Ram Jethmalani - Maverick Unchanged, Unrepentant

MAVERICK UNCHANGED, UNREPENTANT

Published in Rainlight by

Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd 2013

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Copyright Ram Jethmalani 2013

eISBN: 9788129133502

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In discharge of my debt to the people of India, with whose sympathy and love I have grown to be what I am, and who, I believe, should know the truth about several things that have happened in our country.

Ram Jethmalani

Onward Maverick, Onward , go on, on, and on

Change Naught, Repent Nothing, till Devils all gone

But even then, Rest not, for their Legions rise again

Father to daughter, son to wife; and Yes, their children.

And when the Day of Judgement came, gods wished to know

From the Lord God of ALL, Where shall this Maverick go?

To Deepest Hell, Highest Heaven or Back to Earth again?

Send him Back, said the Lord, Sorely Earth needs such men.

From Onward MaverickOnward, On!

Bhagwan Gidwani

My life has been inextricably woven with the law and the courts of justice. In the course of my practice, I have attained cerebral pleasure and excellence, notable victories, the kudos of clients and peers and the respect of judges. While all this is gratifying in the extreme I must confess to a tinge of regret. A lawyers life exists in the fast lane; as one hurtles between research, conference and appearance, time ticks relentlessly. Law is an insanely jealous mistress as the old saying goes.

Lawyers with political aspirations are accordingly constrained by the demands of their profession. An elitist law practice fits ill with grassroot politics so necessary for mass leadership. In a sense my ability to marry a successful legal practice with an almost uninterrupted parliamentary career of 35 years has been because the politics of that period consisted of a battle between feudal forces wedded to a dynastic cult and the forces of Constitutional liberalism. My political prominence and parliamentary career commenced when I opposed the declaration of emergency in 1975 by the proponents of the dynasty, on the ground that it was a fraud on the Constitution. I was persecuted for that heresy but I won my parliamentary spurs by successfully winning a seat in the elections that followed in the aftermath of the emergency. My political relevance persists till today as Indias neo-monarchists continue to rear their ugly heads and perpetuate themselves in power by recourse to rampant self-aggrandisement, through loot of public resources and the public exchequer, and by subversion of all institutions.

A new, free and hopeful India was born at the zero hour of 15th August 1947, as the late Jawaharlal Nehru delivered his famous Tryst with Destiny speech. Two thousand princes and politicians gathered in the chamber of the Constituent Assembly and the nations heart beat for every word he spoke. Long years ago, he said, we made a tryst with destiny. And now the time has come when we shall redeem our pledge not wholly or in full measure, but substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, while the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom.

Sixty-five years have gone by and the eloquent and inspiring words now jar the ears while the pledges that remain unredeemed and forgotten only bring tears to swollen eyes, and, to some, thoughts of suicide as the only escape from the hell into which almost all of us have landed. Life and freedom have been cornered by the privileged few: men without morals engaged in the sordid pursuit of polluted power and stolen wealth.

A handful of us, not involved in the sordid game, recall with sadness a bad omen that went unnoticed in the ecstasy of independence. Mahatma Gandhi was not in the celebrations but was sleeping in the modest house of a poor man in the suburbs of Calcutta, quelling the fires of communal hatred and violence. His prophetic vision did not prescribe a shining future. Now with scam after scam emphasizing a corrupt society to international glare, poverty rising, food scarcity, unaffordable cost of living, a foreign policy in shambles as we are surrounded by hostile neighbours, and democracy and freedom turning into a mirage, it is a tragic paradise lost. Around the time we became independent, many other newly independent nations too were born. In the world of Islam none adopted secularism and they turned into theocracies of the most dangerous hue. Even Turkey, once a shining example of a secular state though its majority population was Islamic, is becoming more and more fundamentalist. It is well known that Hindus were opposed to the partition of the country on the basis of religion but their will did not prevail. If Hindus had retaliated they could have easily justified India becoming a Hindu state. But they gladly opted for a secular India. This could not be unless secularism was fully endorsed by the religion of the majority. Having been born and brought up in Sind, the cradle of Sufism, I have imbibed secularism through my genes. I do not need to be indoctrinated or educated by anyone.

The 25th Article of the Constitution of India defines our secularism. All religious dogma, beliefs or practices are subject to public order, health and morality. Interpreted rightly, Indian secularism mandates a life guided by reason and logic but inspired by love and compassion.

The ruling dispensation has refused to explain or practice true secularism. It has converted secularism into a term of political vituperation and abuse. We are secular and our opponents communal, is the common refrain. Any hindu proud of his religion is at once condemned as a criminal. This is vote bank politics of the most vulgar and divisive kind. The Supreme Court in more than one binding judgment has accepted my view of Hinduism and Hindutva. But today, even the Supreme Court is attacked as being communal by persons who one would expect to be more judicious and fair.

All laws are made in the context of clime and circumstance. Like all biological species, they too must change in response to changes in the context, which means imperatives of social needs at a given time. Those who cling to unsuitable laws, claiming they are unalterable because sanctioned by some ancient scripture, I condemn as unalterable fools. Rajiv Gandhi proved to be one when, by a legislation, he reversed a secular and wise decision of the Supreme Court in the Shah Bano case; vote bank politics again. Repeatedly, it trumps and defeats Indias secular spirit.

In the 21st century, as Kashmir and Assam stand charred by the fires of ethnic conflict, our tryst with destiny seems strikingly reminiscent of the bleeding social fabric that only the genteel but passionate Gandhi could heal; the utopia of Nehrus grandiloquence seems such a distant dream.