Why the hoopla about The Hindus?

A lot of controversy is going on about 'pulping' a book 'The Hindus: An alternative history' by Wendy Doniger, a professor at University of Chicago. What I can gather from various news reports - the book was published in 2009, in 2010 a group of people who thought that the book offends religious sentiments of Hindus in India filed civil and criminal cases (and in cases like these throws every possible accusations and the kitchen sink) for withdrawing the book from India. There was an online campaign as well to banish the book worldwide. Nothing much happened since 2010 except perhaps courts giving dates and the case progressing in a glacial pace (if at all). In 2014 Penguin in an out of court settlement decided to withdraw the book from India and pulp it.  

Being a firm believer in Streisand effect and being proffered several links (I shall not provide them so as not to fall foul of DMCA) to download the book on Facebook, I decided to read the 'controversial' book and like a good lawyer, on an amicus brief, form my own opinion. It was no easy read - quite voluminous and not really scholarly in nature (my comparable frame of reference would be Halsburys for law and Winfield for torts), but then again I am no expert in religious study in general or Hinduism in special. However I did read various editions of Ramayan ranging from children's illustrated edition to a heavyset volume (which claimed to be authoritative) and of course watched the Ramanand Sagar TV series on the matter. Thus you would say that I have an average (and definitively no scholarly) knowledge on the epic. But one important difference for me was the presence of my militant atheist economics professor grandfather (who frequently clashed with my overtly religious grandmother) who always tried to instil in me a critical de-constructive spirit - questioning the status quo and upending the establishment. So I was always a bit miffed that Ram after fighting ferociously for Sita, abandoned her in name of keeping the people of his kingdom happy. Something did not gel well with my idea of equity and justice. This is a deconstructive ideology of interpreting the epic (and some say that there are over 200 versions of the epic), Karunanidhi (for whom I have no love lost) once said 'Who is this Raman? In which engineering college did he study and become a civil engineer?' and berated the epic as 'a piece of fiction that allegorically represented the conflict between Aryans and Dravidians'.

So I decided to read and compare Wendy's interpretation of Ramayan (Chapter 9 quite forebodingly titled Women and the ogresses in the Ramayana 400 BCE to 200 CE); well for a casual reader like me I could find that her deconstructive (which she calls alternative) narrative was more feministic and definitely more critical (than my children's illustrated version). She talks about sexuality (something of a taboo in India, conveniently blamed on the forceful imposition of Victorian morality by our former colonial oppressors) and interprets part of Ramayan focussing on the sexuality of Sita and other major characters. Sita is one of the holiest of holies in Hindu mythology (at par with the virgin birth or messenger of God for Christianity and Islam) and understandably the fringe attacks this 'phoren' misinterpretation of our beloved religious icons (who by default have to rise above base instincts like sex etc.). 

So the question to be asked is Wendy right in her opinion or should it be stopped from corrupting the mind of impressionable young (to misquote and misuse Hicklin), and the answer can be who cares - if Dashrath was a sex crazy guy (which is quite self evident with multiple wives, easily manipulated by one of them, scientific hypotheses about monogamy being unnatural and then the adecdotalyet rational examples of sexual indiscretions of people in power from Tiwari to Clinton to Hollande etc.); the crux seems to be of a person writing about something, if you do not like it criticise it by writing a counter-piece but instead muzzling by pulping seems to be an utter shortcut (to quote Atal Bihari Bajpayee 'If you want to make a line appear short, do not erase it but draw a longer one beside it.'). And alternative narratives are always controversial because by default they have to depart from the mainstream (if you are still with me and want to explore a similar controversy look at Ramanujam Ramayana or the Mahishashura Martyrdom)

What I can personally take away from this is if a book is banned 9 out of 10 times it is not an interesting read (I read satanic verses and it gave me a headache but then Dr. Zhivago also gave me a headache, so I guess the problem has to be with me rather than the book) and 10 out of 10 times it is useless to have a ban. Without going into further spiel about free speech v hate speech v right to offend or magnanimity of Hinduism what I can summarise is that for Indian readers (if brought up solely on a diet of Ramanad Sagar and Amar Chitra Katha's sanitised version of Ramayan) Wendy's chapter on Ramayan would be engaging (i.e. if you open your mind to it you would have some opinion at the end of it) or if you did have a deconstructivist grandad you would say meh why the hoopla? 

In the end I will leave you with two cartoons from the indomitable Amul girl.

    

Why we should welcome Indian Judicial Service – ways to innovate and implement

Surprising to many Indian Judicial Service (IJS) is quite an old concept, Article 312 of the Indian Constitution specifically mentions its formation. Multitude of judicial commissions, reports etc. recommends its institution, yet we find the idea of IJS is on an eternal backburner. 

