Lawyers From India

"Things are going from bad to worse; innocent lives are being lost; the country is almost in a state of consternation; riots are taking place not only in Malabar, but in all parts of India; every where there are seen forces of disruption and disorganisation; law-abiding citizens are not in a position to do their ordinary work; there is a state of havoc and intense anxiety."

"The Muslims fully exploited the eagerness of the Hindus for Muslim support in their political struggle against the British, and grew more and more truculent in their attitude, demanding further extension of the principle of communal representation and increase in the appointment of Muslims in all State services. Agitation for all these was carried on not only in India but also in England. A British branch of the Muslim League was opened in London in 1908, with Sir Syed Ameer Ali as Chairman, in order to enlighten public opinion in England regarding the separatist tendencies of the Indian Muslims. In his inaugural address Ameer Ali observed: “It is impossible for them (the Musalmans) to merge their separate communal existence in that of any other nationality or strive for the attainment of their ideals under the aegis of any other organization than their own”. (158ff)"

"The Indian Muslims are first Muslims, then Indians. According to the Muslim leaders like Syeed Amir Ali, if the foreign Islamic countries invade India, the duties of the Indian Muslims will be to help those Muslim invaders against India, because ‘Muslim identity’ is more important to them."

"Who shall say that the Muslims of India may not, under the auspices of a great European power, be destined to restore to western and central Asia something of what their forefathers gave to Europe in the Middle Ages."

"Mr. Asaf Ali wrote to Pandit Shyamji in September, 1909: “I am staying with some Muslim friends who do not like me to associate with nationalists; and, to save many unpleasant consequences, I do not want to irritate them unnecessarily.” Thus the Muslim antagonism to the Freedom Movement of India dates back to its beginning itself. (151ff)"

"And, this is why we need to support @Wikipedia! Brahmins hate knowledge spreading! Concealing resources, denying education and punishing for learning is an age-old Hindu culture. Become a ’HERO’ of #FreeInformation by donating [to wikipedia]."

"The Supreme Court on Friday came down heavily on former BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma over her Prophet remark. The top court said "her loose tongue" has "set the entire country on fire" and asked her to apologise to the nation for her remarks. While hearing a plea filed by Nupur Sharma seeking transfer of all FIRs related to her remarks to Delhi, the Supreme Court said, "She actually has a loose tongue and has made all kinds of irresponsible statements on TV and set the entire country on fire. Yet, she claims to be a lawyer of 10 years standing. She should have immediately apologised for her comments to the whole country." The court refused to entertain her plea and said she has "threatened the security of the nation". "This statement by Nupur Sharma is responsible for the unfortunate killing in Udaipur," Justice Pardiwala said, referring to the beheading of a Hindu man by two men over a social media post supporting Nupur Sharma. The court also said that her remarks against Prophet Muhammad were made either for "cheap publicity, a political agenda or for some nefarious activities". "She has a threat or she has become a security threat? The way she has ignited emotions across the country. This lady is single-handedly responsible for what is happening in the country," the court added."

"My own personal experience with @Wikipedia? During Delhi Elections 2020 a well-meaning contributor warned me multiple times that my page was under severe attack to be taken down by an opposite ideology camp. And it did happen."

"“Appeasement never works. It’ll only make things worse. So, my dear friends from India, don’t be intimidated by islamic countries. Stand up for freedom and be proud and steadfast in defending your politician Nupur Sharma, who spoke the truth about Muhammad,” he said in another tweet. ... “It is ridiculous that Arab and Islamic countries are angered by Indian politician Nupur Sharma for speaking the truth about Prophet Muhammad who indeed married Aisha when she was six years old and consumed the marriage when she was nine. Why does India apologize?” he wrote on Twitter."

"Should I start mocking claims of flying horses or the flat-earth theory as mentioned in your Quran? You are marrying a six year-old girl and having sex with her when she turned nine. Who did it? Prophet Muhammad. Should I start saying all these things that are mentioned in your scriptures?"

