The Daily Fix: Supreme Court should see through BJP’s attempt to discredit Harsh Mander

As pressure mounts on the authorities to act against those who instigated the communal violence in North East Delhi causing 53 deaths two weeks ago, the Union government seems to have decided that it will attempt to delegitimise activists seeking accountability.

This egregious tactic was on full display in the Supreme Court on Wednesday, when Solicitor General Tushar Mehta went after human rights activist Harsh Mander for allegedly instigating people against the court.

Mander had moved the Delhi High Court seeking registration of First Information Reports against Bharatiya Janata Party leaders for delivering hate speech that fueled the communal violence. These include Union Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur, who led chants of “shoot the bloody traitors” at a political rally in the capital, and other BJP leaders like Kapil Mishra, Parvesh Verma and Abhay Verma.

On February 26, the Delhi High Court gave the Delhi Police a day to decide on registering cases against them. The court even played the videos of the hate speech in the courtroom after Delhi Police officers claimed they had not watched them. On the same day, the transfer of Justice S Muralidhar, who was leading the bench, to Chandigarh was notified in record time by the Centre. The next day, a new bench adjourned the matter by six weeks.

Mander moved the Supreme Court in appeal against this adjournment. In the apex court, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta spent much of his energy questioning Mander’s credentials rather than showing any intent in registering cases against hate mongers. He was reluctant to accept the decision of the Supreme Court to ask the Delhi High Court to hear petitions filed by riot victims on the question of the hate speech on Friday. The court, however, dismissed his objections.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice of India SA Bobde asked Mander not to participate in the proceedings and said it would look into his alleged speech. This case has now been posted for Friday.

At the centre of the controversy was Mander’s address to Jamia Millia Islamia students on December 16, days after the police brutally attacked the students on campus following an anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protest. The Delhi Police has claimed that the speech was in the manner of instigating violence and was contemptuous for the remarks it made against the Supreme Court.

Was the speech contemptuous? Not even by conservative standards. Mander was critical of the court’s functioning in recent cases, including those connected to the Ayodhya dispute and the situation in Kashmir. But he has not said anything that is contemptuous because a fair criticism of the court’s orders is not contempt of court. In fact, Mander in his speech said he would continue to go to the Supreme Court. “We will definitely try as hard as we can in the Supreme Court, because it is our Supreme Court after all,” he added.

To say that the fight against the Citizenship Amendment Act, which discriminates against Muslims by excluding them from a route to Indian citizenship that it offers undocumented migrants of other faiths, has to be won on the streets does not in any manner affect the majesty of the court. Nor does it instigate violence. It is laughable that in a country that mastered the tool of civil disobedience to achieve its independence from colonial powers, the government of the day would turn around and deem the call for street protests as instigation of violence.

It is also curious that the Delhi Police, which claimed it had not seen videos of hate speech delivered by BJP leaders, promptly analysed Mander’s speech and filed an affidavit calling it contemptuous. On the other hand, since Wednesday, the BJP has tried to vilify Mander through a social media campaign that circulated edited versions of his speech. This nexus between state institutions and the ruling party in discrediting a human rights activist exposes the government’s desperation to protect BJP leaders from the force of the law.

It was unfortunate that the Supreme Court asked Harsh Mander not to participate in the proceedings on Wednesday. A person’s right to move the court cannot be obliterated for views considered unpalatable by a few. Hopefully, the court will see through the designs of a government that wants to go after activists fighting for justice rather than punishing culprits who have cost the lives of 53 persons.