No mean comment ever had the power to unleash a storm as is now hitting the power edifices hard in the national capital. The snowballing protests against the NEET fiasco and arrogance of power as exemplified in Chief Justice Surya Kant’s labelling of the ever-swelling army of disgruntled unemployed youths as cockroaches are collectively sending a chill down the spines of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his team of ministers. While the angry youths seek the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, the movement set in motion by the newly formed Cockroach Janata Party has, after a few weeks’ gestation period, turned out to be a nightmare for the sleepy, corrupt establishment. The start of the Monsoon Session of Parliament at this precise juncture has come as a godsend for the movement that seeks restoration of sanctity in the government-conducted examinations that were repeatedly hijacked right under the nose of the Modi government, exposing its ineptitude.
An offer by the besieged Modi in Parliament on Thursday to set up fast-track courts to deal with question paper leaks is ludicrous. His government’s job, rather, is to ensure avoidance of such leaks altogether. Modi has, over the years, acquired a poor reputation for skirting issues by introducing extraneous factors into discussions in Parliament either to hide his ineptitude or to skilfully deflect attention from the central theme. The call to him was to clean up the Augean stables by removing the education minister and effecting system corrections to avoid future paper leaks. He is not ready for both. But what awaits him outside is perhaps a tempest, considering the present mood of the miffed students. The crowds outside swear they are ready to face the brute power of Amit Shah’s police as reinforcements of security forces in the national capital from other states are currently under way. Delhi remains paralysed in large parts with Metro Stations closed and bus services suspended to blunt the edge of protests. That Bollywood actors and activists like Arundhati Roy have come out in support of the students in the aftermath of detention of Sonam Wangchuk, now on the 26th day of his fast, adds a new weight to the snowballing protests.
It is a sign of the times and a sad commentary on the state of the justice dispensation system that chief justice Surya Kant took upon himself the task of handling a petition on Wednesday about police excesses filed by the Cockroach Janata Party, his own baby. Dignity, if a speck of it is still left, demanded that he shifted the case to some other learned judge and kept his own mouth shut. Kant’s latest rantings drew rebuke from the Congress and further brought down the dignity of the apex court. His boisterous talks only demonstrated the arrogance of power and the loosening of judicial dignity. The people who sweat it out to feed the exchequer and fill the stomachs and cash chests of those in authority deserve a fair deal from them. Modi’s failure to keep systems in proper shape, including that of the judiciary, has come back to haunt him now in the form of the CJP.
