Justice delayed is justice denied!

Indian Predator: Murder in a Courtroom (2022)

Documentary; Netflix

Humans thought living in big numbers protected them from the elements, predators and even enemies. Security concerns were taken care of by the individual community itself. It was jungle justice with no higher justice to recourse. Might decided what was right!

As communities coalesced into country-states, the job of security and protection was outsourced to the State. Suddenly there was no reason for the average citizen to hold powerful weapons. The duty to apprehend and punish wrongdoers was outsourced to State-owned agencies. These agencies were supposed to protect all levels of society, the powerful and powerless alike. It looks all nice on paper, but in reality, the mission statements of these agents are mere rhetorics to pacify the vote bank. The minorities and the weak can only cry foul, fill up the newspapers and breaking news segments and spit on the system.

People will bear with the imperfections of the system. Despite its follies, they believe that God and leaders will soon realise their shortcomings to rectify their errors. At a particular point of no return, the bow will break, and there will be no turning back. Justice must be seen to be done. Justice delayed is justice denied.

This must be what happened to Kasturba Nagar's dwellers in Nagpur, Maharashtra. Since 1999, a group of rowdies had been terrorising the inhabitants. They were brazenly beating up people and molesting girls there. Reports to local police did not achieve much. They became bolder. Akku Yadav is the de-facto leader of the pack. After a brawl, he killed one of his friends. Akku was imprisoned but was released after 10 months, bolder and blunter in his attacks on his victims. He terrorised the women, molesting, harassing and even raping them in the open. The people of Nagar were just too frightened to retaliate.

One brave lady, Asha Bhagat, went against Akku only to be stabbed to death. Another young student was almost killed by Akku but was saved by her quick thinking and when all her neighbours came to her rescue. This act empowered them. When Akku was produced in court, all the ladies of the colony planned an ambush on him. On August 13th 2004, over 200 people from Kasturba Nagar made their way to the Nagpur courts. They locked him up in the courthouse, sprinkled chilli powder into his eyes and mutilated every part of his body, including his ears and genitalia.

This took a big dent in the integrity and competence of the policing and justice systems of the country. When people take the law into their own hands, and the State has no control over protecting its own officers, how can it protect the country? The authorities arrested five random ladies for the murder of Akku. This prompted 200 over ladies from the colony to turn up at the local police station, all confessing to murdering Akku. 50 ladies were later arrested, but the justice system's slow wheel took ten long years to acquit them of all crimes.

The action of the members to ambush the court show and kill an accused in broad daylight exposed the impotence of the police and the courts. They could help but charge the authorities of caring less for them because of their depressed class status and perhaps their generally lower castes too. The purists insist that their actions could not be condoned and the State machinery must be respected. Detractors question the relevance of government servants who are only there to serve the upper echelon of society. Somewhere along the way, the Naxalites are accused of instigating the public to create anar
chy.

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We did it our way - Malaysian Tsunami!

Probably the most iconic picture of the times. 
The hands that were to protect the people 
are used to prevent the rights of the member 
of the public to exercise his democratic rights. 
Dr Streram Sinnasamy being prevented from 
submitting his nomination papers for failing to 
display the commission's identity tag (which 
was not given to him in the first place). 
This image and many like this must have 
evoked emotions so compelling to move 61 
years of a single rule party. 

Credit: Free Malaysia

A commonly uttered colloquial Tamil proverb goes, "you cannot hide a whole wax gourd under your serving of rice!" Once you start eating your rice, your deliciously spiced gourd will undoubtedly reveal itself. A lie cannot be hidden from public knowledge forever. Eventually, the truth will tell itself, sooner or later.

When the whole world was hurling abuses and accusation against the leaders of the country, the people stayed quiet. When nations ridiculed us, they kept mum. When day to day living became difficult, they persevered. When new taxes stared their ugly head under the pretext of saving the nation, they sacrificed. When the taxmen came knocking and demanding, they relented. When the stories were spun again and again to make them look like fools, they must have wised up. But they had a funny of showing it or rather hiding it.

