Lopsided scales of Justice

Three centuries ago, Jonathan Swift compared the law to a cobweb. The small insects will be trapped, but the bigger creatures will rupture the web and get away. Justice, like truth, is an elusive ideal. American philosopher, Barrows Dunham, wrote in his controversial book Man Against Myth that “truth has been suffered to exist in the world just to the extent that it profited the rulers of the society.” Justice also has been similarly loyal to the powerful people.

Look at what is happening in India these days to understand this. Students of classes 4, 5 and 6 are charged with sedition because they staged a drama which questioned the prime minister. The headmistress and the mother of one of the students are arrested on serious charges. On the other hand, we have eminent political leaders of the ruling party who keep on delivering hate speeches day after day with impunity. Which is a greater crime: criticising the prime minister or spewing venom against whole communities of citizens?

Hardcore criminals sit in the Parliament as our rulers. These criminals make the laws for us. There are goons, murderers, rapists and terrorists among them. Some of these criminals wear the saffron. Wearing the religious garbs, they write off criminal charges against themselves.

Such things have happened throughout human history. What is new in India is that such things receive popular endorsement. A lot of Indians are happy with the present situation. They are happy just because the situation targets certain communities of people who are perceived as the country’s enemies.

Hundreds of thousands of people have suddenly become the nation’s enemies in India just because they believe in a different religion. These people were labelled invaders first, traitors then, and now their very citizenship is placed under the scanner. Who decides such things? Who decides that so-and-so is a traitor? Who decides the parameters of patriotism? Some criminals, of course. And millions of Indians just lap up the decisions of those criminals.

The real tragedy is that the nation is endorsing the views and decisions of criminals. Why have we capitulated our thinking skills? Why have we surrendered our rational faculties?

Pseudo-nationalism has taken the place of truth and justice and other ideals. Nationalism is a very emotive stuff. The nation has been driven to a chaotic dictatorship of emotions.

PS. This has been triggered by Indispire Edition 311: Why is Law lenient on the rich and powerful in India? A rich and powerful person often gets away with even the gravest of crimes while a common man has to run from pillar to post for getting justice. Are the scales of justice lopsided? #SwamiChinmayanandGetsBail

Comments

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below. Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

Remedios the Beauty and Innocence

Remedios the Beauty is a character in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude . Like most members of her family, she too belongs to solitude. But unlike others, she is very innocent too. Physically she is the most beautiful woman ever seen in Macondo, the place where the story of her family unfolds. Is that beauty a reflection of her innocence? Well, Marquez doesn’t suggest that explicitly. But there is an implication to that effect. Innocence does make people look charming. What else is the charm of children? Remedios’s beauty is dangerous, however. She is warned by her great grandmother, who is losing her eyesight, not to appear before men. The girl’s beauty coupled with her innocence will have disastrous effects on men. But Remedios is unaware of “her irreparable fate as a disturbing woman.” She is too innocent to know such things though she is an adult physically. Every time she appears before outsiders she causes a panic of exasperation. To make...

The Death of Truth and a lot more

Susmesh Chandroth in his kitchen “Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought,” Poet Shelley told us long ago. I was reading an interview with a prominent Malayalam writer, Susmesh Chandroth, this morning when Shelley returned to my memory. Chandroth says he left Kerala because the state had too much of affluence which is not conducive for the production of good art and literature. He chose to live in Kolkata where there is the agony of existence and hence also its ecstasies. He’s right about Kerala’s affluence. The state has eradicated poverty except in some small tribal pockets. Today almost every family in Kerala has at least one person working abroad and sending dollars home making the state’s economy far better than that of most of its counterparts. You will find palatial houses in Kerala with hardly anyone living in them. People who live in some distant foreign land get mansions constructed back home though they may never intend to come and live here. There are ...

The Covenant of Water

Book Review Title: The Covenant of Water Author: Abraham Verghese Publisher: Grove Press UK, 2023 Pages: 724 “What defines a family isn’t blood but the secrets they share.” This massive book explores the intricacies of human relationships with a plot that spans almost a century. The story begins in 1900 with 12-year-old Mariamma being wedded to a 40-year-old widower in whose family runs a curse: death by drowning. The story ends in 1977 with another Mariamma, the granddaughter of Mariamma the First who becomes Big Ammachi [grandmother]. A lot of things happen in the 700+ pages of the novel which has everything that one may expect from a popular novel: suspense, mystery, love, passion, power, vulnerability, and also some social and religious issues. The only setback, if it can be called that at all, is that too many people die in this novel. But then, when death by drowning is a curse in the family, we have to be prepared for many a burial. The Kerala of the pre-Independ...

Koorumala Viewpoint

Koorumala is at once reticent and coquettish. It is an emerging tourist spot in the Ernakulam district of Kerala. At an altitude of 169 metres from MSL, the viewpoint is about 40 km from Kochi. The final stretch of the road, about 2 km, is very narrow. It passes through lush green forest-looking topography. The drive itself is exhilarating. And finally you arrive at a 'Pay & Park' signboard on a rocky terrain. The land belongs to the CSI St Peter's Church. You park your vehicle there and walk up a concrete path which leads to a tiled walkway which in turn will take you the viewpoint. Below are some pictures of the place. From the parking lot to the viewpoint The tiled walkway A selfie from near the view tower A view from the tower Another view The tower and the rest mandap at the back Koorumala viewpoint is a recent addition to Kerala's tourist map. It's a 'cool' place for people of nearby areas to spend some leisure in splendid isolation from the hu...

Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Search This Blog