With respect, Your Honour!

With respect, Your Honour! GovernanceNow, June 01-15, 2012, pp.18-21 Dear Justice Katju, I am taking the liberty of writing this open letter to you, having been guided and encouraged by your piece in The Indian Express of April 4, in which you have quoted, so aptly, Faiz Ahmed Faiz: “Bol ki lab azad hain tere, Bol zubaan ab tak teri hai” (Speak since your lips are free, Speak since your tongue is still yours). I was also impressed by your courage to adapt the ancient shastras to the current situation in the country, to say that you will “Bruyat satyam apriyam” (Speak the unpleasant truth). I have read, with respect, a number of your writings over the last couple of years, before and after you took over as the chairman of the Press Council of India (PCI). Having read some of your writings before you became chairman of PCI, and having found them very informative and scholarly, I was very happy and hopeful when you became chairman PCI on October 5, 2011. Happy because such an erudite person had come to occupy an important statutory office in the country, and hopeful because I thought significant improvements will now happen to the way press functions in the country. However, some doubts have been creeping into my mind very gradually, and I am now getting somewhat concerned that the preceding seven months have shown hardly any evidence of concrete corrective action though we, the general public, have had the immense benefit of getting to know your views on many issues. Let me also add that while I am getting concerned at the seemingly lack of real action, I for one really appreciate the candour and force with which you express your views. Let me begin with what I consider to be your most significant writings in the public domain in the last one year, “The 90%” and “Ten ways of being foolish”, both published in The Indian Express, the former on April 4, and the latter on April 23. Your first point in “The 90%” gives us a categorical answer to the question “Why people in India vote the way they do?” You have also given the example of Phulan Devi in support of your response to the question. You have given a ‘positive’ example of a person being elected and have been very polite in not giving a well-known ‘negative’ example of a person not being elected because he did not belong to the right “caste or community” and had so much merit that he now occupies one of the highest offices in the country. Even if you had been even more forthright and gone ahead and given the ‘negative’ example that I am referring to, I hate to point out that it would not have really proved your point. Let me explain why. Voter behaviour is an issue that has been studied by a large number of people who study elections and electoral processes. A consistent conclusion that has been reached is that voter behaviour is a very complex phenomenon, particularly in a diverse and complex society such as India, and no single factor can explain the behaviour of voters with any significant accuracy. In any case, the example that you did give, and even the one that you did not give and the one that I have hinted at, are called anecdotal evidence in social science research with which I happen to have some acquaintance. And anecdotal evidence is far from the standard that is required to be met before one can make categorical and unqualified statements such as “90% vote on the basis of caste or community, not the merits of the candidate”. I will, for obvious reasons, not even dare to comment on the judicial standards of evidence. Having worked in the areas of electoral and political reforms for over a decade, I agree with you that vote banks do exist in India but find it difficult to agree that they exist only on the basis of caste and community, and nothing else. What I agree with you on is that the vote banks are “manipulated by some unscrupulous politicians and others”. I would have agreed with you wholeheartedly if you had not used the words, “some” and “and others” in your statement! I will come back to this later. I could share your disdain about astrology and its impact on human lives but I find myself wondering at your expression “a little commonsense tells us”. I am actually surprised that a person as knowledgeable as you does not seem to have heard an often-used expression: Common sense is not very common! Item 3 of your “The 90%” article took umbrage at the way media kept “harping on” Rahul Dravid’s retirement from cricket and Sachin Tendulkar’s 100th century while “issues of a quarter million farmers suicides, and 47% Indian children being malnourished, was sidelined,” and item 4 objected to the reporting of Dev Anand’s death since, according to you, Dev Anand’s films “serve(d) no social purpose”. While I agree that the media does go overboard often, please allow me to quote Faiz whom you have also quoted: “Aur bhi gham hain zamaane mein mohabbat ke sivaa/Raahatein aur bhi hain vasl ki raahat ke sivaa” It is certainly necessary to deal with farmers’ suicides and malnourished children on an urgent basis, and to make films that serve a social purpose, but to suggest, even peripherally, that there is absolutely no social value in sports or in what, for want of a better word, may be called ‘pure entertainment’ films, and that these have no place in the pubic discourse, I submit, is going overboard. Your comments on the so-called Jan Lokpal Bill, I submit with respect, display a lack of attention to detail which, I must admit, I find extremely surprising. Consider this sentence: “Obviously one person cannot supervise and decide the lacs of complaints against them which would pour in. Hence thousands of Lokpals, maybe 50,000 or more, will have to be appointed to deal with them.” It seems to clearly indicate that not enough attention has been paid to what the Jan Lokpal Bill contains and attempts to convey. It is heartening, though not at all surprising, that you “want to see Indians prosper…want poverty and unemployment abolished…want the standard of living of the 80% poor Indians to rise so that they get decent lives”. And yes, “(T)his is possible when their mindset changes, when their minds are rid of casteism, communalism, and superstitions, and instead they become scientific and modern”. And yes, “Being modern means having a modern mind, which means a rational mind, a logical mind a questioning mind, a scientific mind.” And yes again, “To abolish poverty we need to spread the scientific outlook to every nook and corner of our country.” But the question, sir, is how exactly are we going to (a) change mindsets, (b) rid our minds of casteism, communalism, and superstitions, and instead they become scientific and modern, (c) spread the scientific outlook to every nook and corner of our country, and (d) develop a rational mind, a logical mind a questioning mind, a scientific mind? What do “The 10%” which, it is presumed, includes you, need to actually do, in addition to telling “The 90%” what they need to do? Now, coming to “Ten ways of being foolish”. It was interesting to note that when it came to responding to The Wall Street Journal, you decided to give a range, from 85 percent to 95 percent, rather than the exact percentage that you had given to your fellow country folks. One wonders if it was due to the fact that in your opinion the