‘BULLDOZER JUSTICE’: IRON IN THE NATION’S SOUL
Ashwani Kumar
The Supreme Court’s interim order of September 17, staying the demolition of properties of persons accused in criminal cases is premised on the unexceptionable principle of constitutional governance that the exercise of state power is accountable to the discipline of the Constitution. It is a reminder to executive authorities that merely paying lip service to procedural niceties is not a sufficient assurance of compliance with the requirements of legal due process.
Rooted in “the ethos of the Constitution”, the order echoes the outraged conscience of the nation against the use of brute force by the state in meting out retributive justice. That the order was resisted in court by the government in a matter seen as a frontal assault on constitutional conscience, speaks for itself.
Judicial intervention in a petition filed by Jamiat Ulama-I-Hind in the wake of widely reported demolitions across the country was sought principally on the touchstone of Article 21 of the Constitution that guarantees to all individuals the right to life with dignity, including the right to shelter, privacy, and reputation. Though belated, the order interdicts what is now infamously known as “bulldozer justice”, a mode of punishment wholly incompatible with the first principles of constitutional justice. In a purposive intervention, the court has proposed to lay down a set of guidelines applicable on a “Pan India Basis” to prevent unlawful demolitions anywhere in the country and has thus exercised its plenary jurisdiction in aid of humanitarian justice. In a perfect harmonising of equities, it has ruled that its interim injunction regarding demolitions will not apply in cases of encroachment of public spaces such as “road, footpath, abutting railway line or any river body or water bodies and also to cases where there is an order for demolition made by the court…”.
Legally indefensible
What is worrisome, however, is that the apex court’s intervention came after several residential and commercial premises of citizens were unlawfully razed in what is clearly seen as a legally indefensible action across several States, including Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, and Maharashtra, and the city of Delhi. Even as attempts to justify “bulldozer justice” persist, the prima facie unlawful use of brutal force by executive authorities to deprive citizens of their homes and places of work has shamed the nation. As citizens, we are compelled to ask ourselves “whether the rights of the individual, subject to his duties to the state, be maintained, asserted and exalted” (Winston Churchill, pre-war speech, 1938, expounding the necessary conditions of democracy).Clearly, as long as the sanctity of our homes is not secure against unjust state intrusion, the cherished ideal of Gandhi’s Swaraj and a vision of libertarian democracy in which “…the poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the force of the crown…” will remain a distant dream. Discriminatory, disproportionate, arbitrary, and violative of the rule of law, “bulldozer justice” is anathema to any civilised society, especially in a country whose political and social consciousness has been shaped in the crucible of a long and arduous struggle for freedom against colonial rule.
In the cause that is yet to be argued fully, the court is expected to respond to the constitutional command in an unapologetic assertion of its remit. Summoned to defend fundamental freedoms, it must revalidate its role as the nation’s impartial judicial arbiter by scripting a credible remedy that will minimise, if not eliminate, the excesses of the state against its citizens.
At an election campaign in Haryana’s Nuh district on September 24. That bulldozers are used in election campaigns shows the political triumphalism and majoritarianism that bulldozers have come to symbolise in recent years. | Photo Credit: PTI
But the issue at hand raises larger questions: must citizens be compelled to approach the highest court for relief against the recurring high-handedness of the executive branch? Can a constitutional state sanction retribution through processes in breach of the law and extend the consequences thereof to the innocent families of the accused, including women, children, and the elderly, depriving them of a roof over their heads and the means of subsistence?Implicit in the interrogatory is a perceived perversion of constitutional governance at different levels that compels an urgent review of the nation’s governing processes to ensure that administrative justice meets the test of fairness.
Peoples’ power
While the judiciary is expected to perform its assigned task, it would be unfair to saddle it with a disproportionate burden to defend individual rights, considering the institutional limitations. The defence of democracy and the rule of law is, after all, the collective burden of the three wings of the Indian state and, in the ultimate analysis, of the people as a whole, who must write their own story through peaceful democratic assertion against injustice. As a repository of the peoples’ power, the government is expected to exercise its authority in honest and demonstrable compliance with established legal procedures so that justice is not only done but is also seen to be done.
We must ask ourselves whether the smallness of our politics is conducive to the establishment of a just society. Indeed, it is necessary to reiterate the obvious and ask difficult questions lest we forget who we are. No apologies are owed for condemning the inhuman acts that have wounded national sensitivities and left behind an unhealable pain in an unending “daze of grief”. By a robust refusal to countenance injustice and abuse of power, Justices B.R. Gavai and K.V. Vishwanathan have once again vindicated the oath of their high office. In path-breaking judgments on bail and “bulldozer justice,” the judges have validated the view of the distinguished historian Arnold Toynbee that the history of human civilisation is the history of how civilisations respond to challenges that shape the world. The tragedy of “bulldozer justice” and the court’s response will, hopefully, define the future course of India’s democracy.