A variety of reasons can be ascribed for this. 

• First Article 312 itself specifies that no one who is being recruited through IJS can be appointed below ranks equivalent to a district judge. This stipulation makes it imperative that the applicants have some experience, usually in state judicial exams for entry at this level the usual experience period is seven years. This effectively makes it impossible for fresh graduate to compete for the jobs. Most of the other all India services (like Indian Administrative Service, Indian Forest Service etc.) allow fresh graduates to take part in the exam. 
• Second Indian states feel that it is a state prerogative to recruit judges for lower judiciary and IJS would take this privilege away. 
• Third IJS cadre officer would always be at a disadvantage vis-à-vis judges elevated from bar to bench because they would have to work for at least 10 years before they would become eligible for promotion to High Court (HC), this means a law student who practices for 7 years to become eligible to sit for IJS have to then work for 10 more years to be eligible to be elevated – this comes to a total of 17 years. While under article 217(2)(b) a person who has been practicing at a high court becomes eligible for elevation in 10 years. 
• Fourth at present system of elevation from bar to bench, from lower judiciary to HC, from HC to Supreme Court (SC) is at best murky and at worst nepotistic, it is not in the interest of the incumbent to innovate to bring in fresh talent in the lower judiciary which would potentially upturn the century old practice of SC judges being solely from those who have been elevated from bar to bench at HCs.
• Fifth some states would claim that judges who would come from different culture would not be able to understand the nuances of local customs which is fundamental in delivering effective justice.

However there are ways in which the above reservations some legitimate (others imaginary) can be set to rest by some tweaking and some radical thinking. At present the debate on increasing the number of lower judiciary judges to combat the astronomical pending litigation gives the incumbent government a huge leeway in implementing lasting innovative and efficient solution. 

• First IJS has to be seen in a completely new light as an entry to a professional judicial cadre which would one day encompass all the judges in India. This would mean first posting of IJS cadre should be as a judicial magistrate second class and not equivalent to district judge. And there should be hope for this young hopeful cadre to reach the pinnacle at SC. This is possible by having a time and point based system for promotion. At present the hierarchy of Indian judges is as follows – judicial magistrate second class, judicial magistrate first class, assistant district judge, associate district judge/district judge, high court judges/chief justice of high court, supreme court judge/chief justice of India. So there are 6 steps, in a time and point based system let us assume that an IJS cadre would be eligible for promotion into the next level after a period of 5 years, the points would be allocated on the basis of number of cases disposed by orders, judgments, number of lok adalat cases, reference to ADR mechanisms, plea bargaining and affirmation or rejection of order/judgments by higher courts. So whenever a vacancy arises in the upper post, promotion would be given to those who are at the top of the point list among all those who are eligible. Promotion till high court should be completely point based with no interference of any other subjective consideration. However for elevation from HC to SC some amount of executive consultation is necessary, best way would be to have a committee comprising of CJI, senior most judge (who would not become CJI), Prime Minister, Minister of Law and Justice and Leader of Opposition. 
• Second article 217 should be suitably amended so that to be elevated from bar to bench one has to have minimum of 20 years of experience in courts out of which 15 years should be in a high court; also the pool should be widened to include jurists etc. Also once the IJS officers become eligible to be elevated to HC (which under the proposed system as above would be 20 years from the date of implementation) the proportion of promote to appointee in HC should be 9:1. This would ensure that there is a hybrid of civil law and common law culture and increase vibrancy and outside the system thinking. If indeed this formula is taken, it would be a slow process but would help in ushering the change at a pace where it does not conflict with the present system. Effectively for the next two-three decades there would be a dual cadre judicial officers, the IJS and the judges who came in through the state judicial exams. Almost all the states have to change their laws relating to lower judiciary to ensure that there is no or little conflict in promotion, remuneration etc. between the two cadres. As a transition measure for a decade or so there can be 25% quotas in the posts of associate district judges for  state cadre judges. 
• Third the retirement age of the HC judges should be increased to 65, at present there is some amount of lobbying to get into SC thereby increase the employment by 3 years (underarticle 224(3) HC judges retire at 62). This has been proposed in the 114thConstitutional amendment bill but like many of the unwanted bills it is waiting with one of the parliamentary committee (the graveyard of bills) when the present parliament dissolves (sometime in 2014) the amendment bill would also lapse. Such an increase in retirement age would decrease the unhealthy competition etc. which goes on at present. 
• Fourth with proper training and some basic understanding of local language it would be possible for the IJS officers to dispense justice even at the basic level. A cursory glance at the district court judgments on JUDIS would show that 99.9% of the judgments are in English, so indeed is the language of pleading and conveyancing. Under CPC even the oral witness testimony is recorded, thus with a dual translator cum court stenographer (most of the courts already have people who type the oral testimony from local language to English) this problem can be superseded. Also the state judicial academies can have accelerated language courses which would help the IJS officers to get working knowledge of the languages of the state. The national judicial academy would prepare the associate district judge cadre for elevation to HC. 
• Fifth there has been a growing sense that the National law universities have not delivered any change in the litigation framework of the country. With IJS many of these bright young graduates would be attracted to judiciary.

