LAKHIMPUR, A QUESTION OF HUMAN DIGNITY

The law should be always above the politics of the day. However, in the UP model, the law is only an instrument of political power

- KALEESWARAM RAJ

A local court in Lakhimpur in Uttar Pradesh has rejected the bail plea of Ashish Mishra, son of Union Minister Ajay Mishra, in the case over the murder of four farmers and a journalist. A few have been arrested in connection with the incident. The allegation is that the farmers and the journalist were killed by a convoy that deliberately ran over them and the accused had caused it. The video of the scene has shocked our mass conscience. The fact that a few BJP workers too were killed is quite sad and perturbing. After the incident, the UP Law Minister Brajesh Pathak visited the families of the BJP workers, while not caring to meet the families of the farmers who lost their lives.

An elected government and the ministers running it must act in terms of the Constitution and not merely based on their political beliefs or inclinations. Such an ethical metamorphosis is an imperative, given the letter and spirit of the oath that a minister takes as per the Constitution. Jawaharlal Nehru, on the eve of Independence, opined that after the country attains freedom, though there would be a Congress government, it won't be controlled by leaders of the Congress Party. This distinction should apply to every dispensation, irrespective of its political colour.