I have promises to keep

I left India on 20th January, and now I am longing to be back in my karmabhumi.

 America is beautiful, and its people wonderful, but home is home, and I am missing it. Never before have I been away from it for so long. " The woods are lovely dark and deep, but I have promises to keep ".

 I am reminded of the lines in the poem ' Requiem ', by Robert Loius Stevenson :

 " Home is the sailor, home from the sea

   And the hunter home from the hills "

When will I be back ? I can't say. It depends on when my relatives, with whom I am staying, will allow me to return. They seem to be scared that I will get into trouble on getting back to India

Dr. Robert Oppenheimer

Dr.. Robert Oppenheimer is regarded as the father of the atom bomb. He was the head of the Manhattan Project,which was the secret name of the highest priority U.S.government war time project for making the bomb..

 Apart from being a great scientist, Dr. Oppenheimer was also a great scholar of Sanskrit, who had studied many Sanskrit works in original. When the first atomic bomb exploded on 16th July, 1945 in the desert of Alamogordo, New Mexico, a passage from the Bhagavad Gita flashed in his mind :

 " If the radiance of a thousand suns

   were to burst into the sky

   that would be like

   the splendour of the Mighty One "

But when the sinister and gigantic mushroom cloud rose up in the far distance over Point Zero, he uttered another line from the Gita :

  " Now I am become Death, the destroyer of the worlds " ( Gita, Chapter 11 )

( see the book ' Brighter Than a Thousand Suns ;, by Robert Jungk )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuRvBoLu4t0

Bomb blast at Belur Mutt

There was a low intensity bomb blast at Belur Mutt yesterday. Who was responsible, and what was the motive ? The matter is still being investigated, but I will hazard a guess.

It was probably some agent provocateur who wanted to create the impression that it was the work of some Muslim organization, so that all Muslims may be painted as terrorists and bomb throwers, thus increasing communal tension.

Some years back in my interview with Karan Thapar ( on his programme Devil's Advocate ) I blamed a section of the media for creating communal tension. I told him that whenever a bomb blast occurs in India, within an hour or so many T.V. channels start displaying a scroll which stated that an email or sms has been received stating that the Indian Mujahideen or Jaish-e-Mohammed or some other Muslim organization has claimed responsibility.

 Now an email or sms can be sent by any mischievous person. But by displaying it on the T.V. screen what subtle message is being conveyed ? The subtle message is that all Muslims are terrorists. In this way the entire Muslim community is demonized, and communal tensions aggravated.

  The truth is, as I have repeatedly said, that 99% people in all communities, whether Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, etc are good and peace loving.  But certain vested interests want to demonize the entire Muslim community, and create hostility between Hindus and Muslims, as they thrive on this.

 Often after such blasts in India the police, which is incapable or unwilling to apprehend the real culprits, apprehends some innocent Muslims on bare suspicion and chargesheets them, and usually their bail applications are rejected, as the public prosecutor says in Court that these are terrorists. 

Often such persons spend many years, sometimes over 10 years, in jail, but are ultimately found innocent. Who will restore them these years of life ? This travesty of justice naturally creates hatred with all its consequences,

 I appeal to all patriotic Indians to expose such conspiracies by agent provocateurs and spread awareness among our people of these wicked designs of some vested interests who are enemies of the nation, so that the Indian people may not become victims of such false propaganda against any community or section of our people. We have to maintain our unity at all costs

Heil Kejriwal
If the allegations in Prashant Bhushan's open letter are correct, and I see no reason to doubt their correctness, it is evident that Arvind Kejriwal and his Sancho Panza type coterie of idiots, have become totally shameless, having betrayed all the principles on which the Aam Admi Party was founded---transparency, accountability, inner party democracy and Swaraj.
 There is now one Fuhrer in the party, and a Goebbels, a Goring, a Himmler, a Ribbentrop, etc ( and I leave it to the imagination of the reader to guess which is which ), and there are a lot of S.S. type bouncers.
 Heil Kejriwal !

Intercaste marriages

There should be be more intercaste marriages, particularly between SCs and non SCs

 My appeal to non SC boys : disobey your stupid, backward parents and marry SC girls. You may be boycotted by many of your relatives and friends, but don't bother about those idiots. Act bravely like a man. I am with you

http://www.thehindu.com/data/just-5-per-cent-of-indian-marriages-are-intercaste/article6591502.ece

The Collapse of the System

In my speech at Berkeley, California on 19.3.2015 ( see  ' Justice Katju Berkeley )  I had said that the next 15-20 years in India are going to be very turbulent, and will only end when a just social order emerges.

 Today the truth is that the system of government created by the Indian Constitution on 26th January, 1950 has collapsed. All the state institutions set up by the Constitution have become hollow. Our politicians, a large proportion of whom have criminal backgrounds, are a bunch of rogues and rascals who have no genuine love for the country, and have looted it. Most of them should have been hanged from the nearest lamp post long ago, as indeed I observed orally in the Supreme Court once.

 The Indian judiciary, which often takes decades to finally dispose off a case has largely become a caricature and a mockery. What kind of a judiciary is it which takes so long to decide a case ? Also, a large section of it has become corrupt. No wonder people have started resorting to illegal methods by hiring goondas to evict tenants, realize debts, etc.

  The bureaucracy in India has largely become corrupt, with the result that even schemes which appeared good on paper ( like the MNREGA ) have become sources of corruption in reality.

 The Aam Admi Party came forward presenting an alternative to the prevalent politics with its slogans of transparency, accountability, and inner party democracy. All those slogans have turned out to be hollow. The truth is that the moment a group of people form a political party and enter into electoral politics in India they become corrupt, because a huge amount of money is required to run an organization, fund the elections, etc and lumpen elements ( goondas ) are required to maintain control over dissidents and other opponents ( like Hitler's S.S.).

 The truth is that the Constitution of India, and the system and state organs it created have exhausted themselves. What is the alternative for the Indian people now ? I do not know. The people of India have to use their own creativity and find out the solution. Whatever that solution may be, this can be said for certain : there will be a prolonged period of turmoil and turbulence in India, and this will not end till a just social order is created in which the Indian masses have decent lives.

Reservations

In India reservations for scheduled castes and backward castes in educational institutions and in government jobs have acquired the character of a holy cow which no one dare challenge. In particular, no politician dare object to it for fear that this would destroy his political career.

Not being in politics, I can take a more detached and objective view. My view is that whatever may have been its utility earlier, today such reservations are doing great harm to the nation.

 I have in my blog on the caste system ( see justicekatju.blogspot.in ) expressed my strong opposition to the caste system, and I fully sympathise with the depressed castes who were treated as inferior and oppressed for centuries. I have said that the caste system is a curse on our nation, and the sooner it is destroyed the better.

However, in my opinion reservations, which have benefited only a miniscule number of such castes ( and that too the richer section, which did not need any help ), has done great damage to the rest, and ensured that they remain as wretched and poor as they were before.

 In my opinion financial help and facilities should be given to  poor people of all castes,  There are poor people in all castes, not merely among SCs and OBCs, and they should all be helped.

 Caste based reservations are like permanent crutches. Unless they are removed SCs and OBCs cannot walk erect. These categories should certainly be helped by giving them all facilitties, but thereafter they must work hard and make it on their own merit.

 I spoke to the Principal of a Government Medical College in U.P. He told me that if an SC boy fails in a test, oral orders come from above to pass him, otherwise the Principal will get into trouble. In this way we produce some ( not all ) incompetent SC doctors, without thinking of the risk to patients.

 No doubt reservations have helped many politicians by creating vote banks for them, but they have made casteism more deeply entrenched in our society, and have further divided our people at a time when we must be united to solve the country's massive problems

Is India not a racist society ?

 Consider the following:

(1) Do we not prefer white coloured skin to dark coloured skin among men and women ?

(2) Do fair complexioned girls not have a better prospect for marriage ? iIn matrimonial ads why is it often mentioned that the girl is fair complexioned ?

(3) When a baby is born, why do grandmothers become happy if the baby's complexion is 'saaf' i.e. fair ?

(4) When I was in Tamilnadu ( as Chief Justice ) I saw that almost all roadside hoarding ads showed girls with fair complexion, not dark complexion

(5) Why are there creams ( e.g. 'Fair and Lovely' cream ) to make one's skin colour fairer ? Why not creams which make it darker ?

