Since 2014, multiple experts have identified that Indian democracy is backsliding. Examples include the clampdown on Jammu and Kashmir, arrest of journalists and activists as well as the attack on the Opposition using draconian instruments such as the Enforcement Directorate.
The one obvious institution that could have checked this slide is the judiciary. However, in spite of often being called the most powerful judiciary in the world, India’s courts have done no such thing.
On episode #7 of Scroll Ideas, we are joined by legal scholar Anuj Bhuwania who has studied the post-independence history of India’s higher judiciary. He argues that it was, in many ways, naive to expect the judiciary to act as a check on the executive given their post-Emergency history as a populist organ.
-
1
These innovations have made Amrik Sukhdev Dhaba in Murthal the truck drivers’ favourite since 1967
-
2
Thriller: A serial killer is on the loose, murdering India’s famous nuclear scientists one by one
-
3
View from Nepal: India’s reaction to new currency note betrays patronising outlook to its neighbour
-
4
What a regal South Indian ornament in a famous Rossetti painting tells us about the British Raj
-
5
The numbers show the idea of Muslim population explosion is nothing but political propaganda
-
6
‘The Hachette Book of Indian Detective Fiction’ makes you rethink pre-conceptions about the genre
-
7
Ambitious tourism plans for Lakshadweep ignore limited availability of freshwater
-
8
How a Colombian city’s ‘green corridors’ turned the clock back on global warming
-
9
In Sambhal, Muslims allege UP police stormed booths, snatched IDs and beat up voters on polling day
-
10
Need 400 Lok Sabha seats to construct temple at Gyanvapi mosque site: Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma