded in the procedure to avoid unnecessary conjecture, and to ensure that the prisoner is not traumatised by speculation around the timing of his death.

Issuing a death warrant

Ideally, ‘black’ warrant proceedings ought to take place only after a prisoner has exhausted all legal remedies. Yet there is very little clarity in the law, and consequently in the actions of State governments, on precisely when a death warrant can be issued. Recently, there have been demonstrable lapses on the part of State governments, notably in the case of Surinder Koli, who was convicted in the serial Nithari killings in Noida. Three ‘open-ended’ death warrants were issued against him by the sentencing court in Ghaziabad. The High Court of Allahabad while commuting his sentence in PUDR v. Union of India (January 2015), however, read in basic rules of procedural fairness into the process for issuing death warrants. These principles have now been affirmed by the Supreme Court in Shabnam v. Union of India (May 2015). The basis for the writ petition in Shabnam was the hasty, almost enthusiastic, manner in which the sentencing court in Moradabad issued death warrants against Shabnam and Salim, lovers who killed seven of the girl’s family members, ordering that their executions take place ‘as soon as possible’ despite a host of legal options remaining open.

Unfortunately, what governments ignore is the unimaginable impact of unnecessary, premature, open-ended or multiple death warrants against a prisoner — that of swinging between life and death, or living with an indeterminate fate.

“Ideally, ‘black’ warrant proceedings ought to take place only after a prisoner has exhausted all legal remedies.”

As the law stands after the decision of the Supreme Court in Shabnam, a black warrant proceeding cannot take place without the accused and his lawyer being present. Shabnam now requires that five elements be satisfied: that a convict be given prior notice of the death warrant proceeding; that the warrant specify the exact date and time of execution and not a range of dates; that a reasonable period of time be fixed between the date of the order on the warrant and the date set for execution to enable the convict to meet his family and pursue legal remedies; that a copy of the execution warrant be made available to him; and that he/she be given legal aid at these proceedings.

In Memon’s case, the death warrant that was issued on April 30, 2015 scheduling his execution for July 30, 2015 was unnecessary and invalid in law. The Maharashtra government should have known that Memon still had the option of filing a curative petition. Before proceeding to execute an individual, it is the government’s obligation to ensure that all legal options have been explored. Moving for an execution in a clandestine manner, hoping that the prisoner would not exercise his constitutional options, reeks of vengeance. The fact that the Maharashtra government thought it fit not to give notice of the death warrant proceedings to Memon or his lawyers casts a serious shadow over the manner in which the government sought to proceed on the matter.

Many discrepancies

Curiously enough, when the first news stories broke about Memon’s scheduled execution on July 30, they also indicated that the Supreme Court would consider his curative petition on July 21, 2015. This happened much before the official notification of it being listed appeared on the Supreme Court’s case status platform or his lawyers were officially informed.

Another glaring inconsistency in the state’s actions is the assumption that Memon’s curative petition would be undoubtedly rejected on July 21. Ideally, the state ought to have cancelled the death warrant upon knowing that a curative petition was pending before the Supreme Court, and issued a fresh warrant. The fact of the matter is that the conduct of the Maharashtra government in obtaining a death warrant for Memon suffers from serious constitutional infirmities that must result in it being set aside.

Apart from challenging the validity of the death warrant, Memon has other legal remedies that remain unexplored. The Supreme Court in Shatrughan Chauhan v. Union of India (January 2014) once again affirmed the rights of death row prisoners to challenge the rejection of their mercy petition on certain grounds. Memon has now filed a fresh mercy petition in his name (the earlier one was by his brother on different grounds) and the Governments of Maharashtra and India will now have to consider the grounds raised in it. If the concerned governments choose to reject his mercy petition, Memon can, based on the judgment in Shatrughan Chauhan, ask the courts to examine the rejection on various grounds, including that of procedural impropriety.