"The Islamic State claimed responsibility for an attack on a Sikh temple in Afghanistan that killed one community member and a Taliban fighter, saying it was retaliation for insults against the Prophet Mohammed... Protests in several Muslim countries were sparked by a spokeswoman for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist party comments earlier this month about the relationship between the prophet and his youngest wife. .. IS said one of its fighters “penetrated a temple for Hindu and Sikh polytheists in Kabul, after killing its guard, and opened fire on the pagans inside with his machine gun and hand grenades”."

"We need to work together, we need to snatch our Azadi. Time has now come to achieve Azadi, if we cannot achieve it, we should snatch it. They were mocking us for hiding behind women (during anti-CAA protests). Do not forget, these are lionesses who has come out yet and you are already afraid of these women. Be aware and know what happens if we all (Muslims) unite together... We are 15 crores but be aware we can still dominate over 100 crore Hindus and imagine what we can do to you."

"“Afzal Guru was given death punishment by the law. The matter went to the Supreme Court, and even a review was done but he was found to be involved in anti-national and terrorist activities.” “To win the election, will you talk about breaking India? It's good that his real face has just been exposed. The people of Kashmir and BJP won't let his conspiracy to weaken India be successful.”"

"The move is significant as it may make available several vaccines, including those made by Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, in India with certain conditions. Coming down heavily on Gandhi’s demand to fast-track vaccine approvals, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had tweeted, “After failing as a part-time politician, has Rahul Gandhi switched to full time lobbying? First he lobbied for fighter plane companies by trying to derail India’s acquisition programme. Now he is lobbying for pharma companies by asking for arbitrary approvals for foreign vaccines.”"

"These fact checkers have just one agenda: Hate Modi. They don’t want to criticise, they just want to hate Modi. And these people are financially supported by such people who want to see country split into pieces. Is it not our job to monitor this? In a country of 130 crores, can’t you get neutral objective fact-checkers? These questions will be asked and they should be asked."

"There are many fact-checkers employed by the company. For example, if someone tweets something, these fact-checkers check whether it is right or wrong. Who are these fact-checkers? Neither are their names made public, nor there is any information on how they have been appointed. These people have the responsibility of regulating what 130 crore Indians can tweet."

"What you do is your job and your right. But how you do it should be made public. That’s why the government had to release an elaborate response yesterday. A US-based for-profit making company is lecturing us on democracy? They are teaching us about the freedom of expression? This is unacceptable."

"“The capital punishment awarded to Afzal Guru was part of legal and constitutional process, which ought to have taken place earlier.” “Supreme Court had upheld his death sentence and again in 2007 had rejected his review petition. The question of delay remains important.”*"

"Mamata Ji, you are the same person who said about CAA that we will not allow Hindu, Sikh, Parsi or Christian refugees who suffered violence to enter Bengal. Mamata ji is always against CAA, but CAA has absolutely nothing to do with the citizens of the country. India, be Hindu or Muslim."

"Social media companies already have appointed fact checkers. Who are these fact-checkers and how are they appointed? There are some fact-checkers whose main agenda is drive hatred against Modi."

"The importance of the institution will be better understood if we take into consideration the enormous extent of waqf/land or, the possessions of the Dead Hand, in the various countries of Islam. In the Turkey of 1925, three-fourths of the arable land, estimated at 50,000,000 Turkish pounds, was endowed as waqf."

"‘It must be asserted firmly,’...‘no matter what the Ulema say, that he who sincerely affirms that he is a Muslim, is a Muslim; no one has the right to question his beliefs and no one has the right to excommunicate him. That dread weapon, the fatwa of takfir, is a ridiculous anachronism. It recoils on the author, without admonishing or reforming the errant soul. Belief is a matter of conscience, and this is the age which recognizes freedom of conscience in matters of faith. What may be said after proper analysis is that a certain person’s opinions are wrong, but not that “he is a Kafir.”‘"

"At the end of the 19th century, one-half of the cultivable land in Algiers was dedicated. Similarly, in Tunis one-third and in Egypt one-eighth, of the cultivated soil was ‘in the ownership of God’. But it was already realised by the beginning of the 20th century, first by France and later in Turkey and Egypt, that the institution of waqf was in some respects a challenge to the natural growth and development of the national economy."

