Crime Today News
I remember a movie in which the commissioner of police tells his subordinate to bash up a detainee to get him to confess. The indignant detainee, with full awareness of what the law says, asserts, “You cannot do this to me! It is against the law!” The amused official looks him up and down and almost gently asks him, “Tere ko kaun bola re, Police waale kanoon ku follow karthe?” Sometimes movies turn out to be predictors of what the future holds.
P Chidambaram (Apr 6, 2025) referring to Art 26 of the Constitution, wrote “…in a multi-religious democratic country …all religions are equal. The administration of religious institutions must be in the hands of persons belonging to the religious denomination.” Who told him today’s elected representatives act in consonance with constitutional provisions?!
“At present”, continues Chidambaram, “in no religious place of worship or religious/charitable institution of Hinduism, Christianity, Sikhism or Buddhism does the law allow any role for a believer in any other religion.” Obviously no one has told him that just as by a stroke of the pen the definition of citizen can be changed for CAA NRC purposes, to exclude the “undesirable other”, so can linguistic sleight-of-hand be resorted to, to declare that a Waqf is not religious but a secular Special Purpose Vehicle aimed at enabling the benefits of endowed property to reach society at large and not merely those “undesirable others” the Waaqif intended to benefit. A stroke of the pen can declare all Waqfs by user government property with retrospective effect!
Helplessness of Chidambaram
No one also told him that the same night a bill “amending” the Waqf Act was passed, a corpse would await burial but the entrance to the graveyard used by the “undesirable others” to bury their dead would suddenly cease to exist and in its place a wall would block their way. Apparently, people of the locality decided to build a wall blocking the entrance, and they acted with impunity fully aware there would never be any administrative, executive or other fall-out.
They must not be blamed for doing what they did because they have been taught and trained to do this by precedent: there is apparently a long-standing tradition among administration as well as executive and some go so far as to say in some segments of the judiciary as well that what is done is not as important as who does it and if it is done by people who are “from amongst us” the executive and the administration are prone to find interesting things to look at in other directions and the event or events go unnoticed… and if it is done by the “undesirable others” then there is a magical difference in the response that is generated: its harshness, its speed, its drastic character and extent, and its consequences are worth watching.
Protest prayers on road “is terrorism”
Decades ago on an anniversary of the demolition of the Babri Masjid when some youths blocked a road in Hyderabad by starting to pray there, they were thrown into the locker as terrorists, and anti-terrorism provisions applied.
Shift to Maharashtra. Days after Maharashtra Navnirman Sena activists went on a rampage, beating up bank staff for not speaking in Marathi, party chief Raj Thackeray appealed to them to stop the agitation. It seems the appeal came in the wake of widespread condemnation from bank officials and a “warning” from the CM that action will be taken against those who break the law. OMG! Action! Wow!
Thackeray responded congratulating the activists for “once again raising your strong voice for Marathi.” He added ominously, “Now we can stop …because we have …shown a glimpse of what can happen if this (use of Marathi) does not happen.” What was the response of the administrative machinery, the executive, or the judiciary to what appears to be a violation of the law, the assault of public servants, and an expressed threat of future repetition? Zero, apparently.
Sending the message
The MNS chief further said “…the CM said we will not let anyone take the law into their hands. We do not want that either, but …isn’t it your job to implement the rules…? You should make banks and other establishments respect Marathi, then we will definitely not take the law into our hands,” he said. One would be forgiven for reading the unstated “or else”. But then, he is not the undesirable other.
Earlier, Thackeray apparently said the party will not hesitate to slap people residing in the state if they refuse to speak Marathi. If anybody from the undesirable others in Telangana thinks he can go around hitting people if they don’t speak Urdu or Telugu, he will suddenly find himself at the wrong end of the law, arrested, charged, imprisoned for assault and battery, and if the person assaulted is a bank official, also charged with obstructing public servant in discharge of official duty. So, since provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita in both States are the same, the message is clear: the law does take its course… but its course meanders in different alleys and lanes in different manner, seeking out “the undesirable other” alone to visit its rigour on and leaves untouched “those amongst us”.
The law is above all?
As you enter a court in Hyderabad, looking up from the lobby, you see staring at you the words, “Be you ever so high, the law is above you!” Who would be so naïve as to think such strange thoughts, so disconnected from reality in today’s world, one wonders.
There was a clamour that we cannot have non-vegetarian restaurants because it discriminates against people who are vegetarian and who wish to have only vegetarian food served, and therefore, every establishment serving non-vegetarian food must be compelled to serve only vegetarian food. Apparently, no one thought that restaurants serving only vegetarian food could be said to be discriminating against those who desired non-vegetarian food and what would be the consequences of a reversal of that clamour on its being taken to its logical conclusion.