For those waiting impatiently for Memon’s execution, these might appear to be unnecessary details. But the nature of a society that runs on the rule of law demands that individual rights are not sacrificed merely because sections of society find it inconvenient. Constitutional safeguards allow prisoners on death row, regardless of the offence they may have committed, to exhaust all legal remedies and to be spared hurried, arbitrary and secret executions. Yakub Memon cannot be denied the opportunity to exercise his legal options, and it would be a dangerous precedent to preclude him from doing so. The taking of life by the state must be subject to the highest levels of constitutional scrutiny. To deny someone fundamental rights on the basis of public demands for revenge would cast serious questions over our claim of being a modern constitutional democracy.

(Lubhyathi Rangarajan is with the Centre on the Death Penalty, National Law University, Delhi.)

Source: thehindu

Read also: Yakub Memon must not hang, we brought him back: Key RAW man in ’07

An atonement gone too far?

July 23, 2015

Arghya Sengupta

It has often been heard during discussions surrounding the 40th anniversary of the 
Emergency in the last month, that the Supreme Court had its darkest hour in this period.

The radical nature of judicial intervention along with the sweeping nature of orders against governments gives rise to the irresistible inference that public interest litigation was the Supreme Court’s way of atonement for its genuflection before government during the Emergency

Hard cases, it is said, make bad law. The adage is widely considered true for the Supreme Court of India which held in the height of the Emergency, in ADM Jabalpur v. Shivkant Shukla that detenus under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) could not approach the judiciary if their fundamental rights were violated. Not only was the law laid down unconscionable, but it also smacked of a Court more “executive-minded than the executive”, complicit in its own independence being shattered by an all-powerful government. So deep has been the impact of this judgment that the Supreme Court’s current activist avatar is widely viewed as having its genesis in a continuing need to atone. Expressions of such atonement have created another Court made to measure — this time not to the measure of the government but rather the aggrandised self-image of some of its judges.

It has often been heard during discussions surrounding the 40th anniversary of the Emergency in the last month, that the Supreme Court had its darkest hour in this period. For those not familiar with the history of the Court, it might be instructive to understand why. In ADM Jabalpur, the four judges in the majority, Chief Justice A.N. Ray and his successor Chief Justices M.H. Beg, Y.V. Chandrachud and P.N. Bhagwati handed down a judgment that was fatally flawed in law. Given that the consequences of their error were entirely to the government’s advantage, it was widely viewed as the death of an independent judiciary. The excessively deferential, almost apologetic language used by the judges confirmed this impression.

Life, a bounty of the government

The legal question before the Court was whether as a consequence of a presidential order suspending the fundamental right to life and personal liberty (Article 21) during the operation of the Emergency under Article 359 of the Constitution, detenus who had been put behind bars under the provisions of MISA without any reasons being provided, could challenge their detentions as unlawful in a court of law. The majority held that Article 21 of the Constitution that had been suspended was the sole repository of life, personal liberty and judicial review in the Constitution. Further, that the rule of law in an Emergency would be entirely what the government said it should.

On both counts, the judges were entirely mistaken. While it is an arguable proposition whether there is a right to life and personal liberty in natural law, outside the Constitution, there can be no debate on the proposition that the power of judicial review, i.e. the power of the Supreme Court to examine the legality of executive action does not depend on Article 21. Thus, whether a detention order under MISA was validly issued in terms of the statute itself is a question that the Court must remain competent to adjudicate on notwithstanding the emergency at hand. Otherwise, under the pretext of the Emergency, a government can — and in the case of Indira Gandhi’s government did — round up its opponents in the name of national security. In legal terms, the rule of ultra vires, that the act of government cannot go beyond the power vested in it by the legislature, is hardly a creature of Article 21; it is a principle of common law that predates the Constitution.

