Sycophants and Slaps

Now the lawyers and judges are fighting. If judges are sycophants, then lawyers are born to be sycophants. It is their brief, for when they represent a client, they are doing chamchagiri for that client. Even in cases of crime and terrorist acts against the state, the prosecution lawyer is supposed to argue on behalf of his client, whether or not s/he is right.

Upholding of truth is based on facts. Facts are based on evidence. Evidence comes from what the cops, the witnesses, and the intelligence agencies see and say. What they see and say need not be equally true and it can and does change. So, they are all sycophants to such altered perceptions and circumstances.

Lawyers ask for adjournments to stall the evidence, to buy time or because they really need to get some more information, or their client cannot depose. They are legally entitled to do so. This means that the judiciary is a sycophant of the rulebooks. Cases go on. Lawyers change; judges change; even criminals change when dead men they had killed turn up alive one fine day, sometimes after years.

 All this sycophancy talk is because senior advocate Ram Jethmalani said:

“Why do you (judges) adjourn when they (lawyers) ask for it? You also have become sycophants to maintain relations.”

Justice P B Majmudar of the Bombay High Court reacted sharply:

“What sort of nonsense statements are being made from a public platform?...Lawyers are making public statements which affect the image of the judiciary. Senior advocates are tarnishing the image of judges by saying such things in public. It affects the public profile of the whole institution. There should be some restraint (on lawyers making statements). From new entrants in the profession to advocates on the verge of retirement, everyone is indulging in it.”

I undersand protocol, but just a flip-side query: If the judge asks the lawyer to quicken the pace, despite the seriousness of the case, and the lawyer acquiesces, then would s/he be sycophants of the judge?

 - - - 

Okay, I missed the tamasha over the tamacha (slap). Every angle has been analysed, I assume. I have read a few, very few. So, here is a small snippet from a report:

Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar was today slapped by a man at the New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) centre in New Delhi. The incident occurred while the minister was leaving the premises after attending a literary function.  

The attacker, identified as Harvinder Singh, reportedly blamed Mr Pawar for rising prices of essential commodities. “This is my answer to corrupt politicians,” shouted the attacker as he took out his kirpan (small knife) and threatened to kill politicians. 

When informed about this, Anna Hazare said, “What, only one slap?”

Then the NCP guys went on a rampage to protest – the slap, Anna’s comment and generally because they wanted some action.

So, here are my completely superficial thoughts: 

1. Why do municipal corporations host literary functions and invite agriculture ministers?

2. Aren’t we up to our necks with this corruption thing? Some commentators spoke about ‘disaffection’ of the public. In that case it has nothing to do with corruption. Other politicians have got the shoe treatment; if such disaffection is going to be so pat, then assassinations can also be explained away.

3. Then there are those who think the slap was undignified. Whoa. Slippers are thrown inside Parliament too. What Harvinder Singh did is the equivalent of heckling at rock concerts – everyone wants paisa vasool stuff. If Sharad Pawar sent them sacks of sugar from his fiefdom, they’d be quite happy.

4. Then there are those who think he was so cool in forgiving (he did not, his daughter did) while his goons went about breaking things. This is not cool. This is political smarts. He would have been cool had he stopped the rampage. Mr. Pawar is in no position to be magnanimous given who he is known to be cosy with.

5. Then there are those who say Anna Hazare should not have said what he did, it is not Gandhian. This is funny. Gandhi was around sitting with his charkha, weaving khadi, when all those violent episodes took place and his supporters got the bad end of the stick, quite literally.

Anyhow, Anna and Pawar are two sides of the same bad coin. They are raking it in from the rural/agriculture sector in terms of cash or kind, but appealing to the urban groups, well aware that this is how they can get that spit and polish.

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End note: The turncoat moment in 26/11 anniversary two-bits when celebrity page 3 regulars who had been right up there in colour-coordinated scarves and tunics pushing the ‘enough is enough’ agenda diss “celebrities” and think about the ‘others’, and pat themselves for having refused to appear on TV shows this year. Wow, missed ya babes. What were they doing barfing at the sensitive time when it mattered most? Or is three years later not good enough to get them international mileage?

