Birds Of Prey Keep Us Healthy

Where Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta—he of the heated outburst against all critics of the government—is coming from

- Puneet Nicholas Yadav

A veritable furore took hold of the national discourse last week as the country’s second-highest law officer, Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta, spewed a barrage of appellatives for journalists, civil rights activists, a section of the legal fraternity and anyone critical of the Union government’s handling of the coronavirus-induced lockdown. He insinuated a comparison between “vultures” and journalists reporting on the miseries of common Indian citizens—particularly migrant workers and the poor. Rights activists, lawyers or political leaders concerned over the escalating humanitarian crisis were, according to the outburst, “armchair intellectuals” and “prophets of doom who only spread negativity, negativity and negativity”. The high courts, at least 19 of them, which have passed a slew of directives to state governments for redressing grievances of citizens, weren’t spared either. Those courts were “running like parallel governments”, Mehta said.