“ For an unelected and largely unaccountable institution such as the Supreme Court to be at the forefront of matters relating to governance is dangerous…”

Second, as a court of law, the Supreme Court was called upon in this case to balance the interest of public order in an Emergency with the right to life and personal liberty guaranteed to every person. Nine High Courts called upon to perform the same function had found a nuanced answer by which they had held that the right to life cannot be absolutely subservient to public order merely because the government declared so — the legality of detentions could be judicially reviewed, though the intention of the government would not be second-guessed by the Court. This was a delicate balance. The Supreme Court however reversed this view and made the right to life and personal liberty literally a bounty of the government. If this genuflection did not look perverse per se, in hindsight as the real rationale of the Emergency became apparent, it was devastating for the image of the Court as an independent institution.

Speaking truth to power

It was only the dissenting judgment of Khanna J. that spoke truth to power. On the one hand it did not enquire into the subjective satisfaction of the government as to whether an emergency proclamation was required or whether detention of particular persons was expedient. At the same time, it did not provide a carte blanche to the government, preserving a minimal but significant remit for judicial review to assess whether the legal requirements for detaining a person had been met. As a price for his honesty, Justice Khanna was superseded when by convention he ought to have been appointed the next Chief Justice of India. With Justice Beg accepting the government’s offer in defiance of convention, the Supreme Court looked all too human; yet another institution in India whose independence lay shattered by the government, its reputation in shreds.

Noted scholars have inferred that the Supreme Court’s activist avatar in the 40 years since and particularly prominent today, can directly be traced to this dark episode in its history. Justice Bhagwati, the pioneer of the public interest litigation movement in the Supreme Court publicly apologised for his judgment, rare for a Supreme Court judge. At his behest, the Court came to the rescue of bonded labour, girls in protective homes, undertrial prisoners, minimum wage workers and several other disadvantaged and needy groups in society. The radical nature of such judicial intervention coupled with the sweeping nature of orders against elected governments, makes the inference irresistible that public interest litigation was the Court’s shrewd and humanist atonement for its genuflection before government during the Emergency.

In activist mode

Today, however, while public interest litigation has restored the independent image of the Supreme Court, it has achieved this at the cost of quality, discipline and the constitutional role judges are expected to perform. The Court monitors criminal trials, protects the environment, regulates political advertising, lays down norms for sexual harassment in the workplace, sets guidelines for adoption, supervises police reform among a range of other tasks of government. That all these tasks are crucial but tardily undertaken by government can scarcely be questioned. But for an unelected and largely unaccountable institution such as the Supreme Court to be at the forefront of matters relating to governance is equally dangerous — the choice of issues it takes up is arbitrary, their remit is not legal, their results often counterproductive, requiring a degree of technical competence and institutional capacity in ensuring compliance that the Court simply does not possess. This sets an unhealthy precedent for other courts and tribunals in the country, particularly the latter whose chairpersons are usually retired Supreme Court Justices. To take a particularly egregious example, the National Green Tribunal has banned diesel vehicles more than 10 years old in Delhi and if reports are to be believed, is considering imposing a congestion charge for cars as well. That neither of these are judicial functions and are being unjustly being usurped by a tribunal that has far exceeded its mandate, is evidence of the chain reaction that the Supreme Court’s activist avatar has set off across the judicial spectrum.

Finally, the Court’s activism adds to a massive backlog of regular cases that makes the Indian justice delivery mechanism, slow, unreliable and inefficient for the ordinary litigant. As on March 1, 2015, there were over 61,000 cases pending in the Supreme Court alone. It might be worthwhile for the Court to set its own house in order, concomitantly with telling other wings of government how to do so.

As we mark 40 years of the Emergency and the darkest period in the Supreme Court’s history, it might be time to not single-mindedly harp on the significance of an independent judiciary. Judicial independence, is and must remain a cherished virtue. However, it would be blinkered to not confront newer challenges that damage the credibility of our independent judiciary today — unpardonable delays and overweening judges taking on the mantle of national government by proxy. The Supreme Court 40 years on is a different institution — it must be cognisant of its history but not at the cost of being blind to its present.

(Arghya Sengupta is Research Director, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, a New Delhi-based legal policy think-tank.)