Fortunately, that thought has not been pressed but stands replaced with something more sinister: the demand that no institution should serve halal food. Sinister because only Muslims would look out for halal food, and people who are not Muslims would not really be concerned as to whether the animal was slaughtered in a particular manner or not. Clearly the “undesirable other” was actually the target.
Show your identity
Some time ago a video became viral showing a gentleman planting saffron flags on bandis and thelas, requiring street vendors to display their identity, for obvious reasons of crippling the small Muslim vendors’ business, and destroying the economy of the undesirable others, eliminating competition.
We have seen many instances of people being beaten, lynched, compelled to repeat certain slogans and so on. Ordinarily these would be considered aberrations in society and nowhere near anything like mainstream events.
However, when one realizes that the perpetrators of these acts actually have themselves filmed and make those videos viral, one is compelled to conclude that these honourable gentlemen have political patronage which ensures that the law would never act against them and therefore secure in the conviction that they have the power of the state behind them these individuals go about with complete impunity as if daring the administration the executive and the judiciary to try and touch them.
The undesirable others
On the heels of this comes news of a several hundred year old graveyard having been bulldozed adjacent to a UP temple. One great “local leader” declares that no graveyard “will be tolerated” near a temple. The message is clear again: to hell with “the administration”: we the locals will decide what happens to the undesirable others …
Then comes the UP announcement of 7000 Waqf properties likely to be “confiscated”. A dargah has its green flag ripped off and replaced by a saffron flag…
This is just the beginning. We must be grateful to these great nationalists for telling the political executive and the administration where all the nation’s troublemakers, rabble rousers and constitutional fifth columnists are hiding, both in politics and on the street, waiting to assault everything the Constitution guaranteed.
What do you think gives them that confidence, that the law would not reach them, plus the smug conviction that if it does reach them, then every little inconvenience that they suffer will more than be made up for by the powers that be and that, far from causing them to be considered the dregs of society, these events will actually catapult them into the limelight leading to political office? Is it possible that the fact that a large number of people holding political office today have had such events in their background leads to such a conclusion in the minds of these honourable gentlemen?
Duties of a public servant
Let us leave that aside for a minute. We earlier mentioned a statute, namely, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. Of which sec. 199 reads, “Whoever, being a public servant,— (a) …; or (b) …; or (c) fails to record any information given to him under sub-section (1) of section 173 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 in relation to cognizable offence punishable under sections 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 70, 71, 74, 76, 77, 79, 124, 143 or 144, shall be punished with rigorous imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than six months but which may extend to two years, and shall also be liable to fine.”
How is information given? Doesn’t a police official seeing such viral videos become aware of an offence being committed? Does he not know what his duty is?
Then we have sec. 155 of the same statute: “Whoever, being a public servant, knowingly disobeys any direction of the law as to the way in which he is to conduct himself as such public servant, intending thereby to save, or knowing it to be likely that he will thereby save, any person from legal punishment, …shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both.”
So now, what would be the duty of the police officials who are aware of these events? If they are aware and do not act, are they not violating the law? If they are not even aware, are they fit to be continued in service?
Running amuck
Let us go a step further. If the State allows one section of citizens to run amuck, and ignores their assaults and worse while another segment of society suffers at their hands, and the State agencies are thus seen to act with clear discrimination, can the Constitutional Courts with power of taking suo motu action on news reports, letters, etc., respond by issuing writs as deemed appropriate? I believe yes. If they can, but choose not to, what would that lead citizens to conclude?
These are stressful times. And every agency has its job cut out for it. The question is, will personnel of those agencies honour the oaths of office they took, or will they wait for these illegalities to acquire such momentum that they cross the tipping point and take the nation beyond the point of no return?
History judges everyone, and forgives none… except when distorted to indoctrinate people to hate others. Some in the administration will be remembered for the great work they did in the face of political pressure, while others will have their names dragged in the mud for the complicity they showed with the wrongdoers. Those judging will not ignore the role of the judges. Who among those will have themselves remembered as upholders of law and Constitutional values, and who as succumbing to the forces that operate, remains to be seen.
As usual, citizens who still believe in the rule of law wait to see whether upholders of law decide that the nation’s tomorrow will be an endless dark night of genocidal conflict, or a promising dawn of Constitutional revival. Or are these citizens the others who are expendable, who no longer matter? Answers, anyone?
Jai Hind.
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