The Hindu : Opinion / Editorials : FANATICISING THE ISSUES

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Monday, Nov 22, 2004

Opinion

Opinion - Editorials

FANATICISING THE ISSUES

IT IS UNDERSTANDABLE that devotees of the Kanchi Mutt are upset over the deepening travails of the Sankaracharya, Sri Jayendra Saraswathi, whose bail application has been rejected by the Madras High Court and who is currently in police custody. What they must realise, however, is that the time of troubles for the Acharya is a time of legal troubles — arising out of a brutal, motivated, and planned murder of an adversary within the precincts of a temple. Conspiracy theories are singularly out of place here. As this newspaper observed in an earlier editorial, the message sent out by the apprehension and arrest of Sri Jayendra Saraswathi by the Tamil Nadu police in Andhra Pradesh was that nobody, however high in spiritual or temporal matters, was above the law. Asserting in the Tamil Nadu Assembly that the arrest of the Acharya was based on "firm evidence of his involvement" in the murder, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa explained that her Government did not resort to this action "expecting bouquets for arresting the Sankaracharya or fearing brickbats for not arresting him" but acted on "the principle that all are equal before the law." If the evidence does not stand up in court at the trial stage, there will be a big political price to pay.

In rejecting the Acharya's bail application on Saturday, the High Court clearly acted on the same principle of equality before the law. While doing so, it noted the following significant features of the case: the criminal investigation was at a "threshold"; the charges against the prime accused were "serious" (including murder, conspiracy, and causing evidence to disappear); there was material prima facie implicating the Acharya as a conspirator who also arranged the money for the contract killing; the constitutionally and legally mandated pre-arrest guidelines were not violated (as the video footage played by the prosecution in open court confirmed); and the remand of the Acharya to judicial custody for 15 days was also according to the Constitution and the law. It can be added by way of reasonable comment that the extreme stands taken by the lawyers in court seem to have hardened adversarial positions: had not the defence attacked the investigation as the "most corrupt" seen in several decades, challenging practically everything connected with it (beginning with the procedure of arrest and remand), perhaps an atmosphere could have been created for asking the prosecution to agree to judicial remand of the Acharya in, say, a guesthouse (in consideration of his age and health, and also his need to perform regular religious duties).

It must be reiterated that while the charges against the Acharya are grave and some of the media coverage of the case has been speculative and even florid, there can be no public presumption of guilt either against him or against any of the other accused in this criminal case. A positive feature of an otherwise tricky situation is that all political parties of significance barring one agree that nobody shall be above the law; that the law must be allowed to take its course; and that the judicial process must be respected, not interfered with. The Bharatiya Janata Party and other constituents of the sangh parivar, however, have decided aggressively to take on every one of these principles. It is important to note that their agitation is essentially against the legitimacy of investigating and prosecuting murder and related charges against the Kanchi Acharya, which is characterised, in inflammatory terms, as trampling on "Hindu sentiments." Their protest is only secondarily against the mode of arrest and subsequent travails of Sri Jayendra Saraswathi in prison and police custody. Just as the militant proponents of the Ayodhya movement proclaimed and acted on the principle that matters of faith and religion could not be subject to the law of the land, the attempt to fanaticise the issues in the Sankararaman murder case makes it clear that the sangh parivar, and specifically the BJP, do not accept the sovereignty of the Indian Constitution and the rule of law.

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