Source: thehindu 

Bengaluru Ola Auto driver is social media sensation

Shonali Muthalaly   

Chennai, July 20, 2015

Ghasamfar Ali K. and his wife, with Ranjani Shanker

One man can make a difference. Read to know why Ghasamfar Ali K. made the news

Less than a month ago, auto driver Ghasamfar Ali K., picked up a passenger in Bengaluru at 8.30 p.m. and drove her to her destination.

Just another journey, as far as he was concerned. Except, by the next morning, he had become a social media celebrity. In less than a week, people were recognising him on the street. And last weekend, the same passenger travelled from her hometown in Chennai to Bengaluru, turning up unexpectedly at his home to say ‘thank you.’

Back in Chennai, the passenger, Ranjani Shanker, a marketing consultant and musician, talks about how that seemingly ordinary journey made an impact on not just her, but thousands of people across the country. In Bengaluru for a short holiday, she found herself stranded in the city at night. “I needed to go to Kanakpura Road, about 38 km away, and I just could not get a cab.” She finally tried the Ola Auto app on her phone and Ghasamfar Ali accepted the ride.

Before he began driving, however, he warned her that a large part of the route would be through deserted roads. “He said, “the light is very low and it will be lonely — I need to tell you that. But don’t worry.” Despite being nervous, she decided to get into his auto anyway, instructing him to stick to a route she picked via Google Maps. “About 15 minutes into the ride, the roads got dark. I was worried — but he kept checking on me, saying ‘Are you ok, madam? Don’t worry’.”

When she reached Kanakpura, where a friend was to pick her up, she jumped out of the auto in relief. “It was not a city road, but at least there were tea shops, and some light.” However, her friend was delayed — stuck in traffic. “Ghasamfar then insisted on waiting with me for 20 minutes till my friend arrived. And it was those 20 minutes that made me write that Facebook post.”

She wrote the story as soon as she got back to her hotel that night. “I’ll be honest — I did have a feeling it would be popular, but I did not expect it to become the sensation it did.” In an hour, there were 400 Likes. By morning, there were 2,000. “I was like, whoa, I’ve never seen so many Likes on a post,” Ranjani laughs. “Then 4,000, 5,000… now it’s at 17,500.” With almost 2,800 shares. But that’s not all. It’s also gone viral on a number of online news sites.

Why did this post get so popular? “That’s something I’ve been thinking about,” Ranjani says, “I feel it’s the lack of positive news that’s made it stand out. We hear so many negative stories — especially about cab and auto drivers. Men who are rude, who are offensive and dangerous.” She talks about how women, in particular, related to her post. “I think women understand that fear of a dark, lonely road, because they’ve all felt it.”

Meanwhile, Ghasamfar has been making waves in Bengaluru. Says Ranjini, “He’s a local hero now: he’s been on radio stations, three newspaper articles and television. The local Commissioner of Police also felicitated him and posted the picture on their Facebook page.”

Ola finally got wind of the story and wanted to reward Ghasamfar. “They decided to pay off his autorickshaw loan. And they called to ask me if I’d like to join in and surprise him at his home,” says Ranjini.

She agreed enthusiastically, and Ola flew her to Bengaluru last weekend. “He was so surprised when I walked into his house!” She says, “My family was insistent that I give him something as well, as a token of our appreciation and respect.” So she gave him a watch, after which he introduced her to his wife and five-year-old son.

Ranjani then says with a smile, “As we were all sitting together and drinking tea, he said, “Madamji, I don’t even know why I’m famous. I hear it’s because of Facebook. I know what Facebook is… But what is a ‘Like’?”

