Having comprehensively failed at governance, facing growing unrest from all sections of the Indian public, and unable to hide behind crumbling propaganda from the daily questions on unemployment, galloping inflation and social strife, the Modi government is rapidly losing whatever was left of its equilibrium.
This has not been a good week for the BJP. They sought to seek petty political gains off the tragic and heinous murder in Udaipur. Then it turned out that the accused was a card-carrying member of the BJP. In Kashmir, it turned out that a known LET terrorist was the head, not just a member, but the main in-charge of their IT Cell. This is the party that takes refuge from its governmental failures behind loud proclamations of nationalism.
Then, an openly pro-BJP channel was exposed and booked for running fake news which was shared by BJP leaders. They had to issue apologies and face investigation for their irresponsible and malicious actions which endangered our social fabric.
Things got so bad, that the BJP had to press the UP police into service to protect the journalist from being questioned. Even now, in violation of every law, they are keeping him hidden. So afraid were they of their nexus behind fake news being exposed. This was the second time in the last few months that they had to resort to such brazenly illegal actions.
During this week, things got worse for the BJP, which after hailing the Supreme Court for giving PM Modi a clean chit, came under fire for their National Spokesperson’s role in the Udaipur violence. The Supreme Court rightly and correctly, called out the BJP Spokesperson for her arrogance and lack of regret for her inflammatory remarks.
Now what would a responsible government do? What would a responsible party do? They would introspect and recalibrate. This would be especially so in a case where the Supreme Court spoke its views candidly, forthrightly and openly. It must be remembered that where a litigant invokes the beneficial jurisdiction of a court, as Nupur Sharma did, he/she must necessarily risk observations from the Court which would be the oral reasons conveyed by the Court as to why it is denying relief to that invoker of its jurisdiction. That is all that happened, and the Supreme Court is fully entitled to do so and it does so in innumerable and countless cases every day. But just because the person concerned happened to be a BJP spokesperson all hell has broken loose.
What did the BJP do?
- They attacked the Bench which had made these much-needed remarks and because of whom, bad faith actors were prevented from exacerbating the already tense situation in Udaipur.
- An organized army of trolls was deployed to manufacture and spread fake news regarding the judges, with fake and distorted photographs beings shared to demonstrate a false proximity with leaders of the Indian National Congress. Propaganda portals issued dangerous and openly contemptuous statements against the Judges.
- ‘Intellectuals’ wrote to the Bench asking for them to withdraw their remarks. This was surprising. Why were these eminent individuals seeking to throw their support behind someone whom even the BJP had suspended? They were suddenly aware of a ‘Laxman Rekha’, yet when the BJP spread hateful content on a minute-by-minute basis, they were oblivious to the existence of this Laxman Rekha. The statement was clearly drafted with the blessings of the PM’s office.
We know these wretched actions had the blessings of the Government given the silence of Law Minister Shri. Ravi Shankar Prasad, who had just last year cautioned against “some people” attacking judges when judgments went against their view. Even the Solicitor General, Shri. Tushar Mehta who had spoken about a pattern where articles and opinion pieces appear to try and influence the thinking of judges, has chosen to remain silent while the judges are being viciously trolled by supporters of the ruling party for their very timely and very salient remarks. Now that the chickens have come home to roost, they have withdrawn into their cone of silence, abandoning their foremost duty to the Constitution and the Court.
Now, another revelation has come to light.
A senior Judge of the Karnataka High Court has made startling allegations in open Court. Justice HP Sandesh exposed the pressure and threats of transfer he was facing and reminded every citizen that his foremost duty was to the Constitution, a concept completely foreign to the BJP. This is not the first time, a Constitutional functionary has spoken out against the invisible pressure that, since 2014, seeks to infect every institution on which our country relies. To paraphrase one of their own comments, we are now facing the ‘tyranny of the elected’.
However, we will not let this matter rest. We are writing to the Chief Justice of India today, asking for a Special Committee to be established to look into their very serious allegations.
