The Supreme Court of India did not even make a pretence to be truthful and fair. The recent order on contentious farm laws is found wanting in many areas dispelling the confidence of the people in the Indian judiciary. Despite its best efforts to camouflage and allay its intentions and the peoples’ rightful“ perception that the Supreme Court of India is in league with the Narendra Modi government, the three judges of the apex Court have failed in their judgement adjudicating the constitutional validity of the three contentious farm laws which have seen an unprecedented peoples’ uprising pioneered by the people and farmers of Punjab.

THE EDITOR OF THE WORLD SIKH NEWS Jagmohan Singh tears through, para by para, the 11-page judgement delivered on 12 January in an Open Letter to the Chief Justice of India Justice Bobde. Please patiently go through this line by line. The problem is huge, the challenge is life-threatening, the writing cannot be short, even though we live in the midst of social media narratives of limited characters and words.

Honourable Justice Bobde: Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh! Greetings from Punjab -the land of truth, resilience, dissent and rebellion, which has shaken the foundations of an anti-people government in Delhi through the Kisan Morcha. The autocratic government of the day has had a field day with an uninterrupted sway over peoples’ lives, their rights, their culture, their language, their food, their thoughts and aspirations for the last 7 years.  

The joi-de-vivre, in the most trying circumstances among the farmers of all ages, genders -including transgenders, religions have made the periphery of Delhi a pilgrimage centre. The buzzword in Punjab nowadays in chaste Punjabi is -Have you been to Delhi? –Delhi gaye ho? The peaceful masses have consecrated the national highways with prayer, devotion, selfless service, love, unity and camaraderie which is boundless and beyond the capacity of any government or court to comprehend. 

The invincible Indian Prime Minister’s haughtiness and the dreams of the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party to have a perpetual everlasting leadership of the country has been arrested by nothing short of divine intervention.  No person, no political leader, no farm leader or group can claim ownership of this Grace of the Almighty to deliver justice and track down a dictator. 

On this day of liberation -Maghi, Makkar Sankranti and Pongal -the day the farmer and the people liberate from work and express joy, the Sikhs liberate from disobedience to the Guru and rededicate themselves to the Sikh way of life, a life of selfless Sewa and sacrifice, I write this open letter to you and your companion judges Justice A. S. Bopanna and Justice Ramasubramnian to shout out my disgust and distrust of the meaningless playing to the gallery during the verbal exchanges in court, which was seen as opprobrium of the Union government over the farm laws, but actually in writing and in intent nothing has been delivered. 

In this letter, Sires, I scan through every word that you have mentioned and let you know how obfuscation of facts and malintent are key features of your judgement on the farm laws. 

At the very outset, the plethora of petitions to the Supreme Court, represented by a battery of lawyers -names running into three pages of the judgement, were meant to question the constitutional validity of the three contentious farm laws outrightly rejected by 40 Farmer unions including the 32 Farmer unions from the Punjab, who started the protest with the ‘Delhi Chalo’ march on 25 November 2020.

After delaying the matter for more than four weeks, while farmers were dying at the peaceful protest on the outskirts of Delhi, you ended up only staying the implementation of the Farm laws and setting up a committee of renegades of the Farmers movement in the country –men who are staunch supporters of the law as well as the Modi dispensation. 

The third para of the judgement lists the petitions. It says, “One  category   of   petitions  challenge the constitutional validity of the farm laws. Included within this category of petitions, is a petition under Article 32 challenging the validity of the Constitution (Third Amendment) Act, 1954, by which Entry 33 was substituted in List III (concurrent list) in the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution, enabling the Central Government also to legislate on a subject which was otherwise in the State List.” 

Even though there is no reason whatsoever for the Supreme Court to not to repeal the 3 farm laws on its own, I fail to understand as to why the Supreme Court of India has not set aside the constitutional amendment of 1954 which blatantly provides for the intervention of the Union government in the subjects on the State list by putting them into the Concurrent list.  This per se is unconstitutional. The whole problem could be simply set aside leaving states to decide what is good and bad for their farmers and population!

This tool of swinging between State lists, Union lists and Concurrent lists, to suit the governments of the day has been the tool for many a political mischief and machination by many governments over the years.  The Supreme Court had the golden opportunity to undo this. Alas!

Courts and journalists look at the operative part of any judgement to report and understand the intent of the judges. The last para of your judgement reads and I quote, 

“While we may not stifle a peaceful protest, we think that this extraordinary order of stay of implementation of the farm laws will be perceived as an achievement of the purpose of such protest at least for the present and will encourage the farmers bodies to convince their members to get back to their livelihood, both in order to protect their own lives and health and in order to protect the lives and properties of others.”

This is pontification at its worst. You say that you do not want to stifle a peaceful protest, but your words manifest your intent to scuttle it. You and your companion judges may not have the time to glance through social media narratives of the young and old, of men, women and even children, kids and toddlers who are determined to stick to their guns notwithstanding deaths and troubles on the highways encircling Delhi. 