"‘My solution,’ Fyzee wrote, ‘is (a) to define religion and law in terms of twentieth century thought, (b) to distinguish between religion and law in Islam, and (c) to interpret Islam on this basis and give a fresh meaning to the faith of Islam. If by this analysis some elements that we have regarded as part of the essence of Islam have to be modified, or given up altogether, then we have to face the consequences. If, on the other hand, belief in the innermost core can be preserved and strengthened, the operation although painful will produce health and vigour in an anaemic body which is languishing without a fresh ideal to guide it.’"

"‘It is necessary to add,’... ‘that true Islam cannot thrive without freedom of thought in every single matter, in every single doctrine, in every single dogma.’"

"We must consider briefly the advantages and disadvantages of the institution. The religious motive of waqf is the origin of the legal fiction that waqf property belongs to Almighty God; the economic ruin that it brings about is indicated by the significant phrase The Dead Hand.’ Waqf to some extent ameliorates poverty, but it has also (another) side. When a father provides a certain income for his children and descendants, the impulse to seek education and the initiative to improve their lot gradually decrease."

"Such gradual modifications, even of the rules of Shariah do not destroy the essential truth of the faith of Islam. On a truer and deeper examination of the matter, it will be found that certain portions of the Shariah constitute only an outer crust which enclose a kernel—the central core of Islam—which can be preserved intact only by re-interpretation and restatement in every age and in every epoch of civilization. The responsibility to determine afresh what are the durable and what the changeable elements in Islam rests on us at the present time. The conventional theology of the Ulema does not satisfy the minds and the outlook of the present century. A re-examination, re-interpretation, reformulation and restatement of the essential principles of Islam is a vital necessity of our age."

"‘Some ten years ago (the essay was written in 1959), there were disturbances in Pakistan and an inquiry was instituted. The Chief Justice of Pakistan questioned several Ulema regarding Islam and its essential tenets; and according to his analysis, some of the Ulema were, in the opinion of their fellow-Ulema, unbelievers. Such is the degree to which fossilization of thought has taken place in our faith. Islam, in its orthodox interpretation, has lost the resilience needed for adaptation to modem thought and modem life.’"

"‘It is the writer’s conviction,’ he wrote, ‘that gradually all individual and personal laws, based upon ancient principles governing the social life of the community, will either be abolished or so modified as to bring them within a general scheme of laws applicable to all persons, regardless of religious differences...’"

"‘It closes the Gate of Interpretation. It lays down that legists and jurisconsults are to be divided into certain categories and no freedom of thought is allowed.’"

"‘Iqbal and Abdur Rahim amongst recent Indian writers have rebelled against this doctrine, and yet none ventures to face the wrath of the Ulema.’"

"‘What we have to face,’ he wrote, ‘is that a Muslim living in a secular or a modern state must have the freedom and independence to obey fresh laws; and new legal norms, whether related to the Shariah or not, will have to be formulated. It is becoming increasingly clear that something good and legal may be entirely outside the rule of Shariah, just as, surprisingly enough, some rules which are unjust and indefensible may be within the orbit of acts permitted by the Shariah. I refer to some rules in the Hanafi law of talaq (divorce) in India, to take a simple example.’"

"Charitable aid often keeps people away from industry, and lethargy breeds degeneration. Furthermore, some people who desire fame by making foundations and endowments obtain property by shady means, amounting even to extortion and exploitation. Agricultural land deteriorates in the course of time; no one is concerned with keeping it in good trim; the yield lessens, and even perpetual leases come to be recognised. In India, instances of the mismanagement of waqfs and of the destruction of waqf have often reached the courts."

"‘It must be realized,... that religious practices have become soulless ritual; that large number of decent Muslims have ceased to find solace or consolation in the traditional forms of prayer and fasting; that good books on religion are not being written for modern times; that women are treated badly, economically and morally, and that political rights are denied to them even in fairly advanced countries by the fatwas of reactionary Ulema; that Muslims, even where they constitute the majority in a country, are often economically poor, educationally backward, spiritually bankrupt and insist on “safeguards”; that the beneficial laws of early Islam have in many instances fallen behind the times; and that the futile attempt to plant an Islamic theocracy in any modern state or fashion life after the pattern of early Islam is doomed to failure.’ ... ‘the time for heart-searching has come. Islam must be reinterpreted, or else its traditional form may be lost beyond retrieve.’"