IJS should be conducted by UPSC, there should be two preliminary papers first a two hour MCQ based test of static GK, current affairs, logical reasoning and numeracy skills second an hour test on English language skills through composition, legal writing skills and legal comprehension. The main paper should be a two hour MCQ test on legal knowledge with an extremely wide syllabus. Finally there should be an oral test/interview. Such an intensive process would allow for the very best to aspire for and become judicial officers who would be fit to work at the highest echelons of Indian judiciary.

Whose logo is it anyway

Recently saw the NLUO logo, somehow it seemed eerily similar to the NLUD logo, you decide?

Oh dear – Mumbai/Khopoli as Peshawar/Abbottabad? What have you done NG?

Few hours ago National Geographic (NG) broadcasted a drama-documentary titled ‘Seal Team Six – The raid on Osama Bin Laden’. Before its broadcast the documentary attracted controversy as it was perceived that the timing of the broadcast (which the Republicans thought would be pro Obama) may influence the outcomes of the US presidential polls (which happens in less than 48 hours). Many news sources wrongly put that the NG documentary is the first on Osama’s death, the first would probably be 'Bin Laden: Shoot to kill' broadcasted on 7 Sep 2011 by Channel 4.

However this spiel is about something different - NG is known for its rigorous authenticity and is the watchword for trustworthiness and accuracy (I have been a long fan and subscriber of MGM and utterly in love with the map supplements). And that’s why I was a bit let down by some sloppy mistakes in filming on location. The documentary opens with covert HUMINT surveillance on Al-Kuwaiti (courier of Osama) in 2010 Peshawar. But lo and behold the shop signboards are in Hindi, the roads are full of Bajaj autos and cars with Maharashtra number plates (everyone drives with them from Al-Kuwaiti to the policemen, I suppose if Bin-Laden had driven a car then the documentary would have shown him driving a MH number-plated car), skyscraper in Peshawar and people too speak in Hindi (not Urdu or Pashto).

I can go on with the inaccuracies - women mostly wearing sarees, proliferation of ‘Indian make’ cars like sumo, omini, wagonr etc. (which are not available in Pakistan), Mumbai Police vans, people using Indian currency notes. It started reminding me of the infamous photoshoping of the pyramids (Re: NGM cover of Feb 1982).

The dashboard camera on the vehicle following Al-Kuwaiti shows coordinates: 17°23'36.68''N 78°29'20.95''E, one would guess that it would be near Peshawar/Abbottabad somewhere on the Karakoram Highway where the chase is purportedly being on, however surprise surprise the coordinates are of a petrol pump in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India wrong road, wrong state and wrong country.

According to the newspaper reports the Pakistan portion have been shot in Khopoli, Maharashtra (but some of the scenes especially that with the omini cabs, police van and the skyscraper is of Mumbai). To see what Peshawar look like have a look at the clip ‘Bin Laden’s cash flow’ which shows the background and extra feature to the main documentary or some YouTube video.

Well, one hopes that Kathryn Bigelow’s (of the Hurt Locker fame) Zero Dark Thirty a feature length movie due to be released in a month and a half time would be more authentic. The Pakistani portion was recreated in Chandigarh and Patiala, news report suggested that there were some overzealous idiots who protested that Pakistan locations being portrayed on Indian land with change in shop board language, flags and attire of extras and actors.     

In spite of such mistakes Seal Team Six is a commendable documentary which tries to look into the nitty gritty of the operation - actual and intelligence. It is one of the few documentaries which shows the help provided by the Pakistani doctor Shakil Afridi in genetically tagging Bin Laden’s presence and the intelligence gathering teams on ground. A Raymond Allen Davis moment for one of the local agents (I guess its fictional like perhaps the infights between seal team members, but notches up the drama quotient). I must still say that there are scenes which show that the directors may not have altogether forgotten the small things – when one of the agents drink from a coal can it is in inscribed in Urdu, the policemen are wearing Pakistani uniforms (or at least they don’t look Indian).

