Hindu Rashtra benefits from the miserable underfunding of the Indian judiciary leading to what is objectively speaking a dysfunctional and for the poor more or less non-functional judiciary.
The millions of cases pending at all levels of the Indian judiciary benefit Narendra Modi and Amit Shaw’s Hindu Rashtra project by encouraging extra-judicial settlement of disputes.
In a functioning system an amicable dispute resolution by a friendly neutral person helping between neighbours and other disputants would be a positive contribution to lightening the burden on lawyers and the courts.
But as the Indian judiciary has basically collapsed, with millions of litigants in the process of waiting year upon year for their cases to be tried, the Sangh Parivar has stepped in with extra judicial killings, obscurantist self-proclamations of retarded social rules and militant enforcement of Hindutva prejudices.
There is collusion between BJP/RSS politicians, BJP/RSS lawyers and BJP/RSS male strongmen in the creation of a society run by social and cultural and physical coercion. Women and children especially are being ruled by men harking back to social control over the minds and bodies of weaker persons by men who believe in medieval religious Hindu fatwas including self-proclaimed punishments for non-existent crime of not listening to elders and Alpha males including incarceration in the home without trial, rape and sexual molestation, extrajudicial killings by police with the sanction of Chief Ministers, deprivation of fundamental rights of all kinds including not sending the child to school, depriving the woman of food, regular beating of members of the household, and so on. Recently Modi and Shaw’s Yogis in Uttar Pradesh let off 20’000 politicians for their assorted crimes.
Recently in Switzerland an interesting debate took place amongst lawyers regarding the practice of top judges at federal and state courts being appointed by Parliament through the political parties, as reported here (https://www.infosperber.ch/FreiheitRecht/Schweizer-Richter-als-Mit-Finanzierer-der-Parteien). It was not the appointment of top judges by Parliament that was questioned, but the fact that Judges if they want their political party to nominate them are obliged to pay an informal annual modern “Paulette” contribution of several thousand Swiss Franks a year to their party. The author of the paper that is being much debated suggests that this informal practice is illegal under the constitution and should be dealt with by providing public funding to political parties.
What drew my attention to the debate however was the following. In the course of the discussion of the issue one Swiss professor commented that the 38 Judges in the Supreme Court in Switzerland are overworked as they have to decide one case a day and participate in two other decisions every working day. Quel horreur! If we compare this to the number of cases listed for hearing in the Supreme Court of India alone today 23 January 2018 we find that 71 matters are listed with the Registrar and the 25 Justices sitting in 11 courts today have 131 cases to be decided in their chambers and 105 cases listed for hearing. That’s nine and a half cases per Supreme Court Justice today. It is more than likely that Judges and Magistrates at High Courts and District Courts and other courts have as many or more every day. Unless she or he has massive research back up and pre trial preparatory time, no judge can do justice to a case in what would end up being just one hour per case or less.
Unless the next Union Government in India that hopefully is not BJP overthrows the limitations of state financing imposed by the FRBMA2003, the judiciary is certainly going to continue in its terminal decline to the benefit of anti-constitutional Hindu Rashtra and to the detriment of citizens.
Anandi Sharan was born in Switzerland, lives in Bangalore and last year worked in Araria District Bihar, India. She works on trying to find the best money system to help people adapt to climate change especially in India.