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Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Prashant Bhushan And The Tail Of The Tiger

In the autumn of 2009, Prashant Bhushan, revealed to Tehelka ("sensation") magazine that ‘Half Of The Last 16 Chief Justices Were Corrupt’ 

Prashant Bhushan has also gone to some lengths to explain why he considered the current Chief Justice Kapadia's conduct in the Vedanta case to be "morally unsound or debased."


All this is sensational beyond description. 

Had Prashant Bhushan seized a tiger - or was it eight or nine tigers - by its tail ? 

Obviously the Supreme Court could not let this pass, so it launched contempt proceedings against this "turbulent priest".

Now the father Shanthi Bhushan, former Law Minister of India, stormed in to aid his son.

Fuel to the fire - what would the Supreme Court do ?

Very little. 

The Bhushans had compiled a secret sealed envelope and jammed it in the craw of the gasping Indian judiciary.

And evidently, the Supreme Court of India can neither, as the old Tamil saying goes, chew it up nor swallow it. 

There was a moment of bathos, when the court helpfully suggested that Bhushan apologise and "close the chapter on the contempt proceedings"

The Bhushans roared back. They were willing to go to jail but would not apologise.

Prashant Bhushan had not provoked a sleeping tiger by pulling on its tail. 

Rather this canny Delhiwalla, with the wisdom of three generations of proximity to the ways of the decadent embedded in his genes, appears to have grabbed the mangy Indian judiciary by its throat. 

A Godsend for the Indian Press.  A Tehelka in spades.

But the Indian Press, that can be safely predicted only to erupt in regular spouts of self congratulatory clamour, has stayed mute.

There have been no further disclosures. No leaks. No hidden camera stunts.

Close to three years have passed and the litigation meanders on.

But the Bhushans, father and prominent son, have gone on from strength to strength.

Prashant Bhushan does very well on television. 

I myself have found his careful, systematic articulation, his dogged pursuit of every detail , his stubborn resistance to authoritarian airbrushing very attractive. 

Was a time, when watching Prashant Bhushan on television, surrounded and responding doggedly to the suave officers of the Indian state, I have felt our blood pressures rise and fall in synch. 

Indian television has made Prashant Bhushan a most powerful Indian.

Consider this: There are 782 members of parliament. 

But the number of lawyers whose names regularly figures in the media can be counted with the fingers and toes.

And among this rare species of Indian, the Bhushans are among the most favoured.

Such is the formidable, almost unique dominance of the Bhushans, especially Prashant on the grungy contemporary judicial landscape of India.

This dominance has been questioned. 

First came a mysterious CD. Clumsy paste up job ? We will never know. 

But to Vineet Narain, hero of the Havala scam, who bravely took on the might of not one but two of the most mighty legal grandees of India,  the CD seemed credible

 He said,  “I am not surprised by the content of the CD because I have burnt my fingers with the Bhushans during my Jain Hawala crusade...controversy and suspicion had arisen even earlier on the Bhushans...after initially helping me in drafting the petition (of Jain Hawala case), Ram Jethmalani and subsequently, his associates, the Bhushans, made several attempts to sabotage the biggest crusade against corruption and finally derailed the case.”

I am inclined to believe Shri Narain.

But not everybody does. 

According to Tehelka - Advocate Kamini Jaiswal says that Narain was “a dirty blackmailer, who’d filed ugly petitions and circulated in his paper Kal Chakra that a particular judge was a homosexual.”

Then there was the conflict of interest case, when Bhushan Senior was alleged to have been favoured by the then Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Mayawati, even as he was litigating for the public interest against her alleged excesses. 

Once again there was some hot air on television: 




\   


This allegation too has been given "the quietus"  . 

Tehelka apologised; 

Even Mrs Sonia Gandhi conveyed her disapproval .


It was a rare chorus of indignation in favour of the Bhushans in a country in which activists using their Right To Information get swatted down like flies. 







and are carefully dishonoured afterwards.



Where honest officials get burnt alive.


Time


and again


Where journalists and their families are murdered,



and then forgotten.




Finally there was a case of  massive tax evasion by Bhushan Senior. 

Unlike the other two, this was a case in which no other VIPs were involved.

And in this case, the allegation stuck.


Hammers to a fly. Why ?

The Indian judiciary has been brazen in its extraordinary indulgence of  Chief Justice Dinakaran. 

The tortuous curial pussyfooting on the grave allegations against Ex Chief Justice of Supreme Court and current Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission K G Balakrishnan is a running sore and a grave embarrassment. 

