Thread by @GorwayGlobal

A tweet thread.
It is a strange phenomenon. Not the way in which the judicial and criminal investigation processes have been subverted in India to arrest and oppress victims and punish civil rights campaigners. That is a travesty of justice and a denial of civil rights, alright

It is the brazenness with which such gross acts of egregious violation of constitutional principles and protections of civil liberties are carried out. It is the utter lack of regard for the niceties of due process. It is the widespread support for it among ordinary people.

So the mockery of justice of the #BhimaKoregaon activists's trial and incarceration, the arrest and false charges against #UmarKhalid and the many others falsely accused in the #DelhiRiots police investigation are not only tolerated but actually supported by many in #India

The most recent egregious example of police excesses is the #SSRDeathCase investigation that has now snowballed into a wide and endless hunt for vanishingly small quantities of dope that has dragged in the most talented women (no men yet) in #Bollywood.

Why, How do we explain this apparent support for state sponsored oppressive high-handed and disproportionate and unlawful persecution of innocent individuals just because they have taken a public stand.?

I think it goes back to #India's cultural roots in the people's faith and belief in #Hinduism. Not the real religion but what passes for religious practices under the label "Hinduism".
Recall one of the most popular and widely practices #Pujas - the #SatyanaryanPuja.

Every family has done such a #puja, almost everyone is familiar with the #katha or #parables the reading and telling of which is an essential part of the ceremony. These parable are all about the importance of doing the #puja in return for which one is blessed with fortune

In one story, a merchant forgets his promise to do the #SatyanaraynPuja and as punishment, he (and his son-in-law) are falsely accused of stealing the King's jewels and thrown into the dungeons. No due process for them. Ultimately it is only divine intervention that saves them.

The King realises in a dream that he has wronged the men, releases them and they determine to perform the #Puja. With such stories ingrained from childhood, I suspect many Hindus see any misfortune that befalls one as simply 'repayment' for past transgressions against some 'God'.

No distinction is made between misfortunes such as natural disasters or State-ordained persecution. They are all the same in terms of cosmic retribution. No one seriously expects to hold 'God' to account for a landslide, and so too no one expects to hold the State to account.

That is the kind of lack of expectation of accountability from our elected leaders that allowed the Finance Minister to blame the economic slump on an #ActOfGod. Equally the current misfortunes of @deepikapadukone or @UmarKhalidJNU or many others under arrest or investigation

are conveniently seen as just a downturn in their 'cycle of fortune'. They either didn't do enough good or failed to do something they ought to have and so they are being punished/taught a lesson. But of course, this is nonsense, it is pure poppycock.

The oppressor, in this case, thinks he is God himself, the minions who carry out the actual arrests/interrogations/searches and incarcerations are not mere agents following orders, they are equally part of the system that allows the operatives to suspend moral judgement

It allows the policemen, the jailor and the news anchor not to take personal responsibility for what they are deliberately, consciously, and with explicit forethought involved in. It's not just that they have lost moral compass; they are working to a different compass altogether

That is the fundamental difference between a system of Governance where the rules are made by us humans, where we get to decide the principles, and a system that allows itself to have these rules (habeas corpus, due process) but then subsumes them to notions of divine revenge