Or maybe, the party which claims to have received the Decree of Independence on a silver platter are using their colonial master's tactic of 'divide and rule'. Instigating hatred and fear amongst each other, everyone is left to their own devices in their safe cocoons. 

The heat and the long wait are just moments in time.
The results, the future of generation next, are history
in the making. © FG

When the standard response in any part of the world where public opinion meant something would be the widespread demonstrations of displeasure and violence, they did not go along that line. The ghost of racial riots in their infancy of independence remained vivid in their minds. They knew unrest did not augur well for businesses and they knew money moved mountains.

On the outside, the general public appeared aloof. A few incidents here and there showed the might of the ruling power. Perhaps, they were afraid. Maybe they did not care. Hyenas surviving on kills of the guardians of the lion's share came out on a prowl. The whole might of the executive, judiciary and legislative forces were mobilised to protect these vermins.

They also say 'still water runs deep' or 'don't expect the calm waters not to have crocodiles' and 'the potato grows in spite of the silence'. Beneath the surface, in homes, in cyberspace, despite the propaganda that the powers that be spruced, resentment actually ran deep. Social media lit with visuals of the tyranny of injustice and volumes of literature of wrongdoings.

Not the middle finger © FG

The sleeping giant of the silent public finally awoke from its seeming slumber of impassivity. In drones, they swarmed, from near and far, to their polling stations on that historic day 9th of May 2018. 

Malaysians finally spoke. They reject injustice. In a bittersweet moment, it seems that public has forgiven the 'dictator' who could be blamed for mending the rules to start the rot and elect their 93-year-young ex-PM as their new premier. The 93-year-young had earlier made his peace with his enemies and the people whom he had witch hunted during his tenure, and vice-versa the victims, for the common cause of saving a nation. 

Back in 2015 during an international marathon meet in Chiengmai, an Indonesian participant asked my friend, upon discovering that he is a Malaysian. "What is wrong with you people? Putting up with a kleptocratic authoritarian. In Indonesia, we would have just shot him!"

Now, I know the answer. We in Malaysia know the supreme power of the people. We believe in the democratic system. We did it our way, no bloodshed, no anarchy, no storming into palaces or the use of vigilantes. We used the ballot box. We are not apathetic to our surroundings after all. We are Malaysians. 

Credit: Lat

https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson 

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What you want vs. what you need

Just as much as people love to indulge in seemingly unproductive activities like shopping, I like to just stand idle in the street somewhere and see how the world go at that corner of the planet. In fact, it is a form of mental callisthenics that stimulates the mind to think what possibly happened behind the persona that people portray as they walk head held high in confidence.

Down in Amritsar, Punjab, where the land is fertile, and the name of the town takes after the substance, honey, that has healing qualities and are soothing to the palate, my friends decided to bring home some of its produce.

To spice up your life, indulge in some people watching and let your mind go wild!

Walking down the rows of shops accompanied by the symphony of honking motor vehicles and enthusiastic shop assistants trying their level best to entice potential customers into their shops, I found the job in indulging in my occasional pastime of people watching. Engrossing oneself in this activity can also be self-defeating as it makes one vulnerable to the prying eyes of pickpockets and snatch-thieves on wheels.

Wise men always chide people who go on a rampage acquiring lands and properties as if we all carry all these to our graves. Sages insist that at the end of the day, we only need a 6' X 2' plot of land. The truth of this is so apparent in the case of many shop owners in India (or at least in my imagination).

Many provision shops owners work long hours sitting at the mouth of their joints in their 3' X 3' square behind their cash boxes. From this corner, they have the perfect hawkish view of their establishments. They can see the customers coming in, be able to invite them in; order their assistants to get the merchandise; oversee their activities and be ready to collect the moolah from clients. Even though this arrangement may appear claustrophobic to the uninitiated and potentially stifling to the knee joints, these people are perfectly at ease at such an arrangement. If you think they would need those occasional walkabouts, you are wrong. They even have their pre-packed meal there within the confines of their working 'desktop'.

I envisage that after work, they would go home and sit on their couches spending quality time with their loved ones, reading the newspaper or watching TV serials. Sitting again! At the end of the day, they would retire in their 6' X 3' space within their king-size or queen-size beds just to repeat the whole exercise the following day.