(6) The word 'varna' in the expression 'varna vyavastha' ( i.e. caste system ) literally means ( in Sanskrit ) colour

(7) Even today, 'upper castes' are proportionately fairer in complexion than scheduled castes ( though it is true that there are also several dark coloured.upper caste people, and several fair coloured SCs )

 This supports the theory that at one time in our history a white coloured race entered India and conquered a dark coloured race. It is well known that the conquerors impose their values, and since the conqueror was white coloured, white skin was regarded superior to dark skin. Colour is really relative. If a dark coloured race had conquered a fair coloured race, then dark skin would have been regarded as superior.

http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/minister-giriraj-singh-says-if-my-comments-hurt-sonia-or-rahul-gandhi-i-apologise-751434

The Future of the Aam Admi Party

How does one explain the phenomenal victory of the Aam Admi Party in the Delhi elections of February ? I would like to give my own analysis.

1. Delhi is broadly a city of traders and shopkeepers, i.e. middle and small businessmen. Earlier, these were represented by the B.J.P. while Congress represented big business. With the decimation of Congress, B.J.P. now represents big business, and AAP has filled in the vacuum, and now represents the small and middle business class ( Kejriwal himself declared in an election speech that he is a bania who knows how to do dhandha ).

2. An important issue for Delhiites was electricity and water bills which were often inflated. AAP was the only party which seriously addressed this issue.

3. The minorities solidly voted for A AP, as they felt insecure due to 'ghar wapasi',etc

4. The youth, who had voted en masse for BJP in the Lok Sabha elections in May 2014 as they thought ;vikas' meant creation of millions of jobs ( and jobs are all that youth are interested in ), were totally disillusioned as the jobs promised were not there, and so they vented their frustration by voting for AAP.

 5. AAP presented itself as 'a party with a difference', characterized by transparency, accountability and democratic nature, which made it very attractive in this era of scams.

  Now that it has come to power in Delhi, I submit that AAP will become, or rather has already become, like a conventional political party like others. Consider the following :

a.After the recent developments in which dissidents have been expelled,  AAP, like other parties, has become dictatorial, with one person in command, and little scope for dissent. Those still in the party will obey the maxim 'Billee oonth le gayi, to haan ji haan ji kehna', i.e.' If the leader says that a cat has carried away a camel, just say : of course, of course'. In other words, become a sycophant, if you wish to survive.

b. Lumpen elements are used as musclemen or bouncers to silence dissent, if need be by strong arm methods, like Hitler's S.S.

c. Loyalty, not principles, is the most important thing. So the party functionaries and MLAs will be given a long rope, and a Nelson's eye will be turned by the leader to their wrong doings as long as they are loyal and don't cross certain limits.

 Mr. Kejriwal is not a fool. He knows that corruption is so deeply entrenched in the system that anyone who seriously tries to suppress it will get into trouble, as the powerful people will gang up against him. So he will pay only lip service to fighting corruption, by, say, suspending some clerks, while not genuinely going after the big sharks.

 But this will be contradictory to his professed principles. You cannot fool all the people all the time.

And so I predict that AAP will become very unpopular in a very short time when people see through the great gap between what it preaches and what it practices.

The leader of Muslims

A very senior Muslim journalist of India, who is elder to me, once told me that there had been only one real leader of Muslims in India and he died in 1964. His name was Jawaharlal Nehru.

 Today, he said to me, there is only real leader of Muslims in the Indian sub continent ( including Pakistan and Bangladesh ), and his name is Markandey Katju.

 I replied that I had no desire of being a leader of anyone. But certainly if any Muslim is oppressed I will raise my voice against it,  just as if any Hindu, Christian, Sikh, Parsi or Jain is oppressed I will raise my voice against it. In my opinion no one should be  oppressed, and everyone should be allowed to live with dignity and honour.

 It is true that I have criticized  what I regard as some backward   practices among Muslims, just as I have criticized what I regard as some backward practices among Hindus.

 But that does not mean I am anti Muslim ( or anti Hindu ).Some of my best friends are Muslims. I have repeatedly said that 99% Muslims, like 99% Hindus, are good people, and I have also repeatedly said that 99% Pakistanis, like 99% Indians, are good people.

 I want to see all people in this subcontinent prosperous, and with a high standard of living , and living in amity and brotherhood