Sunday ka Funda

Picture from Pakistan (in the mailbox)

Killing the news or the messenger?

Is it about a story? A journalist gets arrested for being involved in the murder of another journalist. Such real facilitation of killings is not commonplace, or at least not known.

But, then, news needs to be fresh and to update it anything goes. Even another story.

When senior crime reporter J. Dey was murdered by the underworld gang, there were several theories. Few probably thought that someone from the same profession, in this case Jigna Vora, would play such a crucial role. The latest report says:

Crime branch officers told special judge SM Modak they suspect that Vora had sent information on Dey to gangster Chhota Rajan, the main accused in the case. MCOCA carries a minimum punishment of five years in jail or a maximum of death sentence. If the MCOCA charge against Vora were to be dropped, she would still face charges of murder and criminal conspiracy under the Indian Penal Code that can attract the death sentence, another officer said. 

Vora is accused of sending pictures of Dey’s motorcycle, details of his whereabouts, his office and home addresses to Rajan.

Soon after the murder, I had given the example of a reporter acquintance getting into trouble and written in Who kills investigative reporters?:

Sources. That's the tricky word. The sources don't drop from the sky or just saunter in. They need to be cultivated. The beat is not kind, nor the hunt for scoops equal. 

The underworld is a vile world but not too different from extremist groups - separatist or political establishment. My piece on Pakistani journalist Shahzad's murder tried to explore some factors.

I would also ask one contrarian question: If giving information amounts to actual murder, then must not police informants also be seen as encounter killers?

Regarding the Dey case, one truly wonders what happens to the ethics that the media constantly talks about. Before they sit to once again judge, let them re-examine the incidents where other sorts of sniping are par for the course – passing on rival or wrong information; planting sources to check out the sources; making threatening calls; posing as imposters. Of course, this does happen, and all for the spoils of the big story that will be stale after a day.

Tata’s Serious About Cyrus

It’s a girl…oops, I mean, it’s a Parsi! After the hoopla over a Bollywood star giving birth to a baby, the front pages reverberated with the earth-shaking – or is it game-changing? – news that Ratan Tata, chairman of the Tata Group, has finally found a successor. Cyrus Mistry, besides being humble, intelligent, young, mature, family man, foodie, car-lover, who plays golf, is also bloody rich. He is the son of construction magnate Pallonji Shapoorji Mistry, and already owns an 18.4 per cent share in the company he will now head.

He says he will dissociate himself from the family business to prevent a clash of interests. Socialites who love to throw their danedelion words around are applauding the brave move that does away with dynasty. Idiocy! Cyrus inherited his papa’s business; he is inheriting the chaimanship because besides being humble, intelligent…you get the drift…he also holds the largest outsider stake in the Tata pie.

And while it is sad that he may not have enough time for golf (I am not saying this; it has been quoted), he will still be the good boy who made it better. His being a Parsi is also a sort of dynastic thing considering the dwindling population. I say this because Ratan Tata had mentioned last year that his successor need not be from the community. Not just that, he also said, “In my opinion the successor should be a suitable person for the job. He need not be a pro-Parsi or anti-Parsi.”

Well, from the looks of it, Cyrus will have to walk the razor’s edge. But then, according to an insider, “Mistry is one person who can laugh at himself.” Great. I was kind of worried for this Irish citizen who will have to deal with such Indian things.

- - -
For my take on his earlier Parsi comment, here is Tata, goodbye

Your turkey’s a Muslim

You’ve got the bird home, dressed it in its best Thanksgiving suit, and placed it in the warmth of the oven or the stove, the heat causing the flesh to melt softly inside and the juices to spill out and settle over its body. You will bring it out for the family dinner – an event so positive, so traditional. The turkey is only one of the many rituals.

You have been to the butcher’s often or to the food store. You checked the meat for health and bite. You are a carnivore and relish the tartness of plump flesh in your mouth, the chewiness of the white insides. Turkeys – or other birds and animals – do not have a religion. There are, of course, ways in which some faiths choose to kill. That is how everyone did at one time. But the times, they are a-changing, and what’s on your plate could decide how devout you are.