Source: thehindu

The Iran Deal Is a Victory for Obama Diplomacy Over Bush Warmongering

     Photo: Jewel Samad/Getty Images

July 14, 2015

By Matthew Duss @mattduss

“I don't want to just end the war, but I want to end the mindset that got us into war in the first place.” That was Senator Barack Obama, speaking about Iraq in a 2008 primary debate. For a candidate who had seen his own campaign surge on the strength of his opposition to the Iraq war, it was a near-perfect distillation of the change he hoped to bring to America’s foreign policy discussion, long dominated by hawkish views that were shattering against the bloody reality of Iraq’s civil war.

During the 2008 campaign, Obama started—and won—a hugely significant debate about the proper uses of U.S. power. His declaration that he would not be afraid to talk to America’s enemies brought accusations of naiveté from both his Republican adversary John McCain and Democratic primary opponent Hillary Clinton, who would go on to begin implementing that same policy toward Iran as Obama’s first Secretary of State.

Ending that mindset has proven a difficult task. The idea that military force is decisive in a way that diplomacy is not remains a very attractive one, especially for politicians looking for cheap ways to appear tough. And to be fair, Obama has moved slowly on this, often frustratingly so. There are policy areas, particularly the use of drone warfare, where he has continued the commitment to the use of force. But Obama’s Iran policy is one in which the president has followed through on that central promise of his candidacy, and with great results. In short, Obama’s Iran policy is the anti–Iraq war.

The invasion and occupation of Iraq resulted in the deaths of more than 4,000 U.S. troops and more than 100,000 Iraqis, including many times that number seriously and permanently injured. It cost American taxpayers trillions of dollars. It empowered both Iran and Al Qaeda in the region, and led to the creation of the Islamic State. Its negative repercussions will bedevil the region, and U.S. policymakers, for decades to come. Conceived by the Bush administration as a demonstration of American military power, it succeeded only in demonstrating its limits.

In stark contrast, the historic nuclear deal announced Tuesday in Vienna between the U.S. and its P5+1 partners and Iran demonstrates an alternative vision of the use of American power. It shows that our security and the security of our partners can be effectively advanced through multilateral diplomacy, and proves once again the importance of U.S. global leadership in addressing shared problems. Specifically, it achieves the central goal of blocking Iran's path to a nuclear weapon by dramatically reducing its capacity to produce nuclear fuel (something which continued to expand even under tight international sanctions), and by putting Iran's entire nuclear infrastructure under the most intensive inspections regime in history.

As a result of the deal, the International Atomic Energy Agency will have eyes on Iran's nuclear program at every level: mining, procurement, production, enrichment, etc. Not only does this deep visibility create a deterrent to cheating, but it also means that, when the intensive inspection period expires years from now, the IAEA will possess far more detailed information and understanding of Iran's program than any other in the world.

And by demonstrating to the Iranian regime that a positive change in its behavior can produce benefits, the deal could empower more moderate elements within Iran calling for broader reforms. This is one reason why the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran has supported this diplomacy all along, and hailed the agreement this morning as “a victory of diplomacy and peace,” and why Iran’s hawks remain hostile to any agreement, a position they’ve long shared with U.S. hardliners. (It’s no secret why the most ardent supporters of the Iraq war have been the loudest critics of Iran diplomacy: The failure of the former and success of the latter utterly discredits their claims about how the world works.)

Frankly, if there were any justice, we would be seeing an outbreak of “Support Our Diplomats” bumper stickers. Americans rightly honor those who defend our security with military strength, and it’s time to accord the same to those who do it through effective and painstaking diplomacy.

To be clear, this agreement addresses one contentious issue among many that the U.S. and the international community have with Iran. Now that the deal is inked, the administration must articulate a more detailed strategy for confronting Iran’s regional troublemaking. There's precedent for this: The U.S. did it with the USSR, a far more powerful and threatening adversary than Iran, even as we were negotiating and implementing arms agreements. At the same time, the reality of post-Iraq war Middle East requires the U.S. and Iran to look for ways to confront shared challenges, particularly the growth of ISIS. There’s no “one-size-fits-all” policy for a region that’s increasingly fragmented. And the U.S. has no interest in taking sides in a sectarian Cold War.

