Thursday, July 17, 2008
Monday, July 7, 2008
Sunday, July 6, 2008
To court, to court
Say you wake up one morning with a desperate urge to save the world. You feel the need to get out there and fight a battle on behalf of X, Y or Z. The thought of crusading for their cause brings a rush of blood to your head. Your nerves are crackling, your reflexes are at their snappiest. You don't remember feeling this charged in your entire adult life. Ever. When you went to bed the night before, you were mousy pushover Peter Parker. But with the dawn of this bright new day, you have risen as an avenging superhero. You can scale any peak, move every mountain. Fire or flood, you will swoop down from the blue sky and save desperate mortals from damnation. You strut around like superman, you gyrate like catwoman, you suspect you can swing from tower to tower in the blink of an eye and decimate all evil as you fly by.
So far, so good.
Now that you are feeling this way, you are prepared to seize the day. Go forth and battle. On behalf of whomsoever it may concern. Or not. Meaning, you haven't the slightest idea who you are planning to fight for. Or what cause you will be championing. So you hold your superhuman urges in check for a minute and wonder who exactly you must represent. There are millions of people in our glorious nation who will lay claim to your attention. Children who hawk their wares on ruthless city streets. Homeless people huddled in the underbelly of concrete flyovers, battered by hunger and harsh sunshine. Underage runaways squatting on railway platforms as life whizzes past them day and night.
Farmers crippled by debt, pushed to the edge. Weavers and artisans sinking into the quicksand of poverty. Displaced tribes with no place to call home as forests dwindle in direct proportion to our greed.
The system is a giant sieve with cracks that cannot be counted. The number of people who have fallen through is mind boggling. And the count is on the rise. So you have no dearth of choices. Pick one, pick two, pick a zillion causes. But alarm bells ring loud and clear in your head. If you zoom in on a specific group, you will have to suffer its consequences. Say for example, you set out to build a school in a remote village forgotten by the rest of India as it hurtles towards the promised land of progress. This crusade will involve a lot of mental and physical struggle. You will actually have to travel all the way to the village. Bones creaking after the uncomfortable drive over dusty roads, you will have to slave over the project. There will be all sorts of red tape to cut through. There will be annoying details to take care of. You will be stuck in an endless cycle of meetings with government officials who care very little about your altruistic avatar and even less about the village. In short, it will be a drag.
Feeding the hungry, helping the homeless, rescuing runaways – all of these endeavours will involve similar hurdles. So you decide to pass. What's less cumbersome? You ponder. You brood. And the perfect idea hits you like the apple that landed on Newton's head and produced the unforgettable epiphany about gravity.
You will file a Public Interest Litigation – endearingly abbreviated into PIL. Filing a PIL will give you immense satisfaction. As the term makes clear, it is being filed on behalf of the public. So you are indulging in a purely altruistic, superhero like act. Warding off dangers that are headed our way, even if we are barely aware of them. Like a guardian angel, you will defend the public with the power of the PIL.
"To court, to court," you mutter and drive towards the courts at the speed of light. In a flash of blinding insight, you realize you are the messiah. You wonder if you should slow down your car and let pedestrians know that deliverance is at hand. You smile at one and all from behind the tinted glasses of your car. You know you can walk on water.
So you file a PIL – against an actress who dared to wear a micro mini to a public venue. She wears less in every Bollywood flick she has appeared so far. "But that, my dear unsuspecting public," you say " is a different story." Your PIL is rescuing the public from a grave danger. She is being warned in no uncertain terms that she cannot corrupt an innocent public in real life. What you do on the silver screen in a dim-lit cinema hall is between you and your producer. "But in the clear light of day, beware the wrath of the PIL," you holler.
If not an actress, you can target other offenders. A director who dares to make a film on a Hindu god or a Muslim king, a painter who depicts a goddess through an artist's eye, a writer who pens a lyric with a metaphor you just can't understand. In your book, obscurity is a crime against the public too. You argue that it is criminal to befuddle respectable citizens who have been dulled into mindless oblivion and hence, cannot decode annoying metaphors.
The PIL, just like dynamite, was intended to be a boon to humanity. In the 60s and 70s, litigation in India was strictly a private pursuit to protect private interests. In simple terms: if you had a problem, you had to handle it yourself. The 'injured party' or 'aggrieved party' – in legalese – had to initiate litigation by her/himself. Then you ran around in circles, all by yourself, till the verdict was declared. In the 80s, the supreme court decided to give all individuals, consumer groups and social action groups easier access to the law. PILs threw open the doors to the apex court. The ordinary citizen could approach it for legal remedies on behalf of the public or a section of it.