You have not appreciated the history of the Sikhs who do not fear death, they actually embrace death and it is this that has brought thousands to Delhi fighting for their rights. The rational mind, unmindful of the Chardikala spirit of the Sikhs cannot easily fathom this. 

To the elderly from Haryana, Rajasthan, Western Uttar Pradesh, and Uttaranchal, Pran Jaye Par Vachan Na Jaye -The promise is more important than life -and self-respect is paramount and they are living up to this and also imbibing the Chardikala -Always Ascendant spirit of the Sikhs, whom they now lovingly and respectfully call their elder brethren. 

Your suggestion to the Farmer organisations to send their elderly, women and children is also being seen as a ploy to create a vacuum enabling the government to let police and paramilitary forces to attack them from their protest centres, even if it means bloodshed.  This is the nadir to which the reputation of the Indian judiciary has plunged to.

You have hinted that “in order to protect the lives and properties of others” What is the meaning of this? Are you not questioning the integrity of the protestors and the Farmer leaders?

Sires, please look at it this way. During the first day of the hearing, you told the government “What is this ego that you cannot hold the laws?” To this India’s Attorney General K. K. Venugopal said, Do not hold the laws.  He was spelling out the direction and ego of the Narendra Modi government. The government has such a big ego that it cannot roll back hugely mistaken laws, framed with malafide intentions, without consultation and with a voice vote in Rajya Sabha. 

Are the dying farmers committing suicides for the last decade and more not entitled to their self-respect?

The battle is between the self-respect of farmers and the ego of a fascist government. As farmers leader Rakesh Tikat, son of the illustrious farmers’ leader Mahendra Singh Tikait succinctly put it, Bill Wapsi toh Ghar Wapsi -roll back laws and we go home. No more. No less. There are no short-cuts, the earlier the state realises this the better.

In your remarks in court on the first day of the hearing, you were concerned about bloodshed and remarked that “all of us will be responsible if there is bloodshed. We do not want blood on our hands.” Sires, the hands of this government are soaked in the blood of the farmers, the poor, the struggling minorities, regional identities, women assaulted by those who consider the Dalit women as chattel and kids who die in hospitals of Uttar Pradesh, while doctors who were preventing deaths are imprisoned. 

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court of India which reacts with unbelievable alacrity when it has to adjudicate cases of the rich, the famous and the connected, does not have eyes to see this happening. 

The Supreme Court in its wisdom has the authority to set aside and annul any law which is ultra vires the constitution or in which due process has not been followed or which is patently anti-people. Nevertheless, you have been pushing a lot for a Committee of experts. So be it, but!

The primary need for any negotiation process and dispute arbitration process is to have interlocutors and intervenors who inspire the confidence of the contesting parties in a dispute. As the farmers’ bodies virtually boycotted the Supreme Court proceedings, it was the burden of the judges to form a committee of neutral specialists. 

Sires, look at what you have done! You have formed a four-member committee of renegades of the farmers’ rights movement. Four panellists -two Union leaders and two theorists and economists, who have openly expressed support of the disputed laws and admiration for the Modi government. It is not only understandable but wise that the Kissan Ekta Morcha has decided not to present itself directly or through a counsel to this committee which will only further confound matters.  This part of the order is irrelevant and unacceptable, ab initio.

Your judgement reads that “A Committee comprising of  (1) Shri Bhupinder Singh Mann, National President, Bhartiya Kisan Union and All India Kisan Coordination Committee; (2) Dr. Parmod Kumar Joshi, Agricultural Economist, Director for South Asia, International Food Policy Research Institute; (3) Shri Ashok Gulati, Agricultural Economist and Former Chairman of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices; and (4) Shri Anil Ghanwat, President, Shetkari Sanghatana, is constituted for the purpose of listening to the grievances of the farmers relating to the farm laws and the views of the Government and to make recommendations. 

The grieving farmers do not trust any of these gentlemen! 

Your order further says that “The representatives of all the farmers’ bodies, whether they are holding a protest or not and whether they support or oppose the laws shall participate in the deliberations of the Committee and put forth their viewpoints”. 

Sires, Is this an order or a request or a veiled threat? The Kisan Ekta Morcha had announced the boycott of any such Committee even prior to the present Supreme Court order. The announcement of the Panel has even made it worse, even for the Supreme Court. Farmer organisations will boycott this typical tell-tale woe-narration delaying tactic leading to nothing. Will the Supreme Court take action against them for not accepting this part of the order?  These lines of the judgement have serious repercussions.  I mean, how is it that the Supreme Court of India did not make an effort to even be seen as truthful?