Ending the mindset that got us into Iraq isn’t the work of one presidency, but of a generation. That work received a huge boost today. The Vienna agreement is a victory for a better vision of foreign policy.

Matthew Duss is president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, based in Washington, D.C.

Source: newrepublic

ఎదిగినా ఒదిగుండే వ్యక్తిత్వం ఆమె సొంతం

 

గన్నవరం: భారత జట్టుకు ఆడి వచ్చిన ఏ క్రికెటర్‌కైనా ఎయిర్‌పోర్ట్‌లో కారు, స్వాగతం పలికేందుకు హంగా మా ఉంటుంది. కానీ టీమిండియా మహిళా క్రికెట్‌ జట్టు వికెట్‌ కీపర్‌, విజయవాడ క్రీడాకారిణి కల్పన పరిస్థితి మాత్రం వేరు. బెంగళూరులో ఐదు వన్డేల సిరీస్‌లో పాల్గొని గురువారం తిరిగొచ్చిన కల్పనకు స్వాగతం పలికేందుకు ఆమె తండ్రి, ఆటో డ్రైవర్‌ వెంకటేశ్వరరావు, ఆమె చదువుతున్న కళాశాల ప్రిన్సిపాల్‌, అధ్యాపకులు, విద్యార్థులు మా త్రమే వచ్చారు. అనంతరం తన తం డ్రి నడిపే ట్రాలీ ఆటో లో ఎయిర్‌పోర్ట్‌ నుంచి ఇంటికి బయలుదేరింది.  

Source: ఆంధ్రజ్యోతి

The government would have loved it if I had quietly slunk away, but that I was not willing to do: Amartya Sen

Amartya Sen speaks about his assessment of Modi's first year as PM, researching gender in the 1960s, his love for Sanskrit literature, and what judo can teach those who frame social policy.

      Nobel laureate Amartya Sen.

Written by Amrita Dutta | New Delhi | Updated: July 8, 2015 7:53 am

Nobel laureate Amartya Sen’s new book is a collection of essays, brought out by the Oxford University Press in collaboration with The Little Magazine. In this wide-ranging interview, he speaks to Amrita Dutta about his assessment of Narendra Modi’s first year as PM, researching gender in the 1960s, his love for Sanskrit literature, and what judo can teach those who frame social policy.

The Country of First Boys is the title of your new book, a collection of essays. Could you talk a bit about what the phrase is trying to say?

When I was growing up in Bengal, it was a big thing: ‘Who is the first boy in class?’ It had to be a boy, and, second, he had to be a great achiever. And it didn’t matter what the others did. I found it very offensive, even as a child. There are three things here. One, there is a strong gender preference, which is characteristic of India, much more so than we often recognise. If you compare India with Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, not to mention China, we come out worse in female life expectancy, female literacy, female schooling, female survival. The previous government did not do enough, but the present government is doing less than enough.

The second thing is the concentration on the more successful and neglecting what happens to the rest. [Of course], we see great successes. Indians go abroad and run institutions, whether it be Microsoft or Deutsche Bank. On the other hand, there are a whole lot of people from whom we have no expectations, nor do they have any expectations from themselves. The third point is that success or failure depends a great deal on social stratification, on caste, class, community and so on.

A year on, how do you read the PM as a leader? Were some of your fears about Narendra Modi unfounded? Were some confirmed?

The positive thing about Modi, which I recognized even earlier, was that he was telling people: we can get things done. I admired it then, I admired it now. The problem begins with what it is that he wants to get done.

I think he has a wrong understanding of economic development. You can think of development as a process with human beings at the centre, or you can see it as a process with financial and industrial leadership [at the centre]. He definitely belongs to the latter [school of thought]. You need the financial leaders, no doubt, you also need the industrial entrepreneurs. But humanity has to be in the middle. The previous government also failed in that but they were trying to correct a bit with [schemes like] Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, funding for which has just been cut. Funding for school meals too has just been cut. I don’t think we recognise how out of tune India is with Asia, because the Asian model of economic development has been to combine the power of the market economy with human beings having the capability to lead a good life. There is some idea that you first become rich, and then raise the level of human development. But every country that has been successful, whether we look at Europe and America, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, China or Thailand, has concentrated on raising human capability along with the power of market economy. We pay no attention to that, as if the quality of human beings is not central to human development. If India was bad at that earlier, it’s worse at it now.

