Recent years have seen the jaws of justice open and spew out the indigestible guilty, rich, and powerful. The killers of Jessica Lal and Priyadarshini Mattoo initially walked free. The BMW driver who mowed down five pavement dwellers got bail, a degree from America’s Columbia University, and a celebrated business in India; the status of the case is dubious. Public outrage against the first two verdicts ensured a re-trial and justice for the young women cut down in their prime by spoilt brats with no respect for human life.
Now, to nationwide consternation, justice has tilted in favour of Alistair Pereira, who killed seven Mumbai pavement dwellers and injured another eight, under the influence of a substance that could not be established in court. Whatever the status of evidence presented, it is inexplicable that a judge who gave Pereira six months imprisonment for rash and negligent driving could not direct the police to rework the case and award punishment more respectful of the human lives lost.
At a time when the nation is pondering the limits of judicial review as opposed to judicial overreach, it is pertinent to ask if the judiciary is adequately sensitive to the need to protect the life and dignity of poor and ordinary citizens from the arrogance of the rich and the complicity of the administration. Is justice only for the organized citizen; are the voiceless condemned to eternal victimhood; and is justice only what judges decide is just or desirable?
The last question is relevant because of a trend among a section of the judiciary to extend and privilege itself in a manner inconsistent with democracy. Simultaneously, a section of industry wants to leverage power and status to muffle ordinary citizens on the pretext of development, and has commandeered a section of the political class to serve its ends (Gurgaon, Nandigram). Should a similar synergy develop with the judiciary, India will deteriorate into an oligarchy of rich, powerful, privileged and networked people.
I am particularly disturbed at the new impatience with the middle class which is increasingly assertive about rights and services, as witnessed in the Delhi citizens fight against unjust power hikes following privatization. There is a grim determination to cut this class to (acceptable) size, and to maintain a distance between it and the class that travels in official vehicles. The rich are already insulated by their wealth.
This article is Delhi-centric, but the trends observed can be readily transposed all over the country; hence the need to nip evil in the bud. My first objection is to the strenuous effort to perpetuate what Vijay Parshad calls the Untouchable Past, in the form of a monstrosity called the Lutyens Bungalow Zone (LBZ). A class of Heritage Jholawallahs projects LBZ as a great colonial legacy deserving preservation, and even Left party MPs lobby for above-entitlement bungalows. Even the judiciary is concerned that its ‘quota’ of bungalows may be decreased.
LBZ was built for colonial officials; it perpetuated the ugliest aspects of the caste system, adding colonial hauteur and snobbery to create the most unaesthetic architecture India has ever seen. The first thing that strikes one visiting a bungalow is the sheer number of doors, which are totally at variance with modern housing designs. Closer scrutiny reveals that many are intended as exclusively servants’ entrance doors. Each toilet has a separate door so the cleaner (now an unparliamentary term) could enter and leave without entering the main house! Within the house itself, there are doors for the master and doors for staff. Colonial snobbery comes in the form of the shuttered façade and the sprawling back garden where the family could relax away from prying native eyes.
Readers would share my distaste for the judiciary’s move to develop LBZ as a China-style Forbidden City with no access for the ordinary citizen. This has been done through the simple ruse of forbidding citizens to drive into LBZ and park their vehicles on the roads, ostensibly to prevent traffic snarls. Citizens with business in the area have been ordered to use park-and-ride facilities.
This is outrageous. What Delhi needs is the complete demolition of LBZ and rationalization of land usage. There is no justification for any civil servant, Rajya Sabha MP or judge occupying a bungalow; they can be accommodated in multi-storey apartments. Only Lok Sabha MPs accountable to the people should be given bungalows, which should be rebuilt to equal size. Freed up space should be converted into public parks to provide Delhi genuine green lungs; there should be adequate parking so that people can enjoy a break.
Delhi roads are chocking with vehicular traffic, yet I decry the attempt to force private citizens off the roads through punitive parking fees and arbitrary withdrawal of parking facilities. Ordinary citizens have to run several kinds of chores daily, and travel in different directions; public transport is not always possible or convenient, and everyone cannot walk in the sweltering heat. Paid parking for each stop can be prohibitive; what Delhi needs is short-duration free parking at or near local markets. Shopping malls should provide free parking, as is customary all over the world; it is scandalous to pay Rs. 15/- for parking on Baba Kharak Singh Marg; I am sure this affects both footfalls and sales.
More pertinently, if fewer vehicles are desired on Indian roads, why are Tatas getting crores in hidden subsidies to produce cheap cars? Isn’t it unethical to make people buy what the state will not let them use? The sudden ban on tinted glasses in the Delhi summer is a similar case of non-application of mind. Tinting should be permitted on the front and back windscreens to protect the driver from the glare; side windows can be see-through to prevent crimes against women. And in the interests of fair play, the privilege of tinted glasses should not be extended to any judge or civil servant; it can be reserved for the President, Governors, Prime Minister and a few others with genuine security issues.
Judicial activism is welcome to the extent that it curbs executive excess or the superciliousness of the rich. If the judiciary joins one or both in a quest to entrench privilege and banish ordinary citizens from public spaces, democracy will be in peril.
The Pioneer, 17 April 2007