Ashwani Kumar is former Union Minister for Law and Justice, and Senior Advocate, Supreme Court. The views expressed here are personal.
A LIFE WELL-LIVED AND CAUSES WORTH FIGHTING FOR: ADMIRAL ‘RAMU’ RAMDAS (5 SEPTEMBER 1933-15 MARCH 2024)
Zulfiqar Ahmad
Sitting far away, it is di?cult for me to imagine that the good Admiral ‘Ramu’ Ramdas, my father-in-law, is no longer with us.
It is not just the passing of Uncle — as I called him to, I suspect, his amusement — but also the conclusion of the incredible journey that his life was, that is hard to comprehend at this moment.
I met him for the first time in April 1990 just a few days before his eldest daughter Kavita and I were to wed in Chicago. The day before the wedding, Uncle suggested that he and I go for a walk; a proposition that, of course, caused some trepidation for me.
But the talk we had was a surprise.
Instead of asking me about my future ambitions, money management skills, or drinking habits he wanted to get a sense if I would be able to rise to the challenge of dealing with not just the strong Ramdas woman I was to marry but also the whole Ramdas clan.
He was also acutely aware of the additional, though lesser, challenge of making a cross-border, cross-faith marriage work and wanted to get a sense if we could handle what lay ahead of us.
As I got to know him better, I realised that the courage to rise to a challenge, no matter how formidable, without fear and with truth and integrity was one of his most fundamental qualities – and he wanted to get a sense if his future son-in-law had some of this quality.
And challenges he had in ample quantity. From his boyhood in Delhi, where, as a 13-year-old, he witnessed a mob lynching in 1947; to fighting in two wars; to having a daughter marry a Pakistani Muslim while he was still in line to be the next chief of the Indian navy; to fighting for a saner, safer and more humane world … the list can go on.
But perhaps the greatest challenge he took on that made dealing with others easier, was with his own self.
From growing up in a profoundly patriarchal society, he arrived at a point where he would happily and proudly call himself a feminist; from being a military man since he was a teenager to becoming a vocal, fearless advocate for peace in the region, and for global abolition of nuclear weapons; and more recently, as a founder member of the Southasia Peace Action Network launched in March 2021, calling for dialogue and collaboration amongst all countries of the region.
In November 2023, he joined dozens of organisations and individuals at a non-performative, multifaith, worldwide #be4peace Virtual Global Vigil “to envision/pray for an end to the violence at home and elsewhere, for a ceasefire in Gaza and in Ukraine, and for hostages and child prisoners to be freed.”
This journey was one he could not have taken without Lolly Auntie, Lalita Ramdas, his most loving, intense and always irrepressible life partner.
They pushed each other to think and feel in di?erent, sometimes uncomfortable, and new ways. Once, around the late 1990s, sitting on the balcony of a Malabar Hill apartment in Bombay, I was a silent participant in an intense debate between Uncle and Auntie about caste in India.
The intensity with which the two of them challenged each other on how caste was woven into the fabric of Indian society, and the ways it must be challenged could not have been possible without the deep love and respect they had for each other. And at the end of it all I could say was, wow!
I will end with a final thought: Maybe the reason it seems incomprehensible that Uncle’s journey has concluded is because it has not.
His journey is the journey of India.
The Admiral never gave up on the idea of India – a country he loved dearly. He held close a vision of India as an inclusive, religiously syncretic, relatively equal, just and humane country that can show the world how a large number of di?erent cultures and traditional can live creatively and harmoniously.
And as long as we have people fighting for this vision, Admiral ‘Ramu’ Ramdas’ journey continues.
Postscript, 4 Sept. 2024:
When our daughter Mira was to get married in June 2023 in California, he knew he would not be able to make that trip. So Uncle and Auntie hosted a blessing party for her and her fiance, January 2023 at their home, LARA – Ramu Farm, Bhaimala Gaon, Alibag. This was a home that he and Lolly Auntie had literally built with their own hands with the help of friends.
I could not join them because of visa issues. With a dual American-Pakistani nationality, I would have to produce a certificate of renunciation of citizenship to one or other country for India to give me a visa, as it does not accept dual citizenship.
Uncle had told Kavita: “Before I die, I want to meet Zuli. Tell him to come to Dubai, because I do not want him to ever agree to the terms of the Indian visa requirements.”
So the last time we met was in April 2023, on neutral ground, in Dubai, April 2023. That was his last international trip. My brother-in-law, Madhusudan brought the two octogenarians, Uncle and Auntie to meet me. Their daughters were not able to join. I came from Pakistan, where I had been visiting my family, and they came from Mumbai.
He was that good.
Zulfiqar Ahmed is a writer from Pakistan based in New York. This article is based on his note that was read out at the funeral of Admiral Ramdas, 16 March 2024.
Courtesy Sapan News: https://sapannews.com/
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