I can’t say I am disappointed, I was expecting that. Because they were playing up Gujarat, which may have had a high growth rate but has neglected the human side—recently the Economist ran an article on how its immunisation rates are lower than Bihar’s.

But what made me speak up at the time of the elections was my concern at the Hindutva elements in Modi’s agenda. You see that as an academic very much now, in the interference in the academic administration of the National Book Trust, where A Sethumadhavan has been replaced by an RSS ideologue, or at the Indian Council of Cultural Relations or the Indian Council of Historical Research. There has been that sectarianism [on display]. And despite rhetoric to the contrary, there have been cases of church burning, talk of ghar wapsi. India deserves better than that. In that respect, have I been reassured? I am afraid not.

What is happening at the Nalanda University now? Has some kind of a compromise been worked out?

What happened at Nalanda is a relatively nicer story than either it first appeared and also compared with what is happening to other educational/cultural institutions like ICCR or NBT or ICHR or for that matter TIFR, as well as what might be happening to the IIMs if the bill goes through. The board wanted unanimously me to continue as chancellor, but the government’s advice was clear: under no circumstances. Some people wanted to continue the battle but I thought that would be a mistake. First, because attention was being diverted to a personality issue. Second, it was clear to me that even if my friends in the board were to win in keeping me as chancellor, I could not be an effective leader because I would have to fight the government all the time. But I decided to make it a public affair so that it would be difficult to put a Hindutva ideologue in charge at Nalanda. The government did not want it to be made public at all. They would have loved it if I had quietly slunk away, but that, I am afraid, I was not willing to do.

Did anybody in the government reach out — the PM or the Minister of External Affairs — to you after you spoke out?

They couldn’t reassure me. The ministry of external affairs put out a lot of misleading statements, like ‘Amartya Sen was impatient. We would have liked him to continue’. But the minister did not say so. The minister spoke clearly to the members of the board and said that Amartya Sen wasn’t acceptable. Even if the ministry made public statements, they were at odds with what the minister was saying to the board. I think she was also trying to get a non-Sen solution, and we’ve got a good solution. [Former foreign minister of Singapore George Yeo has been appointed chancellor.] I am happy with the way it has turned out. If there’s one thing to learn from this, it is that in a democracy, if you are critical of the government, you have to express it. Sitting quietly and grumbling about it is not going to help. That’s not what democracy is for.

Could you talk a bit about your love for Sanskrit literature? What sense does it give you ancient Indian culture?

Sanskrit and maths were my favourite subjects in school. When the Nobel academy asked me to donate two items to its museum, I gave them Aryabhata’s book on maths, Aryabhatiya, which I had read in Sanskrit in school, and my bicycle. The bike I had used to collect data about the famine period. I would ride to farms in Bengal and get them to open their dusty rooms where they had kept their records. I used it even more while researching on gender and inequality, when I would go to villages near Santiniketan to weigh boys and girls under the age of five. (By the time girls were five, they had fallen behind in terms of weight.) I was very proud that I had become quite good at weighing children. I had a very good research assistant, the first Santhal in her village to get a BA. On one occasion, she called me to help her weigh a teething child. And I did it without getting bitten.