So why is this scion of The House Of The Bhushans Of New Delhi, allying himself with another legal blunderbuss, Ram Jethmalani to, for all practical purposes, harass and stymy the career of a high court judge whose alleged misdemeanor appears innocuous, almost innocent, in comparison with the monstrous misdeeds  alleged and otherwise of his peers and superiors in the Indian judiciary ?

Why is Prashant Bhushan who flaked out of taking on the entire Andhra Pradesh High Court on its egregious misconduct against a single, unsupported citizen who had been stripped of the best years of his life for standing up for the idea of the rule of law in India, now going after a judge who even if for a brief moment and half-heartedly, lit a little light in that case ?

Is their action in the public interest ?

Is it motivated by the zeal to cleanse a diseased Andhra Pradesh High Court and restore it to a semblance of credibility ? 

Neither Bhushan nor Jethmalani can make any lofty claims. 

The Bhushans appear to have made a compelling argument that Chief Justice Kapadia or a "Amicus Curiae" Harish Salve can be accused of being  "morally unsound or debased." .

The Bhushans do not appear any less prone to abuse the judiciary to aggrandise themselves. 

Given their expedient torpor on the occasion when their considerable talents and individual consciences were more urgently required, it is fair to infer that the Bhushans are mere adventurers. 

They are mere pirates with a training in the law, backed by their ill gotten wealth and a dotty Delhi centric media, who are scavenging on India's irretrievably compromised and crumbling political establishment.

Sad. 

If there are any clean hands in India's decrepit, delinquent and depraved judiciary, they do not appear clearly visible to the naked eye.












Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Prashant Bhushan Exceeds His Brief

PIL seeks quashing of Andhra Pradesh high court judge’s appointment

Prashant Bhushan and Ram Jethmalani, two of India's most high profile lawyers are supporting a Public Interest Litigation by an advocate Manohar Reddy, seeking to quash the appointment of a Justice N V Ramana of the Andhra Pradesh High Court. The details of the allegation are in the news report.  

The allegation does not relate to any personal or professional misconduct of the judge while in office. 

However it does allege that the judge may have suppressed a material and mandated fact, that may have disqualified him to pursue a career in the judiciary. 

The report also makes it clear that while the judge may have suppressed the fact of having a minor criminal record in his application, the matter has been a subject of public negotiations for some time.

If true,  these allegations are serious. The independence of all our constitutional institutions are their life's breath and heart's blood. Our constitution comes alive in the aloof manner in which they examine, interrogate and abrade each other.

In order that they maintain their abrasive quality, they cannot hold any uncomfortable secrets. They cannot be potential targets for blackmail or seduction. They have to stay well inflated with their abrasive purpose throughout their service life.

So if Justice Ramana did withhold a 'dirty secret' and had become transparently beholden to the government to favour him with some rare kindness, I at least, will have no doubts that he has forfeited his place among his awesome, black robed brethren.

He is the proverbial rotten apple that must be quickly discarded, before he infects the rest of the basket with his disease.

And Shri Bhushan and his well funded NGO deserves the warm gratitude of all reasonable persons in society for having taken the time off from his no doubt grueling schedule of personal and private interests - does he have any ? to undertake the onerous task of ejecting a serving Indian judge from his high office.

But truth does not yield itself so easily.

If the truth was what a mystic messiah or a cabal of  high priests declared, then we would have no need for constitutions and laws, procedures and protocols, evidence and witnesses, black robes and sober miens, lawyers and litigants. 


We can dispense with books and libraries, teachers and schools, science and ethics and all the laboriously constructed appurtenances of the idea of humanity's evolution and difference and submit like our simian cousins to a place in the tribe. 



I have had a brush with Shri Prashanth Bhushan - an encounter which left me wondering whether this firebrand's legendary talent for sniffing out the public interest does not sometimes desert him.



Wednesday, May 9, 2012

The Shit Happens School Of Sociology.


Thursday, June 23, 2011

Banalising The Beautiful. Lok Satta Does Martin Luther King.

Happened to click on the Lok Satta site the other day and was confronted by an alleged quote from Martin Luther King.


I carry the music of Martin in me and this just did not sound like my beloved prophet.

So tame. So plaintive and boring. "More dangerous"! - what is this?

So I Googled.

Not only did I come up with the original melody, but also a lovely photograph, that is so typically Martin.

About ten years ago, I went to meet Dr Jayaprakash Narayan and came back empty handed.

But here you see two men traversing whole worlds.


And the quotation ?

" History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people."

Can you hear the passion? The conviction? Can you see the shadows of history and Martin's clear vision of the future?"

In my meeting with the good Doctor Jayaprakash Narayan - he had done a pretty good job of de impressing me.

This misappropriation of greatness, by a media anointed crusader against corruption, does nothing to raise him up in my eyes.

It gets worse. It is Malalai Joya, an activist, writer and former politician from Afghanistan to whom those words are attributed.