That is what American Thinker’s Pamela Geller asks rather ominously:

“Did you know that the turkey you're going to enjoy on Thanksgiving Day this Thursday is probably halal? If it's a Butterball turkey, then it certainly is -- whether you like it or not.”

There is challenge in this, as though you are a poor little thing forced to put up with it. She believes “that much of the meat in Europe and the United States is being processed as halal without the knowledge of the non-Muslim consumers who buy it”.

Under the pretext of the awful slaughter methods – she has nothing to say about fox-hunting and open barbeques that are pretty common in the west, or even the choice of steaks rare – she is driving home the point that this is an Islamic plot. Yes, in the heart of America and the western nations, where turkey is consumed more than in any Muslim country, these Muslims are managing a major coup by not labelling the meat separately as halal and non-halal. Do they own all the meat companies?

She managed to verify just one such manufacturer. Wendy Howze, a Butterball Consumer Response Representative, said: "Our whole turkeys are certified halal.”

Butterball is in trouble, because Ms. Geller is starting a campaign in the US:

“Across this great country, on Thanksgiving tables nationwide, infidel Americans are unwittingly going to be serving halal turkeys to their families this Thursday. Turkeys that are halal certified -- who wants that, especially on a day on which we are giving thanks to G-d for our freedom? I wouldn't knowingly buy a halal turkey -- would you? Halal turkey, slaughtered according to the rules of Islamic law, is just the opposite of what Thanksgiving represents: freedom and inclusiveness, neither of which are allowed for under that same Islamic law.”

I understand her pain, and more so of the turkey. But she is the antithesis of the “freedom and inclusiveness” she is talking about. She is emphasising the differences. American butchers are not all Muslim, and they do not run the industry anyway. This halal stuff gets to be tiring, whether it is those who want it and those who don’t. Especially if the motives are religious.

America is not a religious state, although Abraham Lincoln did use faith to explain Thanksgiving:

"…announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord… But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, by the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own… It has seemed to me fit and proper that God should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people…"

If the 16th President of the United States declared it a national holiday, it was for all citizens. This can be seen beyond faith as it was thanking for a good harvest initially. It can be a gesture of deep gratitude for so many things in life.

Geller is exaggerating and making an issue where there is none. If people like her are so concerned, they can just go chase a bird and put it to sleep in the gentlest manner possible. Or, better still, get a soya turkey.

- - -

"Thanksgiving comes to us out of the prehistoric dimness, universal to all ages and all faiths. At whatever straws we must grasp, there is always a time for gratitude and new beginnings."

- J. Robert Moskin

Ishrat Jahan's 'Last Right'? Or Just Another Encounter Case?

Six years later, Ishrat Jahan’s dead body knows how she was killed.

Yet another encounter by the Gujarat police has been termed as a murder in cold blood. The three-member Gujarat High Court-appointed special investigation team (SIT) probing the Ishrat Jahan case of 2004 has unanimously concluded that the Mumbai college girl and her three aides were murdered by Gujarat officers who later staged a fake encounter. 

This could spell trouble not only for the Gujarat police officers, but also for the central intelligence agencies as they are believed to have faked inputs that led to the encounter and open Narendra Modi’s government to the charge of shielding the officers involved.

“Three senior IPS officers, nominated by the Centre, refused to head the Ishrat SIT,” said advocate Mukul Sinha who is representing the family of one of the victims. “This is clearly to save the skin of senior central IB officials involved in the case.”

One would have thought that the conclusive pronouncement on the case would have been a sort of wake-up call. Instead, my mailbox had a note from my rightwing party contact who mentioned it in passing. The real issue was this:

I had Googled "Amit Shah and CBI" around 11am on Nov 22. There is practically zero coverage of the strong indictment of CBI by the Supreme Court. But you will see a lot of the earlier articles when Amit Shah was arrested. This is what is called a secular coverage by the media of events in Gujarat. And those who damn Narendra Modi always talk about his supposed image. 

Incidentally, the SIT findings that the killing of Ishrat Jehan, along with three others (two of whom were of Pakistan origin), was termed as a problem for Narendra Modi. But the Supreme Court remarks on the false charges of CBI against Amit Shah are not termed as a problem for the Congress led Union government.