So, how much personal space do you really need?

 https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson 

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I feel for you, I would tumble for you!

I remember a time in my early teenage when I was assigned to pay off debtors. As the sums involved were pretty substantial, and I had never handled such large amounts in my life, a number of 'supposed' trustworthy relatives were assigned to act as bouncers. After pawning some dear jewellery that my mother had accumulated on the sly over the years, we headed off to pay the creditors. With a heavy heart for money lost, one by one, the names on the list were struck off. I thought that was the end of it, until a few more emerged out of the blues 12 years later. That is another story.

After the unenviable job of distributing the dues to the creditors, the relatives who were given the task of standing guard during the work thought it was time for their contributions. After all, it was lunch time. A job 'well done' needed remuneration, they thought. And off the two assigned relatives decided that they should retire to have a good meal for mission accomplished. I, the timid one, had just to follow orders. After all, they helped us, I thought.

Back home, I got quite an earful for the unnecessary extravagance. She explained that it was a sort of a mercy mission for them, and they should not be expecting anything in return.

Then it dawned on me. Nobody is going to do anything for nothing. Gone are the days where when people actually did things because it was the right thing to do. Now, it was, what is it for me? Many thrive on other people's misery and appear to be emphatic to your predicament. They hope for your situation to be more hopeless than it already is. In that way, their services would seem indispensable and 'God-sent' like.

Well, many professionals earn their livelihood in that manner. They are just waiting for a malady for them to prosper - funeral director, lawyer, police, people of medical industry?

Some people...

When we look around us, there are many with different traits and with different views of looking at the happenings around them. Some are mere conformers who would not want to rock the boat and would just do what they are supposed to do, nothing more, nothing less. Anyway, they are not expected to think. Their mental capacity is only so much. Exploring beyond their actual potential would make them Little Napoleons, too good for raising hell but would run away with their tails between their legs at the first sign of aggression. Then, they are those with devious personalities. Reading between the lines and minding their comma and adjectives, they can think of the most conniving way, to escape persecution and punishment. They can make a child molester a Messiah.

Then there are the ones who relate better with non-human lifeforms and take care of our livestock and dear pets. They think animals have souls and would abstain from killing lives but have no qualms about hurting their ‘loved’ ones. The psychopaths are conniving enough and would lie through their teeth with their infantile innocent facial expressions to lead us to the slaughter chamber and we, like zombies, would willingly go.

There are those who are cocksure about the meaning of it all, life and its intricacies. They think they know it all and have no time to receive another opinion, fearing that they would be confused and shaken off the rockers. There is nothing else to seek as it is all there in plain view to see.

Then there are a group of people who are born to be skeptics. They do not believe anything you say. They would like to make their own objective assessment of your situation. Even then, they would be doubtful of their own capability. However, the society expects these people to be cocksure about their work. Despite being unsure of the problem at the hand, these people still have to display an aura of confidence as his seeming image of tranquility solves most of the problems. Some of the problems disappear on its own accord anyway.

You give love a bad name!

Death of a Princess (1980)
It is always the same story. "Denial, this is not the true teaching, it is one person's interpretation and so on.." The reality is this. They need a major public relation exercise and re-branding. The morale is at all time low.

This drama-documentary rocked the Arab-English-transAtlantic relationship when it was released. The English ambassador was sent back and millions were paid to stop its screening in US. Like a storm in a teacup, the tiff fizzled out within a few months and international trade between these countries resumed just as quickly as the tension started initially!

The director got the idea of making this documentary after a tête-à-tête at a party of a certain Arabic princess and her lover who were executed publicly. Hence started an almost wild goose chase trying to find the bottom of the story. Due to pressures from above, the name of the princess, the kingdom and the name of informers were omitted but it was the reference to Princess Misha'al bint Fahd al Saud, the granddaughter of the brother of the then King of Saudi Arabia.

The film starts with the call of Friday prayers. People leave the premises with satisfied look after completing their prayers. A car park is changed to a make shift courtyard. People gather to witness a lady in purdah and a man knelt on the ground. The girl is shot multiple times and the man is beheaded but the procedure had to be repeated apparently due to the unprofessional manner of the executor. People then return to their normal duties afterwards, feeling contented that God's laws have been executed on Earth. Amongst them is a Caucasian who took snapshots of the event with a camera concealed in a cigarette box.