This is "robbing Peter to pay Paul" taken up a few notches.

This is distorting Ms Joya to dull Dr King.

Certainly not my idea of "New politics for a new generation".















Monday, June 13, 2011

Restore The Honour Of The Andhra Pradesh High Court

HON'BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE NISAR AHMAD KAKRU (sic)
Andhra Pradesh High Court,
Hyderabad


to cjap
date Thu, Jun 10, 2010 at 2:46 PM
subject Restore The Honour Of The Andhra Pradesh High Court
mailed-by gmail.com




Your honour,

If you have ever had the occasion to search for "Andhra Pradesh High Court" on the internet, then my appeal to and correspondence with your predecessor entitled "Andhra Pradesh High Court's Pernicious Rebellion Against The Law" would not have escaped your notice.

With the benefit of hindsight, that account can reasonably be read today as a stunning narration of the Andhra Pradesh High Court's slide with “minuscule” check or balance from delinquency to disgrace to depravity.

As I have detailed in my correspondence to the then Chief Justice, the AP High Court had very obviously and at every level prejudged my case, delayed, obstructed and perverted the course of justice.

The Andhra Pradesh High Court State Legal Services Authority conducted a time consuming, farcical and ultimately fruitless search for a competent counsel.

The judges in question stubbornly resisted giving me any impression that they had heard me, obstinately ignored my repeated requests for the assistance of a competent counsel, displayed no compunctions about heckling me in my defenseless state from the lofty position of the bench, took upon themselves the obligation of arguing the respondents case and produced a judgment that was completely at variance to the independent opinion sought and received by the High Court, the facts of my case and the RTI Act 2005.

The Hon’ble judge’s babble emanated despite the fact that that the only new fact that emerged during the hearing was that the Andhra Pradesh Government was forced to admit the exposure of its affidavit as a tissue of lies and brazen fabrications.

Your esteemed predecessor had an excellent opportunity and sacred obligation to mitigate this sordid situation and put the hearing back on its track.

Instead he actively participated in this rowdy violation of the principles of natural justice and due process.

Not only did he assign the hearing of my case to a judge who is shown as being one rung junior to the judge against whom I had complained, he did not respond for my request for assistance for an appeal.

With the smug tunnel vision that is peculiar to successful technicians, lawyers are often advised , "When you cannot plead the law, plead the facts. When you cannot plead the facts, plead the law'.

To this wisdom, we in India, have added a more practical, subaltern twist. “When you can argue neither the facts or the law - start a riot."

Blood may not have been shed, the courts may not have been interrupted, the television cameras may have been busy elsewhere, and our editorial class may be too cloddish to recognize it and only my life has been thwarted, but there can be little doubt in reasonable minds that the Andhra Pradesh High Court over a period of more than a year, comprehensively and at every level disgraced itself by mauling the idea of due process in order to pervert the course of the law and to thwart justice with a clear motive to let the powerful respondents off the hook.

Extremists almost reflexively accept responsibility for their heinous acts.
But despite the fact that I have complained to the President of India, that office in an act of utter depravity, has not only ignored my complaint but has gleefully elevated the delinquent former Chief Justice to the Supreme Court.

Till date, Andhra Pradesh High Court has shown no signs of the self correcting conduct that society routinely expects from erring human beings.

The Andhra Pradesh High Court has not given any sign that it has recognizes and regrets its reprehensible delinquency.

The Andhra Pradesh High Court has shown no rectitude, remorse or reform that will restore the process of justice.

In other words the Andhra Pradesh High Court does not appear to possess any power, procedure or compunction to recover from its woefully compromised state.

It appears to not have the conscience, character or potency to re establish its shattered independence and autonomy.

There can be no question that by recounting this rowdyism of the Andhra Pradesh High Court and Bar and its toadying, symbiotic relationship with the Executive and Administration, I have performed an extraordinary service for the cause of an authentic, autonomous and vibrant judiciary.

At a time when even a clearly compromised and cowering Rashtrapathi Bhavan has chosen to stay mute, and lawless extremisms are bubbling everywhere, I have performed a rare service to the idea of equity under the rule of law by not leaving you in any doubt about the odiousness of the earlier hyper activism and current inertness of the Andhra Pradesh High Court .
This inertness of the Andhra Pradesh High Court is clearly intended to be punitive because I continue to suffer the brazen violation of my rights, denial of information and fair access to institutions of redressal and remedy.

I now request you to kindly use your authority to take whatever action that you may consider fit to make amends for this barbarism.