It was 12 pm when I read the email. I did my own search and sent a cached copy of the page that had several references with this note:

An hour after you googled, I did so....and copied below is just a portion that showed up! The reports are all four days old. I do know that the media is selective in reportage - from both sides. Just thought I'd share what I saw. Even if your search has prompted this change of heart on the part of Google, it still does not take away from the coverage.

Why must a crime not be seen for what it is? Why do we need to play politics when politicians are already doing so? Amit Shah will get justice sooner than one expects.

What about Ishrat? I will reproduce yet again what I had written earlier this year because we suffer from amnesia and the characters seem to have changed:

- - -

It is the law that is now returning with an old unresolved case.

Giving a new twist to the Ishrat Jahan case, Satish Verma, a member of the Special Investigation Team claimed before the Gujarat High Court that the 2004 killings could have taken place in a fake encounter. 

Verma, a senior IPS officer, who is part of the three-member probe team set up by the high court last year, also said that a second FIR with regard to the encounter needs to be filed. “The illustrative evidence brings out well founded allegation of a fake encounter. This is different from the version contained in the FIR.”

This is what happens when cases drag on. While some of us laypersons have gone through several reports and it was obvious there is no room for any idea other than a fake encounter, given the available evidence, all we end up with is another ‘twist’.

These were my views over two years ago about what the inquiry had revealed:

Ishrat Jahan, the 19-year-old student of Mumbai’s Khalsa College, and the three others who were proclaimed Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives on a fidayeen mission to kill chief minister Narendra Modi, were killed one day before they were actually shown as killed in a police encounter.

On June 14, 2004, the then police commissioner and two senior officials and their boys dubbed these people LeT operatives only to get promoted and to cosy up to Narendra Modi. The others were two 'Pakistanis', not confirmed by anyone, and one Pranesh Pillai alias Javed Shaikh. Ishrat was last because she had witnessed the murder of the others. Pranesh was her boyfriend. She was dragged in front of the car and shot from close range. The report stated:

The police then put her college identity card around her neck and her purse was placed in the boot of the car, which was “uncanny’’. It also declares that Johar and Rana were Indians. The policemen had also dragged Amjad’s body to the road divider alongside the car and placed a 9 mm gun in his hand—to show that he had been killed in action.

The magisterial inquiry, based on scientific evidence that relied on the digestive food remains in the stomach and the state of the four bodies, concludes that all the bodies at the site had rigor mortis showing they were killed several hours earlier.

Should we merely let the issue die at the level of ‘wanted promotions’? There were other encounter killings at the time. Modi himself transferred senior officers to save them. There is obviously the communal angle, and incidentally Pillai’s father has maintained that his son and the others had been framed.

A few other questions need to be asked:

Why were these findings not available earlier when the families have been crying foul from the very start? Given that none of them had any criminal record, the judicial system is supposed to take some action soon.

Cut to February 2011. Will the cops do anything about Verma's revelations – the fact that the weapons do not match, that the intelligence input is not on record, that the deceased was being chased, that the vehicle was not stopped?

Verma told the High Court that “there are two possibilities in the case; one is that four people (who got) killed in the encounter had come to kill Gujarat Chief Minister (Narendra Modi), and the other is that they were killed in cold blood by the police…There is a possibility of the second one (having taken place) irrespective of the first one.”

This is a dangerous comment for it assumes that Ishrat and her colleagues were terrorists. If that is the case, then the police can use their murders as a defence tactic. There is no law that you cannot kill a criminal in cold blood if s/he is seen as a real threat with a plan to get rid of the chief minister. The job of the SIT is to investigate the encounter deaths and prove if there was any motive on the part of the persons killed. Why bring in possibilities here?

Another point Verma makes:

“There can be either controlled investigation or dynamic progressive investigation...investigation cannot be controlled from Delhi...at every point you cannot get prior approvals, as it defeats the purpose of investigation.”

