Hindustan Times 10 July 2021
The Hindustan Times (HT) is another newspaper in India (much like the HINDU of Chennai and the rest of its tribe) that specialises in agenda-driven news transmogrification.
The HT quotes a report of the ADR (Association for Democratic Reforms) that has come out with the finding that “33 ministers (42%) in the new cabinet of 78 have declared criminal cases against them. Of these, 24 ministers (31% of the total number of members) have declared ‘serious’ criminal cases against them — which includes counts of murder, attempt to murder, or robbery.”
If you read the article fully you will wonder what exactly is the point that the HT reporter or analyst is trying to make. It would have made much more sense if the analysis included a comparison either with a prior cabinet, or else, with the cabinets in every government in the last 70 years of Independence. It would have made even greater sense if the comparison had been made against the Cabinets presently ruling all the 29 States in the country.
Merely giving a snapshot analysis of how many members there are in Modi’s new cabinet with criminal charges (not convictions) and ongoing cases against them is an exercise in asinine sterility. It only reveals HT’s biased and malicious intent : to somehow paint the new cabinet in black as if to say it is some it’s some kind of den of criminals. And that is news-transmogrification indeed.
This new Cabinet mind you is headed by a prime minister who not long ago (in connection with the Godhra riots in Gujarat) was himself charged with criminal conspiracy. He then fought fair and square in the courts and got himself acquitted. But when he was still facing those grave charges in court, it must be remembered that Modi was under intense political pressure, in the run-up to the elections to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, to “apologise” for his having condoned if not abetted the very crime he was accused of. His reply then in an interview was classic:
“I am convinced that if there is even a grain of truth in the allegations, I feel for India’s bright future and traditions, Modi should be hanged in the street square. There should be such exemplary punishment that no one dares to commit such a crime for 100 years… If he has committed a crime, Modi should not be pardoned. What is this system of pardoning people through apology? There should be no apology. Modi should never be pardoned,” he told in an interview to ANI telecast
Today, HT is living in an arrant fool’s paradise to think that it’s analysis about “42% of Modi’s Cabinet members having criminal cases against them” is going to make Modi feel the least bit apologetic about the criminal shadows that hang over his cabinet colleagues. For all we and Modi know, everyone of the 33 members referred to by HT might ultimately come finally out of the courts acquitted as fully as Modi himself had been … Who really knows, indeed?!
So, my question to the HT and to its analysts is simply this : So what?!
Another piece of jejune analysis put out in this HT report is this ridiculous bit about “Moreover, around 90% members of the new Union cabinet (70 ministers) are millionaires, i.e. they have declared total assets amounting to over ₹10 million (one crore), the ADR report pointed out.”
Again, Mr. HT, so what ?! Is there a law in the country against being a “crorepati”? Is it a crime to be one? Why must you presume or imply that every crorepati must necessarily be a suspected criminal too? Why are you insulting the hundreds of other crorepatis in India who have earned their wealth by dint of honest work and are loyal tax paying citizens too?
Be that all as it may, I think there is however one important albeit unstated point that one has to concede the HT article does indeed rightly allude to. It is this and it focuses attention to the failure of our country’s judicial system whose wheels creak and are creaking so grindingly slow that those amongst our MPs and Ministers in the political class who are fighting charges in the courts for criminal and civil offences do not get either acquitted in good time nor convicted.
As a result what happens is that their reputation, no matter whether or not they hold public office, remains perennially under a shadow and even when they are innocent otherwise they are nonetheless, and invariably, deemed to be guilty by the irresponsible but free press we now have in India and of which HT is perhaps the most egregious example.
This brings me now however to boldly level a piece of serious criticism against our Hon’ble PM Sri Narendra Modi who I remember, so well and vividly, made a solemn promise once to the nation with regard to precisely this matter — i.e. of “justice delayed is justice denied” — way back in 2014 but then till date has done absolutely nothing about it .
Modi went on record to proclaim that if elected to power, he would urge the Supreme Court to appoint special court to try cases of MLAs and MPs and Ministers, of course, against whom criminal cases are pending and deliver a verdict a within a year!! Those convicted will lose their seats and the vacancies can be filled by those without criminal charges, he said. Modi went on to say:
“Everybody says this but nobody does it. But I have decided to do so. But if there is a better way I will look into it. I do not want that cases against politicians be dragged for long,” he said adding he wanted the credibility of institutions be enhanced.”
Well, well, well … Mr Prime Minister, you made that promise in April 2014 … We are now in July 2021! Where are your “fast-track” courts to try MPs and Ministers charged with criminal and civil or “grave” offences?
If it is going to be said, and rightly too, that justice continues, sadly, to be denied to your 33 fellow cabinet colleagues, Mr Modi, who now still face pending criminal cases, isn’t it because you have caused it yourself to be delayed by your own inaction?
Sudarshan Madabushi