Overall the drama-documentary is quite good and one of the best ones in the market, but perhaps the drama part could have been suppressed a bit and paid a lot more attention to details (little things that matter much).

Elementary?

Yesterday a new Sherlock emerged (albeit in pilot) under the title 'Elementary' at the US TV station of CBS. It puts Sherlock Holmes, the master detective, in a modern day setting. And of course comparison with BBCs acclaimed Sherlock is obvious.

The new Sherlock (let us henceforth call him CBS Sherlock) is a recovering addict and has Dr. Watson as a rehab companion at one of the brownstones in New York. CBS Sherlock is as gritty and moody as all the previous incarnation of the master sleuth, however he seems a bit unsure of himself at certain times (which is completely unHolmesworthy – legions of fans of Mr. Holmes have come to believe in the supreme self-confidence of the man, frustrated at times he might be but unsure naah!!). 

The case as shown in the CBS pilot is pretty straight forward a psychiatric wants to get rid of his wealthy wife (killing the wife part was there as a plot device in The Adventure of the Retired Colourman), what does he do? He uses one of his umm.. neurotic patients (who has a history of violence) to have a murderous go at his wife. To do this the doctor keeps no record of his meeting with the patient, allegedly changes drugs as well as changes his wife’s appearance (fat to thin, mote to no mole and blonde to red head) to allegedly make her fit the victim profile of the neurotic patient.

Well after some good Holmesian deduction CBS Holmes confronts the evil doctor with the theory only to be laughed off. Later from audio recordings in the cell phone of the killer it is proved that the doctor was in fact treating the killer. In between there were canonical moments like Holmes rearing honey bees (His Last Bow) etc.

So far so good, but still one question arose in my mind as a lawyer, how does the evidence tie up the doctor with the murders. The audio recording proves that the doctor has till now mislead the police by stating that he did not know the killer, yes he can be charged with obstruction of justice, but how to prove before the court that he’s the killer, still there are no smoking guns just surmises and theories. Of course people are bound to say that one should look for deductions in detective stories and law (as if there is any) in legal dramedies (Suits, Boston Legal etc.). But still it would have been better script if CBS Holmes could have found a more convincing smoking gun. Background score could also perhaps be a bit more menacing.

But having said that we must wait for the actual series, this is merely the pilot and they can be quite different from the actual product. One can dig up the pilot of BBC Sherlock (available at Youtube) which was never at par with the actual episodes (in the pilot BBC Sherlock actually is drugged by the cabby while in the first episode it is shown that Sherlock went with the cabby on his own volition).

Thus the verdict would be to [wait and watch] if CBS Sherlock can match or excel the BBC Sherlock (third season later this year?). All in all it is going to be a good few next months for Sherlock fans.

How did Sherlock survive?

Being a Sherlock Holmes fan, it was fantastic to discover ‘Sherlock’ series 1 on BBC. It is a re-adaptation of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes placing him in a modern day avatar in 2010 London. It was one of my favourite series while I was pursuing LLM in UK (when I also developed a liking for British classic sitcoms like Fawlty Towers, Blackadder, Yes Minister and Vicar of Dibley). When I returned to India to take up a teaching position at one of the National Law Universities, I waited for series 2 of Sherlock and like many fans around the world, at the end of series 2, have been trying to guess how Sherlock might have survived the five storey fall off the Bartholomew Hospital.

Well here’s my solution (I am sure many have also chanced on similar or same solution):

1. Sherlock is given a chemical which can induce death like symptoms by Penny (to fool Dr. Watson).
2. Sherlock injects it while he’s talking with Moriarty (1:09:15).

This trick of hand was already done once in Series 2 when Sherlock took pulse of Irene as shown below:

3.      3. After that Sherlock jumps onto the garbage truck:

The aerial view is as below:

However there are certain points which go against the theory above, Sherlock just slipped off the building he does not have the required lateral momentum to propel him to the garbage truck which is at least 15-18 feet from the building. Also the sniper assassin must have seen Sherlock jumping onto garbage truck and thus would have logically shot Dr. Watson (unless he is also blindsided by the building like Dr. Watson). Further the shots of hands, which I interpret to be injections, can easily be interpreted to be prelude to the tapping off the dud codes.

Anyway I am eagerly waiting for Series 3 and check how far my theory succeeds. Just a side-note I would have been much happier if S2E3 didn’t show Sherlock alive at the end, there would have been more speculation and then BBC could have suddenly sprung Series 3 in 2012 autumn.