I look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.
Yours sincerely,


Divakar S Natarajan

PS: Since Shri Subrahmanyam, formerly Secretary to the Legal Services cell who conducted the dubious and infructuous search for legal aid, who I understand is currently your PS, has claimed not to have received the earlier email dated May 25,2010, I am emailing you again .

Monday, May 30, 2011

The hand clap that triggered the avalanche. Comments by divakarssathya in The New Statesman

My thanks to the New Statesman and Mehdi Hassan.

A special thanks to writeoff's testy, thoughtless but typical comment.

Don't miss the response from the slobs at our beloved Prime Minister's Office.

Psychotic PMO Bareknuckles The Economist.

James Astill's Dazed Denial.

Dr Manmohan Singh's Office Asserts Its Determination To Be An Idiot. This Time It's The New Scientist.

Mad Dogs and the Guardian UK.


divakarssathya
30 April 2010 at 13:15


Unfortunately, "bigotry" is found in the most surprising places.

The following is an account of the bigotry against the Indian constitution and the idea of rule of law as I have experienced it over the past two decades.

It appears to be gaining some powerful adherents in the UK too.

As somebody who has conscientiously refused to do business the way it "normally" is in so called democratic societies - "Go along to get along" - I will not pay bribes - and who has been almost destroyed for my pains, I would like to believe that plain speaking and straight dealing are a simple and universal human pleasure, that are being relentlessly and rather madly being subdued by the powers that be.

A documented account of my lived experience that follows, and certain obvious conclusions that follow, have been savagely suppressed by Guardian UK .

After months of moderating and publishing my comments, Guardian UK has suddenly and without any notice withdrawn my posting privileges and scrubbed all my earlier ones.

Like some apparatchik of a military junta, Guardian UK has in effect, "disappeared" me.

The Economist wobbles - sometimes scrapping my comments and at other times leaving them on.

bbc.co.uk has published my comment in one blog but would not publish them in the Indian blog.In a form letter they have conveyed their fear that they may be sued for "defamation" !!!!!

Have these eminences of the media seriously scrutinised my claims and found them inadequate ? Absolutely not.

But they do crumble with one phone call from the Prime Minister's Office or someone else.

The Indian media's poppadum panjandrums have said what I have said from the safety of their armchairs.

I am recounting my lived experience, with documentation and am demanding accountability.

Have I acted responsibly and in keeping with the greater good ?

You be the judge.

Have they ?

I have complained to Press Complaints Commission about Guardian UK's "baiting" behaviour.

But the PCC appears to be living in a Pre Magna Carta timewarp.

Despite the clear appearance of bad intent, requiring investigation, it appears to be believe in unfettered monarchial privileges for comment moderators and will not intervene.

The following is the account that appears to have staggered some of the stalwarts of the “free world”:

Twenty years ago – I had the privilege of having conceived, researched, scripted, edited, presented and produced a 37 minute Doordarshan commissioned documentary in Urdu,”Hyderabad. August 1948?, on the circumstances in which the 28 year old editor Shoebullah Khan of an Urdu newspaper, Imroose, was slaughtered, because of his open defiance of the erstwhile Nizam of Hyderabad.

The documentary was acclaimed nationally.

Historians of the calibre of Dr Bipan Chandra commended the meticulous research.

Freedom fighters expressed their gratitude that light had been shone on a chapter of history, which they believed had been obscured.

Among the most epiphanic reviews was the one by Dr Manmohan Singh’s former media adviser, currently editor of Business Standard and fellow Hyderabadi Dr Sanjaya Baru.

Under the informal chairmanship of Dr Abid Hussain, India’s former ambassador to the USA, I was able to organise a petition to the former Prime Minister Dr P V Narasimha Rao.

This resulted in a freedom fighter’s status and pension for the martyr’s wiidow, more than four decades after his supreme sacrifice.

divakarssathya
30 April 2010 at 13:18
However since the past two decades I have been hounded by the bureaucracy, with the Indian editorial class (with an occasional honourable exception)doing its bit to trivialise, denigrate and gag me.

My crime?

I have been outspoken – wrote an article in the editorial page of The Hindustan Times and The Pioneer- about corruption in Doordarshan – the Government’s so-called public service broadcaster.

Since the past two decades, the Government of India, the Government of my own state, Andhra Pradesh, the Andhra Pradesh High Court , the Chief Information Commissioner and State Information Commissioner have combined to impress on me that what works in India is what I have called the “patronage paradigm” – the paradigm of shoddiness, irresponsibility, cronyism and corruption” – and that ideas of the rule of law and democratic processes are merely spectacles to lull the gullible.

I have been denied the recognition that were commended to me by one former Chief Minister of my state, one former minister of home affairs, one speaker of the Lok Sabha, several prominent ministers of the central cabinet, eminent intellectuals and freedom fighters.

