'Demon'ocracy to democracy

Last week I was fortunate to be a part an inspirational seminar on the 'Power of One'. The speakers were inspirational. Tarun Tejpal spoke about the founding fathers of our nation, their vision and saga of sacrifices.

There was Neelem Katara who spoke on her battle to get justice for her son against the might of one of the biggest dons of north India.

Rajinder Kachroo, the man who lost his son Aman to the menace of ragging spoke about the crime that this practice was. Then came Binu Chandran, the real life hero who got Ghazi Baba, the dreaded Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist to his end. The water crusader of India, Rajendra Singh spoke of the need to give our children rivers and water instead of 'nalaas' and droughts.

To change this 'demonocracy' to a democracy, we must all join hands and demand for a judiciary that is not rotting

And then came the most difficult challenge, to get up and speak. Speak about the power of one; that is, about bravery versus fear and yet not spare the reasons behind the sheer requirement of these brave crusades.

Nitish Katara's friends backed out from standing by their dead friend, not necessarily because they were spineless, but because the society doesn't provide a judicial system that is capable of punishing the criminals on time and decriminalising the lives of the common masses.

We need a judicial system that can alter the concept of India and bring us a huge lot closer to a real democracy rather than the 'demonocracy' that we live in. Justice delayed is not only justice denied, but society criminalised.

And what does it take after all? India requires to plan the intake of a lakh more judges ufffd say, over a period of five years, to bring down the average time of cases to a tenth of the current duration and to clear the past backlogs.

It is something we must lobby for if we want a society where the next Manu Sharma fears like hell before taking out his gun; and where Jessicas and Nitish Kataras and Aman Kachroos don't die in the first place. Where Qasabs are punished within a few months and not allowed to be traded against a plane hijack so that a Binu Chandran doesn't have to go through the unnecessary ordeal of catching a terrorist all over again; and so that we get committed politicians ruling this country, who automatically bring clean water to our villages instead of illiterate criminals who siphon off all the money for such purposes, making the Rajendra Singhs of India spend entire lifetimes fighting for what is our minimum due, access to clean water!

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