"‘The law of marriage in Islam, with certain important reservations, is beneficial to women; and so is the law of inheritance,’... ‘Why is it that almost everywhere in Islamic countries women have been denied rights by custom over immovable property? That is so in India, Indonesia, Egypt, Persia, and North Africa. And what is more disturbing is that not only is woman denied her Koranic rights but she is considered inferior to man and not fit for certain political rights. Travel in Muslim countries demonstrates the painful fact that woman is considered the plaything of man and seldom a life-companion, co-worker, or helpmate. It is not enough to brush this aside by saying that a particular practice is un-Islamic or contrary to the spirit of Islam. It is necessary to face facts, to go to the root of the matter, to give up inequitable interpretations, and to re-educate the people.’"

"Asaf A.A. Fyzee was a distinguished scholar, author of the well-known Outlines of Muhammadan Law, the seventh print of the fourth edition of which was published by the Oxford University Press in 1993. His succinct book, a gem of lucidity and courage, A Modern Approach to Islam, glows with the passion to salvage Muslims, and just as much with exasperation at what has been made of the shariah, and through that of Muslim society by the ulema."

"‘The greatest gift of the modern world to man is freedom,’... ‘—freedom to think, freedom to speak, freedom to act.’"

"Mighty editors and TV stars of Lutyens' Delhi virtually became Sonia's public relations agents. So the picture created by the media was of a highly intelligent, compassionate political leader whose only reason for being in public life was her desire to do something for India's 'poor'. They knew that she was India's de facto prime minister but nobody ever wrote this, just as nobody ever wrote that her National Advisory Council was more powerful than poor Dr Manmohan Singh's cabinet. They knew that Rahul was apolitical and confused about economic and governance issues, but they kept quiet about these things and accepted him as the heir by birth to the democratic throne of India."

"When Sonia Gandhi's government came back to power for a second term, nobody was more delighted than the denizens of Delhi's drawing rooms. They pretended that their support for Sonia was because of their 'secular' and 'socialist' convictions. But as someone who understood this milieu well, I knew it was really because the Dynasty represented for them a vindication of their class and confirmation that the people of that India that lay beyond their tiny, elite, English-speaking world was as certain as they were that India was ruled best when it was ruled by its natural-born ruling class. Prime ministers from the wilds of Gandhiji’s 'real India' like Deve Gowda, Charan Singh and Chandrashekhar had shown that they did not have the mass appeal that the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty did. 'You see, dear, Sonia may well come from a humble background, but you have to admit that she is more like a maharani than most maharanis. She has learned how to rule.'"

"The reason I quote this sycophantic comment is because it reflects perfectly the consensus in smoke-filled newspaper offices and in Delhi's television studios. And Sonia, reserved to the point of being uneasy with conversation of any kind, used this to her advantage when it came to handling the media. She evolved a policy whereby she refused to talk to journalists except those who were carefully vetted as supportive and obedient. The kind that may have asked her questions about India's stand on important international issues or big political and economic problems were never allowed near her. The media was most helpful in this exercise. In newsrooms and TV studios I seemed always to run into some editor or columnist who had just come from 10 Janpath. You could tell that they had almost before they said anything in her support. No sooner did they get that invitation to tea in 10 Janpath than hard-boiled reporters would acquire so changed an expression on their faces that jokes began to be made about how 'one cup of tea with Sonia Gandhi could change the DNA of a journalist'."

"Sonia knew nothing of Indian politics but what troubled me more on that morning of her victory was that I knew well that the India she knew, and I am not at all sure loved, was an India whose boundaries did not extend beyond the drawing rooms of Lutyens' Delhi. It was an India of memsahibs and sahibs, big bungalows and ayahs and holidays in Corbett Park or in the summer months somewhere in the hills. The vast, turbulent nation that lay beyond the framework of this dreary canvas she knew nothing of. In all the years that she lived in Delhi as a prime minister's daughter-in-law and wife I never once saw her show concerns that could be described as social, except if this word were to be used in the context of social secretaries and dinner parties."