I have been unable to earn a decent living.

The office of the Governor of Andhra Pradesh incited my neighbors to cut off my water supply.

Wajahat Habibullah and C D Arha have conducted themselves as though the RTI Act 2005 does not exist.

The information commissions in the state and at the centre denied me my right to information on spurious, brazenly illegal grounds and punished me for daring to object.

The AP high court sought independent legal opinion on my plaint, which was completely and unequivocally in my favour, and a judge issued a notice, yet the AP High Court high court denied me my right to competent counsel – a right given to the 26/11 gunman – and punished me for complaining.

The Prime Minister’s Office appears to have jumped through hoops to heap honour on a businessman alleged to be a serial swindler.

In the same vein, it has and continues to illegally and fraudulently deny me the information I have sought and protect the miscreants who have stonewalled my pursuit of justice.

Rashtrapathi Bhavan, after repeated urgings from me, had issued notices to the Ministry of Law and the Chief Secretary of Andhra Pradesh almost a year ago, presumably it has taken a prima facie view, but since then has been content to let matters fester.

In other words, even as we speak, Dr Manmohan Singh”s office, “Daredevil” Pratibha Patil’s Rashtrapati Bhavan, Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah, State Information Commissioner CD Arha are all locked in a most perverse and ignominious conspiracy of silence to deny me justice.

divakarssathya
30 April 2010 at 13:20
India's editorial class always narcissistic has decayed and is useless.

Like the police in Hindi films, it arrives after all the action is over and then mouths "dialogue'.

Variations of this comment have appeared in almost every major Indian online publication plus in many abroad.

However, not a single editor or reporter has had the professionalism to pick it up and make it "impact".

My credentials are strong and I have taken much trouble to meet many editors personally, usually on impeccable referrals.

Our "know-it-all-in -chiefs" have had nothing but smirks to offer.

When I sought the solidarity of the press, Shekhar Gupta (editor in chief of The Indian Express) advised me, "You cannot go around taking pangas (quarrels) with people, yaar."

Even my comments are mutilated.

Vinod Mehta's "Outlook" has banned my comments on risible grounds.

The Hindu crawled.

It published "spin" by corrupt officials and got hissy with me for pointing out, with evidence, its craven, yellow soul.

The Indian Press (with a solitary exception) blacked out the fervent open letter written by Padma Vibhushan Kaloji Narayana Rao.

That dear man , clear as a bell in his nineties, had laid his head on my shoulder, hugged me and wept.

divakarssathya
30 April 2010 at 13:21
What about "civil society" in India ?

Since close to a year now, I have written to the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, Campaign for Judicial Accountability And Reform, Forum For Judicial Accountability, MKSS (Aruna Roy)and Anna Hazare regarding this cascading delinquency of constitutional bodies in India.

There has not been one constructive response.

They all appear to be in helpless denial of the awful truth that an innocent citizen has been hounded and humiliated since two decades, not for any bad behaviour or wrongdoing, but for resisting the dilution of the values of the Indian constitution and standing up for the correct administration of the Right To Information Act 2005.

It is in this squalid situation that I have come to conclude that I have come to believe that the Prime Minister of India Dr Manmohan Singh and his Congress party have been wishy washy, namby pamby, lackadaisical, mealy mouthed and covertly encouraging of corruption.

As long as the Eleventh Commandment - Thou Shalt Not Get Caught - was not broken, Dr Singh and his party could be relied upon to engage his considerable personal influence and the immense powers of his office to pour unction on roiling waters.

Faced with a eight day long furore and the cold fact of one of his brightest colleagues having been caught red handed, Dr Singh's reported first response was, " There are ups and downs in politics".

Given such dissimulation from the Prime Minister Of India, a scholar with a reputation for probity, for those who stand up for the idea of the rule of law in India, there is only one long, unbroken "down".

Please visit and participate at http://sathyagraha.blogspot.com/ :

Andhra Pradesh High Court's Pernicious Rebellion Against The Law .05/29/09

RTI Act 2005 Abuse In Andhra Pradesh- SIC Cheats! Chief Secretary Lies!05/07/09

Prejudiced CIC Laps Up PMO Lies 05/05/09

Compelling Criminality. Divakar S Natarajan and Varun Gandhi Cannot Both Be Wrong ! 01/28/09

And India's editorial class will not report the story!

Also Mad Dogs And Guardian UK

News and views from Divakar S Natarajan's, "no excuses", ultra peaceful, non partisan, individual sathyagraha against corruption and for the idea of the rule of law in India.

Now in its 18th year.

