GAZE OF MODERN-DAY TUGHLAQS

THE world’s most significant democracies are competing in a game that looks absurd but reflects sound political expediency.

- PRATIK KANJILAL

The signals are fascinating. Republican Joseph Kent has resigned from the leadership of the US National Counterterrorism Center on the moral ground that Iran presented “no imminent threat” to America.Meanwhile, the US is all at sea in its Iran project because it underestimated the importance of the Strait of Hormuz, so it has permitted its gaze to wander to the Caribbean and alight on Cuba.

Meanwhile in India, Himalayan climate activist Sonam Wangchuk was released almost six months after his arrest, days before a crucial court hearing that could have determined the legality of preventive custody under draconian laws designed to combat terrorism but used routinely against activists, academics and other well-intentioned troublemakers.

There’s been a steady stream of bailouts after years-long incarcerations in the Delhi riots and Bheema Koregaon cases. Long ago, the trail was blazed by Binayak Sen (now critically ill), who was arrested for sedition on the charge of bearing communications between Naxal-ites in 2007 and jailed repeatedly. The facts of these cases did not change between arrest and release. If the basis of the release was valid, then the basis of the arrest must be in question.

Every political case that has collapsed in court for want of evidence is questionable. Each served an obvious political purpose—by the time the detenus were released, the world had changed. The weaponisation of the law is a process. Its product is impunity.