Justice Crying Behind the Door: When
a Book Made Modi’s Government Run from Parliament
Taken together, three moments
tell us exactly where India has arrived today.
First, Rahul Gandhi was not
allowed to place documented facts before the nation in Parliament. He sought to
speak about the government's failures during the 2020 border crisis, drawing on
a book by the General who was in command at the time. The House did not defeat
his argument. It did not rebut the facts. It simply ensured the country could
not hear them.
Second, Mamata Banerjee, a
sitting Chief Minister, was forced to personally approach the Supreme Court of
India to challenge the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process, alleging
systematic attempts to remove legitimate voters ahead of elections. Instead of
institutions resolving the issue through normal democratic channels, a
constitutional authority had to fight her own case at the highest court,
publicly stating that it felt as if “justice is crying behind closed doors.”
Third, Mohammad Deepak, a private
citizen, did what any decent human being should do. During communal unrest, he
protected an elderly Muslim shopkeeper and helped save his livelihood from
rioters. For this act of humanity, an FIR was filed against him. Compassion was
treated as a crime.
These are not isolated incidents.
They are connected symptoms of the same illness.
When Rahul Gandhi attempted to
speak in Parliament about the 2020 incident, he was referring to the firsthand
account of Manoj Mukund Naravane, the General who led the Army during the
Chinese military buildup along the border. The book documents decisions taken
at the highest political levels. It is precisely because the account is
authoritative, factual, and inconvenient that it has been held back from
publication and aggressively blocked from discussion.
The reaction inside Parliament
was instructive. The scale and urgency of objections from senior ministers,
including Rajnath Singh and Amit Shah, made it clear that the government did
not fear misinformation. It feared disclosure. The Speaker’s conduct, marked by
selective enforcement of rules and repeated denial of the opposition’s right to
speak, completed the picture. Parliament did not malfunction. It was used.
At the same time, the fact that a
Chief Minister must seek judicial intervention to protect the basic integrity
of the electoral process reveals how far institutional trust has eroded.
Electoral rolls are not a partisan instrument. They are the foundation of
democracy. When concerns about voter deletion cannot be addressed through
administrative transparency and instead land before the Supreme Court, the
problem is not politics. It is a governance failure.
Then there is the case of
Mohammad Deepak. No speech. No slogan. No politics. Just a man who refused to
let violence define him. Under any functioning moral framework, his action
should have been celebrated. Instead, the system responded with punishment.
This inversion where hatred is indulged and humanity is criminalized, does not
happen accidentally. It happens when power relies on division to survive.
This is the environment that has
taken shape under Narendra Modi’s government.
Parliament is prevented from
hearing uncomfortable truths. Chief Ministers must litigate to protect
elections. Citizens are penalized for acts of basic decency.
Each case alone would be
troubling. Together, they reveal a pattern: institutions are no longer designed
to correct power, but to protect it. The opposition is not treated as a
constitutional necessity, but as a disruption to be neutralized. Courts are approached
not as a last resort, but as the only remaining one. And ordinary people learn
that doing the right thing can make them targets.
A democracy does not collapse
only when elections are cancelled. It collapses when truth cannot be spoken,
justice must be individually fought, and humanity is punished rather than
protected.
What we are witnessing is not
disorder. It is designed.
And when a system reaches a point
where facts are silenced, voters are contested, and compassion is criminalized,
the question is no longer whether democracy is under strain.
The question is how much of it remains.
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