//A radical approach to the law prides itself on its ability to ‘trash’ the law. Mukul Sinha’s approach to law and courts was to the contrary. As he explained: “There is no point in abusing the courts; instead one should find a way to use it. They (some human rights lawyers) abuse the High Court and the Supreme Court and think it is radical. However it is clear that the state can’t give you rights, only the courts can. We also don’t (fully) believe in the law or the courts but we think that whatever relief you can get you should. The results we have got in the fake encounter cases is an exemplar on what you can achieve through the courts. The reason the courts are useful is because the Constitution of India does cast a duty on the judges to go by the Constitution.”// //But perhaps, most of all in today’s context, when Modi has come to power with a brute majority, to honour Mukul Sinha means to not forget the injustices of 2002. As Milan Kundera put it, ‘The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting’. Today the struggle has become more difficult and the possibility of forgetting looms large. To honour Mukul Sinha means that we are not deterred by the seemingly impossible odds and we do not allow the Gujarat pogrom 2002 and its unfinished project of justice to be forgotten, as forgetting means a denial of what happened. This act of active remembering is really a gesture towards a future in which what happened in 2002 will not be repeated. This is what Mukul Sinha worked for in his eventful and deeply meaningful life and this is the project we will have to take forward.//
Posted on: Thu, 29 May 2014 20:18:09 +0000
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