Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has only himself to blame for the Surat court verdict that found him guilty in a defamation case. He has been given two years’ imprisonment, suspended for a month to enable him to make an appeal to a higher court.
He has also been granted bail for a month on a surety of Rs 10,000. The case was filed against him by Surat BJP MLA Purnesh Modi on the ground that he was defamed when Gandhi rhetorically asked at an election meeting in Karnataka on April 13, 2019: “How come all the thieves have Modi as the common surname?” He had listed three names, including those of two fugitives and the prime minister. The comment was in poor taste and it reflected the low depths to which political discourse has plummeted in the country. Defaming all those who have the Modi surname could not have been Gandhi's intention.
RaGa can appeal only to a sessions court, but...
Ordinarily, courts take cognisance of defamation only in incidents in which the complainant has been personally defamed. The Surat court would have found merit in the MLA’s complaint to warrant the action, four years after Gandhi made the speech. As it is a criminal case, he can go in appeal only to a sessions court, not to the High Court or the Supreme Court, though nothing bars a third party from doing so. If he is unable to get the verdict, not just the punishment, stayed within the next one month, he is also likely to lose his membership in the Lok Sabha. In other words, the verdict puts his political career in jeopardy, as the higher courts have not shown any mercy to convicted persons with regard to disqualification. This may even prevent him from contesting the Lok Sabha election in 2024. Much will, of course, depend on how he turns adversity into an advantage.
It is an irony of ironies that Gandhi is the most defamed politician in the country. It was just two days ago that an official spokesman of the ruling BJP called him the “Mir Jafar” of Indian politics. No other politician in India is as scrutinised and lampooned as Gandhi has been. Yet, he has remained bold and has never refrained from speaking what he believes is the truth, unlike many who prefer to remain silent except during elections. It has become almost impossible to carry on the politics of opposition, when the ruling establishment has no qualms about using all the instruments of state power to keep them silent. Not just politicians, even officials as high as an election commissioner, who tried to uphold the truth, have found the establishment hitting them below the belt to serve their purpose.
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However questionable Gandhi’s words may be, this is not the way to deal with him. The nation has seen how cases are registered against political leaders in a far-off state like Assam and how they are arrested by the Assamese police and kept in jail till the courts are convinced of the miscarriage of justice involved and the persons are released on bail. Not just Gandhi, a large section of the public has been asking questions about a businessman, whose empire has been bloating and bloating till it was pricked by a 106-page report that brought it down by billions of dollars. It could not have grown without the overt and covert support of those in power but questioning it is to invite attacks that question the person’s patriotism. It doesn’t even matter that Parliament is unable to transact its business because the government is not ready to refer the matter to Parliament’s own committee.
And when political leaders, masquerading as religious leaders, openly ask for Holocaust-like solutions, no action is taken, while a comedian is taken into custody for fear that he might make offensive remarks. And a journalist is arrested and kept in jail for years, just because he made an attempt to report a sensational criminal case. The rule of law supposes that everyone is treated the same way, like in Britain where the prime minister was fined for not wearing the seat belt. It should not degenerate into using different laws for different people!
