By Sushil Kutty
Our Supreme Court is a fountainhead of stories. Even run-of-the-mill non-court reporters often court courts for stories to escape the spectre of a story-less days. Some of the stories are really interesting. Like, on February 12, there was the story of the Supreme Court observing that children of Rohingya refugees living in India had the right to education and healthcare.
This even as another Supreme Court bench questioned government “freebies” to laggards and sought to know if “we were creating a class of parasites?” The Rohingya, who had infiltrated into India, aren’t “parasites” but Indian citizens offered allurements to vote for this or that political party are, in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s language, “par-jeevi” — tapeworm, and the ringworm!
A bench of justices B R Gavai and A G Masih said freebies amounted to “disincentivizing people from working” and was “drying up the labour force”. The justices were hearing a plea on shelter homes for the homeless. ”We quite appreciate your concern for them but would it not be better to make them a part of the mainstream of society and permit them to contribute to the development of the nation?” Justice Gavai asked. “So, rather than promoting them to be a part of the mainstream of society by contributing to the development of the nation, are we not creating a class of parasites?”
The Supreme Court has been keeping an eye and an ear on happenings in the country. Elections keep popping up at irregular intervals and have caught the attention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, too. Think of Modi being asked about “parasites” and “freebies” by President Donald Trump with Vice President JD Vance asking, “Isn’t that a shame, what will I tell Usha?”
Usha is Vance’s wife and she wouldn’t like to be told that India’s multitudes include parasites. Prime Minister Modi had raised his voice against “freebies”. Then, on the eve of the Delhi assembly elections, the BJP rolled out a bunch of freebies of its own with Modi backing them to the hilt.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not loath to create “parasites” and it was hypocritical of the BJP to question Congress guarantees, and AAP freebies. Prime Minister Modi shouldn’t ever call the Congress “par-jeevi”.
Now that the Supreme Court has used the term “parasite”, giving it legitimacy, it should, just like “pariah”, also be struck off the list of lexicon. No one, neither politician nor judicial eminence, should be mentioning parasites and par-jeevi.
Even otherwise, these are not good days for Indians per se, especially after what happened at the “India has got Latent” show, unrepentant vulgarity, spoken and heard, along with the parasitical laughter. “Is this India that is Bharat?” and at a time when there was the Mahakumbh?”
Perhaps this is what is called “woke”? The usual suspect has been blamed — Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose 56″ chest shrunk to half its breadth after a picture of Modi with Ranveer Allahabadi surfaced on the Internet. The picture is in every social media and it’s a wonder Elon Musk and President Donald Trump haven’t reacted?
The two must be too busy running a country! What about Prime Minister Modi? An election has just concluded in Delhi and Modi’s party BJP won the elections but there’s no Chief Minister and a group of MLAs is waiting for the globe-trotting Prime Minister to get back to Delhi.
Meanwhile, Delhi is functioning without ‘Rule of Law’. Officers and men of the Delhi Police were roughed up by a newly elected MLA and his henchmen! Off all the gall and of all the haplessness of the police! What’s Prime Minister Modi’s Home Minister Amit Shah doing, he is the one supposed to be running the Delhi Police?
But then, Modi governments — first, second and third — have all been weak on ‘Rule of Law’, partly because the Prime Minister doesn’t follow up on a lot of things he puts in place. Like, for example, the law on triple-talaq. It’s there but it isn’t there!
No media has done a story on its aftermath and whether the law on triple-talaq is working or has it gone to the storage bin? Ditto with the UCC in Uttarakhand. It’s already a forgotten piece of legislation with videos in plenty of bearded men challenging Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami to “now implement it”.
Is anybody bothered? India under Modi has been standing at the exact same spot for 10 years and counting. BJP spokesperson Tuhin Sinha said “it’s a work in progress.” Why doesn’t the government take action if Rahul Gandhi is in cahoots with Soros? The answer: “It’s a “work in progress”? Nothing bothers the government.
And It doesn’t need freebies to turn people into parasites. Is there a government running the show? The BJP-led government at the Centre and the “double-engine ki sarkar” in BJP-ruled states have been breeding “parasites” with five kilos of rice/atta and lentils for 10 straight years in a row. A few of the “parasites” also get a roof over their head!
Wouldn’t we be better off if we gave up our citizenship and joined the Rohingya, at least the children will get guaranteed education and assured healthcare without the parasite label. Some of the Rohingya “refugees” have already got government-allotted accommodation, courtesy the Modi government?
Freebies like ‘Ladki Behan’ have been government-spinners for the BJP. The BJP government in Madhya Pradesh and the one in Maharashtra, where the BJP-led Mahayuti resorted to a ‘Ladki Behan’ version to forge a victory.
The Delhi Assembly elections spawned a plethora of freebies and the best or worst of it was Prime Minister Modi’s party BJP promising to continue with the AAP government’s “freebies” if the BJP won the elections, which it did!
There probably was a ‘Gujarat Model’ when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the Gujarat Chief Minister. But there has not been a “Modi Model of Governance” at the Centre, not now, not after 2014 and not after 2019. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been running India on a diet of free rations for 80 percent of Indians. Add a crore or more of the Rohingya and the gods will clap.
The helplessness of the Supreme Court against the freebie culture is apparent. The court is angry that there’s money for people “who don’t do any work” and come elections, it gets worse: “You declare Ladli Behna and other new schemes where you pay fixed amounts.”
The Delhi elections saw announcements galore including “we will pay 2,500 if we come to power.” The freebie issue has got the Supreme Court’s goat, which is highly entertaining for a gamut of Indians who had always thought that the Supreme Court “hardly cared” for the Great Unwashed. A Congress spokesperson asserted that the Constitution of India recognized every human-being’s right to India’s resources at all the times. The pat on the back never came. (IPA Service)
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