"Everyone knew that Sonia Gandhi was India's real prime minister right from the moment in 2004 that Dr Manmohan Singh was chosen as her proxy, but her friends in the media – and their ranks were legion – continued to perpetuate the lie that she never interfered in policy. Ministers openly defied the prime minister and still they pretended that India had a real government instead of one appointed by someone whose only political qualification was that she married into a certain family. Editors who would tear government policies to shreds in their columns would never blame them on 10 Janpath. Sonia became as powerful as she did, and without any accountability, with the media playing an insidious, irresponsible role. When I asked famous TV anchors and colleagues in the print media why they accepted so compliantly her absolute refusal to give interviews they had no answers, but later I discovered that they had private access not just to her but to her children. This was enough to keep them quiet. In my own case I continued to point out every instance of direct interference by Sonia in government policy and was reviled for it. And because I was in a minority of one I soon became a target. After Shekhar Gupta resigned from the editorship of the Indian Express he told me that she had personally asked him to stop my column on the grounds of what I wrote against her."

"Sonia and I had been friends in the days before Rajiv became prime minister. Tensions built up when I criticized his policies, and our friendship ended completely when she entered politics and showed that she wanted very much to become prime minister herself. There was nothing personal about my objections to her political role. They were based on my conviction that an Italian prime minister of India would seriously damage the already fragile sense of self-worth that most Indians have. Centuries of being ruled by foreigners have caused a congenital kink in the Indian psyche... but if there is reverence there is also shame at this reverence, and in retrospect I believe that if Sonia Gandhi had agreed to become prime minister in 2004, she would have certainly not won a second term for her government. At every turn she would have been accused of being the 'foreign woman', and every calamity would have been blamed on her personally. So she was well advised by her 'inner voice' to reject the job when she was offered it in 2004. This transformed her into the Mother Teresa of politics in the eyes of not just ordinary Indians but even senior political commentators. In an exchange I had on CNN-IBN with the venerable editor Vinod Mehta on Karan Thapar's show once, he said, 'Indians love people who sacrifice high office and this is why Sonia Gandhi is so loved.' She had only sacrificed accountability, not power, I reminded him, and he had no response, but he was not the only one who sang Sonia's praises after her 'sacrifice'. Since that day of 'sacrifice', sycophants had in the name of protecting secularism crawled out of everywhere. Journalists, bureaucrats, businessmen, movie stars and political leaders united to praise Sonia's 'sacrifice'. ... She spoke to nobody until she appeared in Parliament's Central Hall to announce to her newly elected MPs that her 'inner voice' had advised her against becoming prime minister and she intended to obey it. Her announcement caused hysterical shrieks and wails to rise in that high-ceilinged hall as men and women elected by the people of India to represent them in Parliament behaved like children suddenly bereaved of a parent."

"Mohit, as an Indira loyalist, had a special regard for her heirs. But his opinion that Sonia should enter politics was also based on his conviction that without a Nehru-Gandhi family member at the top, the Congress party would splinter and wither away. This view was also encouraged by members of the Delhi durbar—a 'power elite', to use sociologist C.Wright Mill's term, comprising civil servants, diplomats, editors, intellectuals and business leaders who had worked with or been close to the regimes of Nehru, Indira and Rajiv. Some of them inhabited the many trusts and institutions that the Nehru-Gandhi family controlled. They had all profited in one way or another, over the years, from their loyalty to the Congress's 'first family'."

"India in the 1970s was a land of horrible poverty. The death rate for newborn babies was more than 100 per thousand. In Gandhiji's 'real India', it was hard to find a village of 'pucca' houses or people in those villages who could write their names. These were things never discussed in the drawing rooms in which Rajiv and Sonia spent their evenings, so the India of poverty, disease, deprivation and dirt never intruded into the life of the woman who would one day become de facto Empress of India. Later she loved saying in the handful of interviews she gave that she had never understood why anyone saw her as a foreigner because that is not how she saw herself. And the carefully vetted interviewers never asked why then she had become an Indian citizen only after her husband became a politician."