Any struggle against a predatory authority is humanity's struggle to honour the gift of life.

writeoff
30 April 2010 at 14:01
I can't think why you get kicked off message boards. Not with your talent for brevity and ability to stay on topic.

divakarssathya
30 April 2010 at 15:41
writeoff:

It may be advisable to take a broader, humanistic "view of staying on topic."

The discussion gathers steam when we attempt to understand the underlying commonalities in seemingly disparate experiences.

When constitutional and other other authorities do not deliver, society as we know it is in parlous state.

And that is not just an individual's problem.

Cheers!

Friday, May 20, 2011

The hand clap that triggered the avalanche. Comments by divakarssathya in The Columbia Journalism Review.

My thanks to The Columbia Journalism Review

This international campaign was the handclap that triggered the avalanche of popular revulsion against the pervasive corruption in India.

Don't miss the response from the slobs at our beloved Prime Minister's Office.

Psychotic PMO Bareknuckles The Economist. and

James Astill's Dazed Denial

Mad Dogs and the Guardian UK


Dr Manmohan Singh's Office Asserts Its Determination To Be An Idiot. This Time It's The New Scientist.



Even while the Indian political leadership spins technicolour dreams of 21st century superpowerdom, its "politics" are mired in the medieval anachronisms of what I have called the "patronage paradigm - the paradigm of shoddiness, irresponsibility, cronyism and corruption, that has cretinised us all".

In India today, a culture of profiting from deceit, dysfunctionality and decay is flourishing.

In this culture of perversity, monstrous behavior is the ticket to wealth and domination.

In India today, the "Common Man" - a typically feudal pejorative - who 'aspires' to be an intelligent citizen might be labelled "goody-goody", ostracised and brutally killed.

It takes a whole village and whether it is a Bhopal or a New Delhi or a Ahmedabad Mass Killing, the controlled implosion of an Enron or Satyam, the resignation in disgust by a former Supreme Court Judge and till recently ombudsman on governance, the dully regular murders of RTI and other "activists" all these and my own experience since two decades, indicate that checks and balances have collapsed and coalesced into one corrupt predatory ruling class.

The administration of the RTI Act is no exception.

Under the fists of the distilled essence of India's corrupt, desperado bureaucracy, facing hostility from the judiciary and a tepid press the RTI Act 2005 is developing as yet another bureaucratic enclave and patronage bazaar.

It is another vivid instance of the failure of India's mired Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh.

Since the past two decades, the Government of India, the Government of my own state, Andhra Pradesh, the Andhra Pradesh High Court , the Chief Information Commissioner and State Information Commissioner have combined to impress on me that what works in India is what I have called the "patronage paradigm" - the paradigm of shoddiness, irresponsibility, cronyism and corruption - and that ideas of the rule of law and democratic processes are merely spectacles to lull the gullible.

I have been denied the recognition that were commended to me by one former Chief Minister of my state, one former minister of home affairs, one speaker of the Lok Sabha, several prominent ministers of the central cabinet, eminent intellectuals and freedom fighters.

I have been unable to earn a decent living.

The office of the Governor of Andhra Pradesh incited my neighbours to cut off my water supply.

The information commissions in the state and at the centre denied me my right to information on spurious, brazenly illegal grounds and punished me for daring to object.

The Andhra Pradesh High Court, in the inimitable manner of the Indian judiciary, has misbehaved egregiously.

The high court among other things,denied me my right to competent counsel and punished me for complaining.

Even as we speak, Dr Manmohan Singh's office, "Daredevil" Pratibha Patil's Rashtrapati Bhavan, Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah, State Information Commissioner CD Arha are all in an obvious conspiracy to deny me justice.

In my experience India's editorial class is as dense, amoral and narcissistic.

Variations of this comment have appeared in almost every major Indian online publication plus in a few abroad.

However, not a single editor or reporter has had the professionalism to pick it up and make it "impact".

My credentials are strong and I have taken much trouble to meet many editors personally, usually on impeccable referrals.

Our "know-it-all-in -chiefs" have had nothing but smirks to offer.

When I sought the solidarity of the press, Shekhar Gupta (editor in chief of New Indian Express) advised me, "You cannot go around taking pangas (quarrels) with people, yaar."

Even my comments are mutilated.

Vinod Mehta's "Outlook" has banned my comments on risible grounds.

The Hindu crawled.

It published "spin" by corrupt officials and got hissy with me for pointing out, with evidence, its craven, yellow soul.

The Indian Press (with a solitary exception) blacked out the fervent open letter written by Padma Vibhushan Kaloji Narayana Rao.

That dear man , clear as a bell in his nineties, had laid his head on my shoulder, hugged me and wept.

In India today, it is difficult to tell the difference between policeman and journalist and fixer, politician and criminal, lawyer and judge, Indian Administrative Service Officer and the village idiot.