Public Interest Litigation has produced some landmark judgments in our country. But the number of frivolous PILs clogging the court is staggering. The judiciary has been issuing frequent requests to stop people from filing PILs at the drop of any absurd hat. Judges have sent out several stern warnings against the misuse of this legal tool.
Maybe the judiciary should strike back and file a PIL against over-zealous guardians of public morality who protest too much, too often, in too shrill a tone. Their silence would bring welcome relief to the public.
So far, so good.
Now that you are feeling this way, you are prepared to seize the day. Go forth and battle. On behalf of whomsoever it may concern. Or not. Meaning, you haven't the slightest idea who you are planning to fight for. Or what cause you will be championing. So you hold your superhuman urges in check for a minute and wonder who exactly you must represent. There are millions of people in our glorious nation who will lay claim to your attention. Children who hawk their wares on ruthless city streets. Homeless people huddled in the underbelly of concrete flyovers, battered by hunger and harsh sunshine. Underage runaways squatting on railway platforms as life whizzes past them day and night.
Farmers crippled by debt, pushed to the edge. Weavers and artisans sinking into the quicksand of poverty. Displaced tribes with no place to call home as forests dwindle in direct proportion to our greed.
The system is a giant sieve with cracks that cannot be counted. The number of people who have fallen through is mind boggling. And the count is on the rise. So you have no dearth of choices. Pick one, pick two, pick a zillion causes. But alarm bells ring loud and clear in your head. If you zoom in on a specific group, you will have to suffer its consequences. Say for example, you set out to build a school in a remote village forgotten by the rest of India as it hurtles towards the promised land of progress. This crusade will involve a lot of mental and physical struggle. You will actually have to travel all the way to the village. Bones creaking after the uncomfortable drive over dusty roads, you will have to slave over the project. There will be all sorts of red tape to cut through. There will be annoying details to take care of. You will be stuck in an endless cycle of meetings with government officials who care very little about your altruistic avatar and even less about the village. In short, it will be a drag.
Feeding the hungry, helping the homeless, rescuing runaways – all of these endeavours will involve similar hurdles. So you decide to pass. What's less cumbersome? You ponder. You brood. And the perfect idea hits you like the apple that landed on Newton's head and produced the unforgettable epiphany about gravity.
You will file a Public Interest Litigation – endearingly abbreviated into PIL. Filing a PIL will give you immense satisfaction. As the term makes clear, it is being filed on behalf of the public. So you are indulging in a purely altruistic, superhero like act. Warding off dangers that are headed our way, even if we are barely aware of them. Like a guardian angel, you will defend the public with the power of the PIL.
"To court, to court," you mutter and drive towards the courts at the speed of light. In a flash of blinding insight, you realize you are the messiah. You wonder if you should slow down your car and let pedestrians know that deliverance is at hand. You smile at one and all from behind the tinted glasses of your car. You know you can walk on water.
So you file a PIL – against an actress who dared to wear a micro mini to a public venue. She wears less in every Bollywood flick she has appeared so far. "But that, my dear unsuspecting public," you say " is a different story." Your PIL is rescuing the public from a grave danger. She is being warned in no uncertain terms that she cannot corrupt an innocent public in real life. What you do on the silver screen in a dim-lit cinema hall is between you and your producer. "But in the clear light of day, beware the wrath of the PIL," you holler.
If not an actress, you can target other offenders. A director who dares to make a film on a Hindu god or a Muslim king, a painter who depicts a goddess through an artist's eye, a writer who pens a lyric with a metaphor you just can't understand. In your book, obscurity is a crime against the public too. You argue that it is criminal to befuddle respectable citizens who have been dulled into mindless oblivion and hence, cannot decode annoying metaphors.
The PIL, just like dynamite, was intended to be a boon to humanity. In the 60s and 70s, litigation in India was strictly a private pursuit to protect private interests. In simple terms: if you had a problem, you had to handle it yourself. The 'injured party' or 'aggrieved party' – in legalese – had to initiate litigation by her/himself. Then you ran around in circles, all by yourself, till the verdict was declared. In the 80s, the supreme court decided to give all individuals, consumer groups and social action groups easier access to the law. PILs threw open the doors to the apex court. The ordinary citizen could approach it for legal remedies on behalf of the public or a section of it.
Public Interest Litigation has produced some landmark judgments in our country. But the number of frivolous PILs clogging the court is staggering. The judiciary has been issuing frequent requests to stop people from filing PILs at the drop of any absurd hat. Judges have sent out several stern warnings against the misuse of this legal tool.
Maybe the judiciary should strike back and file a PIL against over-zealous guardians of public morality who protest too much, too often, in too shrill a tone. Their silence would bring welcome relief to the public.
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