True. But is it possible for the investigative team to operate independently when they are in the lion’s den? How many witnesses will co-operate? Will their phones not be tapped by the state government? Instead of innuendo, perhaps they might like to specify how Delhi is interfering. Here we are dealing with politics at cross-purposes, with the UPA at the Centre and BJP in Gujarat.

The fact that there is some dissonance within the SIT made the court state:

“Decisions should be taken after discussion with all the members. If any member of SIT expresses dissenting views, it would be open for the SIT chief to proceed in accordance with law.”

The SIT is to submit a progress report every two months.

So, it is back to school, to where it all started, the painful process of what law and according to which Section and the possible loopholes.

- - -

Today, November 22, 2011, as I write this we are told that there will still be questions. I do not doubt it. Her mother should go slow on those celebratory ladoos. We are dealing with the Establishment that has always tampered with truth.

Here’s my first other take on Ishrat as the pretty dead.

Born to live-in?

Gujarat has paved the way for legitimate live-in relationships. You don’t have to be in love, but if you are looking for a mate in your later years the Vina Mulya Amulya Seva (VMAS) has the option for you. On Sunday, they organised a “Senior Citizen Live-in Relationship Sammelan”. 300 men and 70 women attended. Seven couples found what they were looking for and will go on a few dates before they start living together. No wedding ceremony, no legal papers.

“I have all the luxuries in life, but I wanted somebody to share my feelings with and find an emotional connect,” said one of the lucky men whose partner’s needs are simple: to be with “someone whom I can enjoy life with, go shopping and watch movies”. Another 60-year-old male participant said, “At my age, sex is not a consideration. What I need is company, a person with whom I can live with for the rest of my life.”

Why are they not choosing the legal route, then? I also do not like the desexualising aspect. It is a sham. People can enjoy sex for longer and, in fact, this should be kept in mind. Is this just another avenue for people looking for an outlet? A report states:

The organisers would be monitoring the relationship status of the couples in future, and if required, would also make the men make a security deposit to ensure that the women do not get exploited.

Once the woman and man start living under one roof, the role-playing will start. The men will be at an advantage because they may need someone to care for them. The woman can be exploited to look after the house and the grandchildren, if any are living with them. Moreover, chances of him walking away are greater. At this age, how will the woman cope? There is nothing to bind them together. I also do not like the sound of a “security deposit” as though the woman is some object that has to be kept in a vault. Will the organisation arrange for a ‘replacement’ just in case one relationship does not work out?

I understand the loneliness, and how difficult it is to find someone to share so many of life’s pleasures with. This is possibly a good avenue, but I am a bit concerned about the consequences.

Is this radical? I am not too sure. Besides their immediate families, how will their neighbours, friends, relatives react? Will they be seen as spouses or will they be sneered at? How will they explain their status to the young kids in the family? When people of a certain age in our society fall in love and decide to live together there are question marks. Even today, in urban areas among the elite too, the non-marital status is emphasised.

And, indeed, I am curious to know how this sort of gathering did not rile the culture custodians that rough up young people for cuddling up and celebrating Valentines Day, and tears movie posters because ‘it goes against our culture’ and is a westernised import? Why are they behaving as though we are born to live-in? The reason is simple. They delude themselves, quite deliberately, that the people are too old to do anything and the patriarchy is so strong that they believe the poor man will need someone to look after him in his dotage without having to leave anything behind.

- - -

Unstoppable!

Talking about the ‘no sex’ angle, a 95-year-old man is getting tired of his one-year-old son. The bloke is impeding his fun. Ramjeet Raghav of Haryana who became the world’s oldest father last year, said:

"I used to be able to go on through the night, sometimes two to three times a night, and if I got the chance during the day then I would. But now we have our son it's not always possible. We're so tired all the time and there isn't the opportunity.”

But not one to give up and amazingly for a villager quite concerned about his 59-year-old wife Shakuntala’s enjoyment too, he saves up money to pop the V pill.

“I now take a capsule a few times a month so I can go the whole night again. “I'm up, down, up, down, through the night. I don't stop. It makes me feel like our wedding night again. She loves it.”

They don't want any more kids. No beating round the bush here. Straight and simple. I wonder if they have time to do the movies, though. And they sure as hell are emotionally connected if they like the same things.