The director, Antony Thomas, took it upon himself to do a bit of investigative journalism to unravel the mystery surrounding the slaying of the couple. Unfortunately, various interviews revealed conflicting and sometimes contradictory stories that did not collaborate. He found out that every avenue seem to meet a dead end. People were generally not forthcoming with the true turn of event. Even the university in war-torn Lebanon where the princess allegedly had studied also denied admission of such a student!

Finally Thomas, through his connections, came a break through, via a contact with someone from the palace (under cloak of anonymity) who revealed the real story. The princess was a 19 year old free spirited girl who fell in love with a musician whom she saw on TV. Using her position as a member of the royal family, she communicated with the musician, who happened to be the son of Saudi's ambassador to Lebanon. The problem was that the princess, at that time, was already married through family matchmaking to a cousin, a prince. The informant also inform of the palace women's unlady-like behaviour of engaging the services of gigolos that really upset the Saudi House.

To escape the scandal, the princess and her beau conspired to fake her own death by apparent drowning. Unfortunately, her trickery was discovered when a servant squealed. She was detained at the airport when she tried to leave the country disguised as a man.
The following turn of events is bizarre. The couple was never put on trial but ordered by the grandfather to be executed, not by syaria manner but as an honour killing to maintain to pride of the family.

It just leaves a bad after taste at the end of the film. The self appointed guardians of the fastest expanding religion whose believers believe it is just is let down. The world feels that the justice meted in the princess' case was tribal justice, not religious. In the process, they have given the believers a bad press.

Sometimes, some people...

There have been many of so-called 'trial of media' of late. Somebody would commit a crime. He would be caught on tape doing it or after the fact. The widespread use of CCTV and dashboard cameras makes every action digitalised whether we like it or not. Then the uploading to social media and hence the floodgates would open. Every netizen who cannot even string a straight sentence would suddenly metamorphose into a law savvy opinionated caring human who cares for humanity and would go all out to ensure that justice is meted out.

If only the truth can be whipped out so easily!

MGR whipping the villain MN Nambiar into

submission as the missing twin emerges from

oblivion to reclaim his share of the estate from his 

conniving deceptive relatives in 1967 blockbuster

'Engal Veetu Pillai' (see pic below too).

The vilification and character assassination would ensue. Details of his employment, home address and even information deemed private, like vehicle ownership and type of business will be out in the open.

With the hype of the recent cases of road bullies and the brisk manner in which justice was seen to have been carried out, I started to wonder whether we are threading the dangerous path of accepting the loudest as the honest and endorsing lies which appear repeatedly as the truth.

In one case, the offender, after found guilty by was vouched by his friends to be a great human, a philanthropist and even an animal lover.

That is the trouble with the world is that on one hand we say there is goodness in everyone of us but on the other we are taught to believe in duality of things. Things are either good or bad; right or wrong; black or white; heaven or hell! Even our scriptures has defined to us of what is right and what is wrong. There is no two ways about it. There must, however, be a middle ground.

A saying in Tamil, or rather the title of a novel which was made into a movie later, goes.. சில நேரங்ககிளில் சில மனிதர்கள் (Sometimes some people). Sometimes some people do the darkest of things at their weakest moments in life. Generally they could be good people as good parents, good leaders and good citizens but with a little mood altering life situation or pharmacological influence, the devil inside may surface.

I am in no way condoning any of their actions but to remind ourselves that it could happen to you or me. We cannot wait for God's justice to prevail as it takes too long. Hence, mankind takes it upon itself to punish its kind and give a sense of satisfaction to its victim as well as send a clear message to possibly hinder future offenders. Really?

MN Nambiar, stereocast as a villain in umpteenth Tamil movies. He is portrayed as the epitome of evil out to ruin every of the hero's attempt to win the heroine's heart and as a cruel zemindar would oppress the peasants in every conceivable manner. In real life, however, he is a pious vegetarian and teetotaller. And a philanthropist, too.