I get an extraordinary positive impression of the past, which makes me very proud. I get an impression of a very cerebrally active society — never as remarkable as the Chinese in observational science — but in the philosophy of science, and the speculation of it, very high brow. On the philosophy of jurispredence. In fact, my book Idea of Justice is based on a distinction that only Sanskrit scholars make, between niti and nyaya. I think Meghdootam is extraordinarily important to understanding Indian culture. But my favourite Kalidasa play is Mricchakatika — and it had a profound influence on my understanding of justice. I also like the Vedas, and I don’t think you have to be a passionate believer in Hindutva to like it — it is a great book. People don’t even recognise that it is not just a book on religion but also a book on human behaviour. Some of the verses are absolutely overpowering. But I don’t at all accept the view that the Vedas had interesting mathematics. It had some arithmetic puzzles, that is all.

When you started analysing women’s health and education with respect to economic growth, in the 1960s, what were the reactions?

I became interested in gender equality when I was in college at Presidency, Kolkata. Marx’s idea of false consciousness, I thought, applied to women. I also did a few papers when I was teaching in Jadavpur University. I was amazed not just at the inequality but the fact that people knew about it and took it for granted. Secondly, if you drew their attention to it, they would give you lectures about culture. I was told that this was a Western point of view, that Indian women do not think of themselves as individuals, but as an extension of their families. I had an argument at the Delhi School of Economics in the 1960s, and I said this was a form of ultimate denial of a person’s individuality, which is one of the huge possessions we have. That is the way inequality survives, by making underdogs become upholders of the inequality.

Are you working on any books right now?

I wrote a mathematical book when I was at the Delhi School of Economics, it was published in 1970, called Collective Choice and Social Welfare, which I hope I am not being immodest when I say that it had quite an influence in the literature that followed in economics. A lot of people have grumbled that I should write a follow-up. But then some people, including the big influence on my economic thinking, Kenneth Arrow, told me that it’s a classic, you can’t change it. So I have begun adding a few chapters to it, and I am about half-way there.

I am also writing something of a memoir, not to be confused with an autobiography. It is not about what happened, but about what I thought. I have reached the age of 12 or 13, so I have a long way to go.

You were around 11 when you first saw the ruins of Nalanda. What has the idea of Nalanda come to mean to you?

I remember being bowled over, especially at the sight of the excavations at the site. That’s when I thought I should do something about it. So my ability to lead the first stage of the Nalanda revival has been a fulfillment of a dream. The idea of Nalanda emphasises that human progress has always been linked to thinking, and not just doing. Secondly, that Indians were capable of building and running such a university at that time is a matter of considerable pride. They were teaching religion and philosophy, but also medicine, public healthcare, linguistics, certainly astronomy—in a way that is distinctly modern. Third, Nalanda attracted people from everywhere. They were ready to sit down together and discuss things together, resolve differences through discussion.

You have lived all your life on university campuses, haven’t you?

My father was a teacher, my grandfather was a teacher. One reason I haven’t retired even though I am 81 is because I love students, and they like me. Ultimately, when I look back on my life, the thing that I am happiest with is that I was a teacher.

You have written for decades on India’s education. What was your experience of school like?

I was very lucky because I went to a very nice school in Santiniketan. [Before that], I had a little over a year at St Gregory’s School in Dhaka, which was very keen on performance. After I got the Nobel, I visited the school. The headmaster said they had started a few scholarships in my name. He also said he got out my old exam scripts to inspire the students. Inspire, I said? ‘That was my hope,’ said the headmaster. But then he checked that my position in class was 33rd in a class of 36, and he wondered whether it was a good idea.

I have to say I became a relatively good student once I went to Santiniketan, where no one worried about grades, it was almost shameful to worry about them. One of my teachers described a classmate of mine: “She is quite an original thinker, even though her grades are very good.” I liked that aspect: there was no pressure to be a first boy.

Not only were there girls with me (I was in school in the 1940s) but my mother was also schooled there earlier. She was proud of the fact that she did judo there, 90 years ago. She must have been one of the first Indian women to do judo. She had a Japanese teacher, who for the first week, only taught them how to fall without hurting themselves. In some ways, the idea of what happens to those who fall seems to me not just an approach fit for judo, but for humanity at large—and for social policy.

Source: indianexpress