But they all are laughing all the way to their offshore accounts.

If you would like to know about the sheer impossibility of living a good life in India, you and your esteemed visitors may want to visit and participate at sathyagraha.blogspot.com

Andhra Pradesh High Court’s Pernicious Rebellion Against The Law .05/29/09

RTI Act 2005 Abuse In Andhra Pradesh- SIC Cheats! Chief Secretary Lies!05/07/09

Prejudiced CIC Laps Up PMO Lies 05/05/09

Divakar S Natarajan and Varun Gandhi Cannot Both Be Wrong ! 01/28/09

And India’s editorial class will not report the story!

Divakar's Sathyagraha

News and views from Divakar S Natarajan’s, “no excuses”, ultra peaceful, non partisan, individual sathyagraha against corruption and for the idea of the rule of law in India.

Posted by divakarssathya on Wed 30 Jun 2010 at 05.09 pm

The hand clap that triggered the avalanche. Comments by divakarssathya in The Harvard Political Review

My thanks to The Harvard Political Review 

This international campaign was the handclap that triggered the avalanche of popular revulsion against the pervasive corruption in India.

Don't miss the response from the slobs at our beloved Prime Minister's Office.

Psychotic PMO Bareknuckles The Economist. and 

James Astill's Dazed Denial

Mad Dogs and the Guardian UK.

Dr Manmohan Singh's Office Asserts Its Determination To Be An Idiot. This Time It's The New Scientist.

As somebody who has conscientiously refused to do business the way it “normally” is in so called democratic societies – “Go along to get along” – I will not pay bribes – and who has been almost destroyed for my pains, it has become obvious to me that corruption is the father of all bigotries.

Corruption is the domination and control, rape, of the very idea of rule of law and makes a mockery of and cripples the authentic psychological evolution of the human race.

Corruption is fascist. And that is why, even in the 21st century, “the more things remain the same.”

Democracies have frittered away their immense moral advantage due to corruption and the people from top to bottom have all but given up on making the system function.

The following is an account of the bigotry against the Indian constitution and the idea of rule of law as I have experienced it over the past two decades.

Twenty years ago – I had the privilege of having conceived, researched, scripted, edited, presented and produced a 37 minute Doordarshan commissioned documentary in Urdu,”Hyderabad. August,1948", on the circumstances in which the 28 year old editor Shoebullah Khan of an Urdu newspaper, Imroose, was slaughtered, because of his open defiance of the erstwhile Nizam of Hyderabad.

The documentary was acclaimed nationally.

Historians of the calibre of Dr Bipan Chandra commended the meticulous research. Freedom fighters expressed their gratitude that light had been shone on a chapter of history, which they believed had been obscured.

Among the most epiphanic reviews was the one by Dr Manmohan Singh’s former media adviser, currently editor of Business Standard and fellow Hyderabadi Dr Sanjaya Baru.

Under the informal chairmanship of Dr Abid Hussain, India’s former ambassador to the USA, I was able to organise a petition to the former Prime Minister Dr P V Narasimha Rao.

This resulted in a freedom fighter’s status and pension for the martyr’s widow, more than four decades after his supreme sacrifice.

However since the past two decades I have been hounded by the bureaucracy, with the Indian editorial class (with an occasional honourable exception) doing its bit to trivialise, denigrate and gag me.

My crime? I have been outspoken – wrote an article in the editorial page of The Hindustan Times and The Pioneer- about corruption in Doordarshan – the Government’s so-called public service broadcaster.

Since the past two decades, the Government of India, the Government of my own state, Andhra Pradesh, the Andhra Pradesh High Court , the Chief Information Commissioner and State Information Commissioner have combined to impress on me that what works in India is what I have called the “patronage paradigm” – the paradigm of shoddiness, irresponsibility, cronyism and corruption” – and that ideas of the rule of law and democratic processes are merely spectacles to lull the gullible.

I have been denied the recognition that were commended to me by one former Chief Minister of my state, one former minister of home affairs, one speaker of the Lok Sabha, several prominent ministers of the central cabinet, eminent intellectuals and freedom fighters.

I have been unable to earn a decent living.

The office of the Governor of Andhra Pradesh incited my neighbors to cut off my water supply.

Wajahat Habibullah and C D Arha have conducted themselves as though the RTI Act 2005 does not exist. The information commissions in the state and at the centre denied me my right to information on spurious, brazenly illegal grounds and punished me for daring to object.

The AP high court sought independent legal opinion on my plaint, which was completely and unequivocally in my favour, and a judge issued a notice, yet the AP High Court high court denied me my right to competent counsel – a right given to the 26/11 gunman – and punished me for complaining.

