Katju’s tirades
JUSTICE Markandey Katju, a former judge of the Indian Supreme Court who is chairman of the Press Council of India (PCI), is known for making stunning statements. He has been in the news for his ‘words of wisdom’ especially after his retirement from the Indian judiciary in 2011.
Recently, he seized our attention by calling Pakistan a “fake” country created, according to him, artificially by the British who planted the “bogus two-nation theory” in the Subcontinent. He also predicted that “in the next 15-20 years India and Pakistan would reunite and a strong, powerful, secular and modern minded government would come to power.”
I thought such a freaky statement could come only from a man of a traditional fanatical mindset. I was wrong. If anything, Katju represents the very antitheses of Hindu fanaticism. He disapproves of religion-based oppression and discrimination in his country. He was perhaps the only Indian public figure to have stood up against Bal Thackeray’s ‘bhumiputra’ (sons of the soil) tyranny.
While everyone – from political leaders to film stars, cricketers and others – were falling over one another to pay tribute to the Shiv Sena leader after his death, Katju alone registered a voice of dissent saying he could not pay any tribute to the late Bal Thackeray.
From his publicly stated views, one finds him often making controversial, at times even inflammatory, statements. On communal issues, however, he has always espoused tolerance and harmony. On looking at his credentials as a judge, one finds him a man variously described as “brilliant”, “bold”, “one of the best”, as well as “a maverick”.
His courtroom was said to be one of the fastest in India, disposing off 100-plus matters in a week. On constitutional questions, he has been an outspoken proponent of judicial restraint. In cases of ‘personal liberty’, he was always a judicial activist who stood for the rights of religious minorities, condemning oppression and discrimination.
After retirement from his long judicial career in 2011, Katju seems to be relishing his newfound ‘freedom of expression’ as head of the highest statutory press body in the country. Making full use of this platform, he seems to have an opinion on almost everything – the state of the media, failures of the government, awards to film stars, irrelevance of cricketers, Indians and their idiocy, the ‘fake’ nation of Pakistan, and the ‘undemocratic’ performance of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Dubbed by the BJP as Congress more than Congress, Katju doesn’t forgive Gujarat’s Chief Minister Narendra Modi for his failure to prevent the 2002 Gujarat riots that killed over 2,000 Muslims.
Katju doesn’t seem to be inhibited by any sense of propriety or even the quasi-judicial nature of the office he now holds. His war of words goes on unabated. Two months ago at a seminar in Delhi, he stupefied everyone by saying that at least 90 percent of Indians are “idiots” who can easily be misled by mischievous elements in the name of religion.
“I say ninety percent of Indians are idiots. You people don’t have brains in your heads... It is so easy to take you for a ride,” he was blunt enough to tell his people. According to him, all that somebody has to do is make a mischievous gesture of disrespect to a place of worship to make people start fighting with each other.
Katju told his audience that before 1857 there was no communalism in India. “Today 80 percent Hindus are communal and 80 per- cent Muslims are communal. This is the harsh truth, bitter truth that I am telling you. How is it that in 150 years you have gone backwards instead of moving forward because the English kept injecting poison?” Katju said.
“The policy that emanated from London after the mutiny in 1857 was that there is only one way to control this country, and that is to make Hindus and Muslims fight each other,” he said, asking the Indians “to understand the whole game and not remain fools.”
Worse, he refuses to withdraw his remarks that some people in India found ‘hurtful’ and instead threatens to raise his estimated figure of Indian ‘idiocy’ from 90 to 95 percent. The Indian media is also up in arms against his ‘sweeping’ views on the quality of the Indian media and media professionals.
In an interview to CNN-IBN, Katju