Wall Street cannot deal with exactitudes and needs simpler concepts to function properly! The definitive statement that “an overwhelming number of Indians (are) fools” would no doubt make the Wall Street residents jump with joy as they will now feel assured that none of these “fools” will pose a threat to their well-paying jobs. On the other hand, I wonder about the future for this microscopic minority, ranging from 5 to 15 percent, the “nonfool” population of India. Should they allow themselves to be overwhelmed by overwhelming majority of fools, which is likely to happen in a democracy in which 90% of the voters are nuts, or should they, being extremely bright, get away from it all and move to some more enlightened place rather than engage in the almost unachievable task of pulling out the overwhelming majority out of the morass of ignorance? While one may understand and even accept the phenomenon of ministers being foolish, the fact of “many chief justices of high courts tak(ing) oath at the ‘auspicious’ time, as advised by their astrologer” is indeed shocking, as is the fact of “the then Chief Justice of India (writing) to the concerned authority to remove that house from the judges pool”. One wonders, your honour, why did not your lordship try to explain the irrationality to the honourable chief justice of India, and if you did try, how come a learned person such as yourself, did not succeed in doing that to a person equally learned who had risen to the highest judicial office in the land. And, I shudder to think, sir, that if that is the situation at the very top of India’s judicial hierarchy, what hope is there for the lesser mortals! The “ninth way of being foolish” opens with a characteristically unambiguous statement: “(M)ost Hindus are communal, and most Muslims are also communal” but later in the same paragraph one finds the following statement of truth: “The truth is that 99 percent people of all communities are good…” This “statement of truth” is followed by a qualifying clause: “…but it will take a lot of time to remove the communal virus from our body politic.” I am grateful to you, and the Tamilians, for clarifying how “communal” people can be “good”, and “good” people can be “communal”. The very first “way of being foolish” also shows us that “scientific and unscientific ideas can co-exist in the same head.” If that indeed is the case, sir, then why are we so worried? Is it really necessary to fully eradicate every single idea, even if marginally unscientific, from the “head” of the entire population of the country, and that too when you did not seem to have succeeded in removing one such idea from the “head” of the chief of judiciary in the country? I have no doubt whatsoever, sir, in your intentions when you say that you “have said all this not to demoralise Indians, but to point out to them the correct path to prosperity,” but sir, please permit me to ask you a naïve question: Are you also an Indian, sir? In both of these articles, sir, you have referred the “foolish” readers to your article ‘Sanskrit as a language of science’, and have mentioned that we, “the foolish Indians” should “go back to the path shown by our great scientific ancestors, Aryabhatta, Brahmagupta, Sushrut, Charak, Ramanujan and Raman… ”(emphasis added). Allow me to submit, sir, that I have actually read that article, and would seek your permission to ask the following question: Can we not, Sir, attempt to go forward by also following the path shown by people such as Rabindranath Tagore, Raja Rammohun Roy, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Bhimrao Ambedkar, Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo, Ramakrishna Paramhansa and Jiddu Krishnamurti? This brings me to your third article, “Media cannot reject regulation”, published in The Hindu on May 2. This one made eminent sense as it pertained to your current assignment. I agree with a number of your averments and have myself written about some of the maladies afflicting the media (Please see ‘Paid news: Press Council report hides more than it reveals.’ The Tribune, October 19, 2010. http://www . tribuneindia.com/2010/20101019/edit. htm#7; and “Print and the mint!” Governance Now, September 1-15, 2010, pp. 30-35). Two of your observations in this article invite comment. The first one is “If the electronic media also comes under the Press Council (which can be renamed the Media Council), representatives of the electronic media will also be on this body, which will be totally democratic” (emphasis added). This brings me back to the issue of unscrupulous politicians that I had said I would come back to later. I also wish that this happens, but the million-dollar question is: Will it happen? And this is where all that you say will be put to test. You will need to work with politicians, unscrupulous or otherwise, to make this happen, and I wish you all the luck. The second observation that invites comment is “I would welcome a healthy debate on this issue.” And my comment, actually a question, is: How will it be decided and who will decide that the debate is healthy or not? Going by the general tenor of your writings, it may seem likely that you shall be final judge of that…but then dare I say, once a judge, always a judge! Having commented on your writings, please allow me to make one overall observation. I am sure you know of what Lord Byron said in his unfinished sixteenth poem on Don Juan’s adventures, “Good workmen never quarrel with their tools.” As chairman of the PCI, I believe you do not have a choice but to work with the media, and if you keep blaming them all the time without doing anything else, it does not seem likely that much goodwill come out of it. I know you have taken some actions to support the freedom of the press but I also believe that (a) these are not enough, and (b) not enough is known about them. I am sure a lot of people appreciate the forthright expression of your views on a variety of issues, which is a rarity in public life in India these days, and so do I, as I said in the beginning. However, it would be nice if you were to be a bit circumspect in your public expressions. The reason is that you now occupy a very important public office, which has a critical bearing on the functioning of Indian society and the future of Indian democracy. It is not my place to point out the difference between obiter dicta made when one is on the bench and statements made by holders of critical offices, which are not only in the public eye but are actually in the eye of a storm. I have followed the working of the PCI and it is not my place to alert you to the complex set of vested interests that come into play in the functioning of the media in India, as well as anywhere else in the world. As you well know, the business of journalism has robbed the profession of journalism of its integrity. To restore the integrity of the profession of journalism is a tall order in the current situation but I have no doubt that you do have the stature and the wherewithal to do it provided the intellectual arrogance and the lure of public adulation can be kept in check. I wish you all the luck. With regards, Jagdeep Chhokar. Chhokar is former professor, dean, and director in-charge of Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. Views expressed are personal.