Defiance Becoming The Order Of The Day 

Mahesh Vijapurkar

The country is engaged in a debate about the decision, including by who and how to demonetize and the way it has been implemented, and the Reserve Bank of India giving up its autonomy and bending to government will at short notice. These are matters of grave import, no doubt.

In this din of the black versus white debate, bereft of nuances which lie in the grey, a major trend about the respect for law, judiciary, and authority is being ignored, except for reading about them as headlines or ‘breaking news’ on TV. It has little to do with demonetization.

The latest is the refusal of the public in Tamil Nadu to respect the Supreme Court on the issue of jallikattu¸ and a scattered attempt, but nevertheless attempts being made in holding the sport, refusing to recognize the cruelty in it, passing it off as a tradition. The other is similar – cockfights in Andhra Pradesh.

The other is soldiers directly broadcasting their discontent at the way they say they are treated – poor quality food, long duty hours, walking the senior officials’ dogs, etc. It speaks of the possible mischief by the hierarchy in the forces at the level of the bases, but that the ranks had felt the need to speak up is a matter of concern.

The saddest part is that the authorities have to – not that they are successful each time, being ham-handed and flatfooted – ensure respect for the law as laid down by the courts. That the people seem to have forgotten that while

criticism of judgments is allowed, its defiance is not. The courts deserve respect more than our parliaments does now.

The former allows ample room, even if in a slow-moving fashion, for arguments and decisions are not in a hurry or knee-jerks. Demanding an ordinance to neutralize the court orders seems so easy for politicians who, as a class, depending on their ideology, continue to object to the way the judgment in the Shah Bano case.

This is a serious issue which will have a bearing on how we conduct ourselves as a society. Society has traditions and we need to manage to live within norms, and more importantly, laws. Authoritarian law can be defied, but in the courts, at least as we see today, reasons are provided in the judgments.

There is another troubling development which we can brush away only at our peril. It is the conduct of four persons from the BSF, the Central Reserve Police Force, the Sashastra Seema Bal, and the army – spoke out about their

discontent. That they used social media should give us the inkling of likely problems ahead.

Discontent is a dangerous thing if it is in the armed forces. The causes of their ‘indiscipline’ have to be looked at and resolved first than shooting the messengers. Apparently, the grievance address system isn’t working well.

Probably they are also emboldened because retired veterans had to take to the streets to secure the ‘one-rank, one-post’ pension.

It is impossible to black out what transpires in the ‘civil’, i.e., non-military layers of the country, and the word of those long agitation has gone back to the soldiers. The fact that they had to agitate then showed to the men in the barracks that we as Indian establishment don’t care for the living heroes when publicly respect only the martyrs.

Unfortunately, the whistle blowing will in all probability be easier to handle by targeting them than targeting the ills they have brought to light. They are, after all, individuals who chose to be undisciplined, and the forces will not tolerate them. But what about the mobs who decide to defy the law courts and conduct cockfights and jallikattu?

How many of them would be or can be held for contempt? There probably are several judgments of the courts which are ignored, but are not known commonly. For instance, the apex court had to nudged authorities on rods and pipe protrude from the trucks because they have killed. How many of have not seen it being defied? Have we decided to live life only of convenience?