The Prime Minister’s Office appears to have jumped through hoops to heap honour on a businessman alleged to be a serial swindler. In the same vein, it has and continues to illegally and fraudulently deny me the information I have sought and protect the miscreants who have stonewalled my pursuit of justice. Rashtrapathi Bhavan, after repeated urgings from me, had issued notices to the Ministry of Law and the Chief Secretary of Andhra Pradesh almost a year ago, presumably it has taken a prima facie view, but since then has been content to let matters fester.

In other words, even as we speak, Dr Manmohan Singh”s office, “Daredevil” Pratibha Patil’s Rashtrapati Bhavan, Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah, State Information Commissioner CD Arha are all locked in a most perverse and ignominious conspiracy of silence to deny me justice.

India’s editorial class always narcissistic has decayed and is useless.

Like the police in Hindi films, it arrives after all the action is over and then mouths “dialogue’.

Variations of this comment have appeared in almost every major Indian online publication plus in many abroad. However, not a single editor or reporter has had the professionalism to pick it up and make it “impact”.

My credentials are strong and I have taken much trouble to meet many editors personally, usually on impeccable referrals.

Our “know-it-all-in -chiefs” have had nothing but smirks to offer. When I sought the solidarity of the press, Shekhar Gupta (editor in chief of The Indian Express) advised me, “You cannot go around taking pangas (quarrels) with people, yaar.”

Even my comments are mutilated.

Vinod Mehta’s “Outlook” has banned my comments on risible grounds.

The Hindu crawled. It published “spin” by corrupt officials and got hissy with me for pointing out, with evidence, its craven, yellow soul.

The Indian Press (with a solitary exception) blacked out the fervent open letter written by Padma Vibhushan Kaloji Narayana Rao. That dear man , clear as a bell in his nineties, had laid his head on my shoulder, hugged me and wept.

What about “civil society” in India ?

Since close to a year now, I have written to the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, Campaign for Judicial Accountability And Reform, Forum For Judicial Accountability, MKSS (Aruna Roy)and Anna Hazare regarding this cascading delinquency of constitutional bodies in India. There has not been one constructive response.

Like a Taliban operating through neglect,they all appear to be in helpless denial of the awful truth that an innocent citizen has been hounded and humiliated since two decades, not for any bad behaviour or wrongdoing, but for resisting the dilution of the values of the Indian constitution and standing up for the correct administration of the Right To Information Act 2005.

It is in this squalid situation that I have come to conclude that the Prime Minister of India Dr Manmohan Singh and his Congress party have been wishy washy, namby pamby, lackadaisical, mealy mouthed and covertly encouraging of corruption.

As long as the Eleventh Commandment – Thou Shalt Not Get Caught – was not broken, Dr Singh and his party could be relied upon to engage his considerable personal influence and the immense powers of his office to pour unction on roiling waters.

Faced with a eight day long furor and the cold fact of one of his brightest colleagues having been caught red handed, Dr Singh’s reported first response was, ” There are ups and downs in politics”.

Given such dissimulation from the Prime Minister Of India, a scholar with a reputation for probity, for those who stand up for the idea of the rule of law in India, there is only one long, unbroken “down”.

Please visit and participate at http://sathyagraha.blogspot.com

 News and views from Divakar S Natarajan’s, “no excuses”, ultra peaceful, non partisan, individual sathyagraha against corruption and for the idea of the rule of law in India. Now in its 18th year.

Any struggle against a predatory authority is humanity’s struggle to honour the gift of life.

PS: Bigotry is found in the most surprising places.

The account above appears to have staggered some of the stalwarts of the “free world”:

After months of moderating and publishing my comments, Guardian UK has suddenly and without any notice withdrawn my posting privileges and scrubbed all my earlier ones.

Like some apparatchik of a military junta, Guardian UK has in effect, “disappeared” me.

The Economist wobbles – sometimes scrapping my comments and at other times leaving them on.

bbc.co.uk has published my comment in one blog but would not publish them in the Indian blog.In a form letter they have conveyed their fear that they may be sued for “defamation” !!!!!


Have these eminences of the media seriously scrutinised my claims and found them inadequate ? 

Absolutely not.

But they do crumble with one phone call from the Prime Minister’s Office or someone else.

The Indian media’s poppadum panjandrums have said what I have said from the safety of their armchairs. I am recounting my lived experience, with documentation and am demanding accountability.

Have I acted responsibly and in keeping with the greater good ? You be the judge.

Have they ?

I have complained to Press Complaints Commission about Guardian UK’s “baiting” behaviour.

But the PCC appears to be living in a Pre Magna Carta timewarp. Despite the clear appearance of bad intent, requiring investigation, it appears to be believe in unfettered monarchical privileges for online comment moderators and will not intervene.