Kallicharan case: A State excess fit for Suo Moto action by India’s judiciary

If Suo Moto was ever a legitimate course of action, the arrest of a saint by Chhattisgarh is right up the Supreme Court’s lane. 

The extremely popular saint Kalicharan Maharaj—one of his YouTube videos has garnered over 20 million views—was arrested by Chhattisgarh Police in Madhya Pradesh for abusing Mahatma Gandhi and speaking on Hindu-Muslim from a public platform in Raipur. All of his words could be read here. 

After initial charges under Section 505 (2) and 294 of CrPC, the Chhattisgarh Police is adding many more sections as an afterthought, including one of Sedition! If all charges are held true, the saint could be imprisoned for life. 

It’s a gross violation of fundamental rights under the Constitution. If the Supreme Court chooses to be a crane, head buried, Powers-that-be would stifle any contrarian view. It would be Stalinsque, citizens looking over the shoulder lest a Siberia is found in India for them. 

Consider:

1. Kalicharan Maharaj is accused of abusing Mahatma Gandhi. But that’s not new. Even the much revered BR Ambedkar termed Gandhi as treacherous and deceitful. Ambedkar even compared Gandhi to scoundrels. There are many such abuses Ambedkar hurled at Gandhi in a piece for a Marathi magazine Chittra. Don’t take my word for it—it’s in a volume of his works (Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar—writings and speeches, volume 17 Part II, Page 66). So how is a State fair on its citizens if its’ indifferent to similar “offence,” what if by a political forefather? Where is the case that Indian laws treat rich or poor, powerful and powerless as equal, as enshrined in the Constitution and whose watchguards are our judiciary?;

1. There are many in this country who view prime minister Narendra Modi as the best thing to have happened to India since independence. Yet he has been called “gandi naali ka keeda”, “ravan”, “chuha”, “bhasmasur”, “pagal kutta” and much worse by his detractors. So,  lets say, UP Police goes around arresting people, what case our arbiters have in quashing it if they are silent on Kalicharran Maharaj? After all, they too would be deemed like this saint to have violated Section 294 (obscene act in public); 
2. Then there is Section 505 (2), inciting one community against the other, which could invoke six years in jail for Kalicharan Maharaj. Now do we even need to recall what all the likes of Akbaruddin Owaisi and AAP MLA Amanatullah Khan etc have said in the past? Waaris Pathan anyone? Even a former external affairs minister comparing Hindutva to ISIS or Boko Haram is on the same slope. I mean who decides what is Hindutva? How would you avoid the charge that in the cloak of Hindutva, all you are doing is demonizing Hindus and hardening the stance of fundamentalists in Islam? Is it promoting communal harmony or hatred?;
3. Is it not excess of police, against established norms, when a person is picked from a different State stealthily, without taking the local police in confidence, and which amounts to infringing in other State’s territory, its mandate? Why would you avoid a norm and give rise to the suspicion that your charges are flimsy and motivated? India has A govt in one state, B in another, C in yet another and so on. Could their bitter rivalry be allowed to fetter citizenry and reduce police to an instrument of torture and intimidation against Constitutional rules and fundamental rights?;
4. Now there is this Sedition charge (Section 124A) against Kalicharan Maharaj. The sedition charge, as I understand it, is for a citizen who is creating disaffection towards the government. Now unless there is something else Kalicharan has said which is not in public domain, this suggests an overzealous Chhattisgarh Police. It’s muzzling the citizenry to whose service the State (legislature, executive, judiciary) is Constitutionally bound; 

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Now the rest of this piece isn’t meant for judiciary’s attention but for ours.

It’s a rife tactics these days to commit a crime but produce an evidence which fits the rope to someone else’ neck. Now this Dharam Sansad, where Kalicharan Maharaj gave his speech, was organized by one Neelkanth Tripathi, who is the state president of Sharad Pawar’s NCP in Chhattisgarh. 

We all know that in Maharashtra, NCP shares power with Congress which in turn rules Chhattisgarh. We are privy to how 26/11 in UPA times was tried to be passed off as an act of Hindu fundamentalism but to their ill luck, Kasab was caught. So when a speaker could be deemed guilty what stops you from detaining the organizer?

Those who are accusing BJP of the charge could very well be the persons who orchestrated it in the first place. If NCP has nothing to do with it, how’s its BJP behind Dharam Sansad in Haridwar even though all you have is an ex-BJP member attending the event briefly. Ashwini Upadhyay didn’t organize the Haridwar though Raipur, we now know, was indeed organized by a NCP prominent.  

Readers, please also be mindful how the Left-Liberals in this country frame the discourse. They are baying for blood of Yeti Narsimhanand Saraswati and Kalicharan Maharaj but have buried their heads in the sand on Maulana Saad Kandhalvi, the Markaz chief who Delhi Police sought out for his role in Tablighi Jamaat Covid-19 horror in the Capital and who, after nearly two years, is yet to submit himself to the law-enforcers of this country! 

This is the set which puts all onus of tolerance, caste, patriarchy etc on Hindus and no such ask on anyone else. This is a set which raises hell on a hate speech but when actual lynchings happen, as they did in Punjab or at Singhu border,  they yawn in boredom.