Amit Kushari (IAS. Retd.)
What the Law Minister of Delhi, Somnath Bharti did last week was absolutely indefensible and shameful. By trying to defend his Law Minister, Arvind Kejriwal, CM of Delhi, has damaged his own reputation. Instead of rebuking the Law Minister or taking back his portfolio, he tried to make out that the Law Minister had taken a large number of his supporters directly to the police station, only because the people of the area wanted action to be taken against a few African women, who the public believed were indulging in drug and sex racketeering. Mr Kejriwal said that the elected Law Minister was answerable to the people and since an insensitive police was not paying any heed to repeated appeals of the public, the minister himself had to go to the SHO with his supporters for taking direct action. This is a ridiculous logic and I am shocked that an eminent person like Mr. Kejriwal, whom we hold in high esteem could take such an immature view. We have democracy in India not mobocracy . We elect our representatives through the ballot box but after the Government is formed, the Government has to run according to the laws of the land and the constitution. Ministers, MPs and MLAs are not allowed to take the law into their own hand on the pretext of populism. Shri Somnath Bharti’s midnight raid, beating up the African women with the help of his supporters has shamed India before the world community. The African envoys are up in arms and Ministry of External Affairs is having a tough time controlling the situation. The African women were allegedly subjected to a lot of indignities before the public. Urine samples were forcibly collected but these tested negative for drugs in the laboratories. The Africans are crying hoarse that they had to face these indignities just because the color of their skin is black. They are asking whether India would have the courage to behave like this with Europeans and Americans. Mr. Kejriwal ought to know that public opinion on an issue need not always be correct. That is why government works in a different way — through accepted channels and hierarchies of administration, strictly according to law and constitution. In many parts of rural India people often believe that lonely women, widowed women practice witch craft for which children die under mysterious circumstances. This may be considered entirely laughable and superstitious in urban India, but in backward villages people still try to lynch those hapless, defenceless women and huge mobs try to pounce on them. Perhaps Mr. Bharti would have led such lynch mobs if he was MLA from a backward rural area!! Mr. Kejriwal should know that the mob could often be wrong and ministers should not support such mobs. In 1990/91 frenzied mobs in Kashmir threw out Kashmiri Hindus from their homes because they had a mistaken notion that Pandits were Indian spies, and a great hindrance for Kashmir’s independence. Luckily nobody from the Government of J&K led those mobs. If Kejriwal had been the Chief Minister of Kashmir those days, would he accompany those frenzied mobs to oust the Kashmiri Hindus on ‘popular demand’? Would he accompany Hindu mobs in Ahmedabad to set ablaze Gulbarga housing society in which scores of Muslims were burnt alive? That was also a ‘popular’ demand. When Raja Ram Mohan Roy, put an end to the burning of Hindu widows on the funeral pyre, when Vidya Sagar legalised widow remarriage for Hindus, Hindu mobs tried to lynch them shouting, “Hindu dharm khatrey mein hai!” If the British Government had believed in populism and mobocracy and had not saved Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Vidyasagar, India would have lost two great sons.
Mr Arvind Kejriwal is an outstanding young man, committed to honest politics. We would like him to shine and rise in the service of Mother India. He should have the foresight and wisdom to restrain his inexperienced, wayward ministers from taking senseless populist steps. His demand for bringing Delhi police under Delhi Government could be a correct demand but he should not sit in dharna for this as a Chief Minister. This is lowering the prestige of the chair he is occupying. He must not refuse Z category security also. He is endangering the whole country by this immature gimmickry. If any militant organisation kidnaps him to secure the release of a dreaded person like Yasin Bhatkal, the whole of India will curse him for his folly.
The author is former Financial Commissioner, J&K Feedback to the author at 09748635185 or at amitkus@hotmail.com
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