"The creation of the NAC and Sonia's choice of its members was explained away as a recognition of the growing importance and influence of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), that claimed to represent civil society, in policymaking. However, in actual practice it created a parallel policy structure that sought to project Sonia as the voice of civil society and Dr Singh as the representative of government. While Dr Singh realized that he had no option but to live with this situation, and never complained about it, it always seemed to me that he was not too comfortable with it, even if he was willing to see merit in the ideas that came out of the NAC."

"The creation of the NAC in June 2004 was the first overt sign to me that Sonia's 'renunciation' of power was more of a political tactic than a response to a higher calling, or to an 'inner voice', as she put it at the time. Admittedly, she chose not to head the UPA government even after leading the Congress to electoral success in the 2004 General Elections, instead putting forward the name of Dr Singh. But, while power was delegated, authority was not. Her decisions, early on, to try and appoint a principal secretary to the PM of her choosing—the retired Tamilian official who had worked with Rajiv but declined Sonia's invitation—and to place her trusted aide Pulok Chatterjee in the PMO, were aimed at ensuring a degree of control over government. Of course, she had a decisive say in the allocation of portfolios."

"The manner of creation of the NAC, by executive order, was no different from Nehru's creation of the Planning Commission. Many senior Congress leaders had felt unhappy about Nehru's decision to create a non-constitutional policy advisory body outside the Cabinet system, even though Nehru appointed himself as chairman of the Commission. John Mathai even resigned as finance minister from Nehru's Cabinet in protest. Yet, no one in the UPA government raised any such issues about the status and role of the NAC, a body of which the PM was not even formally the chairperson."

"A couple of years before Sonia Gandhi took charge of the Congress, the communist ideologue Mohit Sen wrote a persuasive column in the Times of India underlining the historic role Sonia would be called upon to play and urging her to do so. The first woman president of the Indian National Congress, he argued, was also a European woman, Annie Besant. The party, he stressed, should once again be led by another. When Mohit's column landed on my table—I was then the editorial page editor of the Times of India—I was amused and surprised. Mohit was an 'uncle', a close friend of my father from their time together in Hyderabad, and the person from whom I received my first lessons in Marxism. I called Mohit and told him that his suggestion that Sonia should take charge of the Congress was an outlandish idea. As the political party of India's freedom struggle, surely it had to have a future independent of the Nehru-Gandhi family? How could he suggest that Sonia become the party's president merely because she was Rajiv's widow? I told him people would laugh at him for his political naivete and suggested the column be junked. He was most offended and threatened to go elsewhere if I refused to publish his piece. Finally, I agreed to use it because of my affection and regard for him. Mohit's column was the first credible public call for Sonia's induction into public life."

"Their strategy was simple. Moral domination. Nehru was a thinker. But Rajiv, Sonia, and Rahul are no intellectuals. They took a different route. They redefined morality. Secularism included. Anti-Congress was new immoral. Pro-Hindu became anti-Muslim. India was morally polarized. Morality is subjective. No one can say with guarantee what is pure morality. Masses were forced to choose between moral standards (Secularism, unity in diversity, inclusive etc.) and quality of life (development). People who wanted quality of life were made to feel guilty. Hindus who wanted to celebrate their religious freedom were made to feel guilty. Muslims who wanted to be part of mainstream India were made to feel guilty. They filled India’s psyche with fear, hate and guilt. They hated all indigenous, grassroots thinkers. They hated Sardar Patel, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Morarji Desai, Charan Singh, Chandrashekhar, P.V. Narsimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and now Modi. They are the land grabbers of Sainik Farms and Adarsh Societies of India. They run NGOs. They run media. They coin useless and irrelevant jargon to confuse the masses. They have designations but no real jobs. They are irrelevant NRIs who want us to see a reality which doesn’t exist. They want a plebiscite in Kashmir. They defend stone-pelters. They want Maoists to participate in mainstream politics. They want Tejpal to be freed. Yaqub to be pardoned. But they want Modi to be hanged. They are the hijackers of national morality. Secularism included. They are the robbers of Indian treasury. They are the brokers of power. They are the pimps of secularism. They are the Intellectual Mafia."