You have also directed that “The Committee shall, upon hearing the Government as well as the representatives of the farmers’ bodies, and other stakeholders, submit a report before this Court containing its recommendations. This shall be done within two months from the date of its first sitting. The first sitting shall be held within ten days from today.” 

Sires, will there be delays as it normally happens with government and judicial committees? What happens if the government does not provide or delays the necessary facilities for this Committee as it has happened in many cases earlier on? 

Also, will the Supreme Court of India accept the recommendations in favour of or against farmers? What will be the impact on the Farmers Morcha if the recommendations are pro-government as is suspected by all and sundry in this climate of trust deficit that prevails between the people and the judiciary and between the farmers and the government?

When was the last time that the Supreme Court or any of the State High Courts took up the case of Farmer suicides in the country, admonished the state governments and awarded exemplary compensation to the families of the deceased? The government of India and the state governments have either stopped counting or have started listing the deaths in a different category to fudge numbers? 

Is this blood not on the hands of the Indian state, judiciary and the executive?  Can the judges and leaders look into the eyes of the children of the deceased farmers and others who commit suicide under duress and say, “trust us, we will do justice as we are concerned about you!”  Can any human being do that and inhumanly suppress compassion and empathy?

A visit to the houses of farmers in Punjab, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu will bring tears to the most stone-hearted individual. However, it is generally believed that those in power are devoid of compassion. 

Had they and even the Supreme Court of India been respecting and honouring the right to life, the pain and anguish of thousands of farmers living on the roads in icy cold weather for the last 50 days could be appreciated. I really want to know from you as to how you would feel when the Prime Minister of the country tweets condolences to the families of the passengers who died in the Indonesian plane crash but fails to even reluctantly murmur a groan for the farmers who are dying just a few kilometres from where he lives. If the protesting women wail and burn effigies of the Prime Minister they rightfully do so only as an expression of anger towards such crass inhuman approach.  

Does the Prime Minister like his staunch admirer -the stupid film lady Kangana Ranaut in her mistaken notion of arrogant nationalism, believe that they are professional mourners hired for Rs. 100 a day? 

The only problem is that the pillars of the state, in a state of high arrogance, have started keeping aloof from such facts and now the mainstream media either under reports such deaths or simply kills such reports. 

In 2016, the National Crime Records Bureau released a report which read that in that year the average number of farmer suicides were 31 every day in India. My conscience hurts me when I type these lines. We have all become zombies who do not react to the mayhem that the suicide pandemic has been causing since long. I am not mentioning the numbers of those who die due to malnutrition caused by bad policies and zero implementation of some social welfare schemes.  When will we have a vaccine for all of this?

Your judgement reads, “Laudably,  the farmers have so far carried on the agitation peacefully and without any untoward incident. But it was pointed out in the course of hearing that a few persons who are not farmers have also joined, with a view to show solidarity with the farmers. An apprehension was expressed that the possibility of some persons creating trouble cannot be entirely ruled out. In fact, a specific averment is made in an intervention application filed by one Indian Kisan Union, in I.A. No.3324/2021 in W.P.(C) No.1441/2020 that an organisation by name “Sikhs for Justice”, which is banned for anti-India secessionist movement is financing the agitation. This averment is supported by the learned Attorney General also.”

Clearly, your praise is a reluctant one with a proviso and a deterrence clause. Still, it is the partial success of this huge peoples’ movement. Mercifully, so far, the Supreme Court of India has not issued any directions to the State challenging the rights of the people to protest on streets as was done in the case of the Shaheen Bagh Morcha. 

Who is the Indian Kisan Union? The very nomenclature is suspect. Who has seen the Sikhs for Justice activists in the Farmers Morcha? Where? How many people? What were they doing? When? Notwithstanding the braggadocio of the SFJ on social media, on what basis has Attorney General K. K. Venugopal affirmed the fear of likely violence? 

On the first day of the hearing, the argument of senior counsel Harish Salve worrying about the government losing face if the apex court stayed the implementation of these farm laws was simply laughable. The government of India and its leader Narendra Modi has already lost the unnatural shine that dominated his personality and clothes. 

Let us read about the panic-stricken lies of the government of India and its pet media regarding unsocial elements having entered the farmers’ agitation. When the agitation began, all farmers were anti-social elements. As it continued, following the true traditions of the Sikh way of life displaying exemplary patience, perseverance and peaceful working, which was so amazingly lapped by all others with respect, awe and a renewed sense of long-lost brotherhood.

I request you and your companion judges to spend some time on the remarkable coverage of freelance web journalist Ajit Anjum, who has chronicled the Farmers Morcha from day one in a truthful and unbiased manner. 

The government and the media changed tack and started looking for scapegoats. A section of the media was used to malign the international aid agency -Khalsa Aid, only because the pioneer of the organisation Ravi Singh has a political opinion about the rights of the farmers in particular and the Sikh rights in general. When that backfired then they started searching for other scapegoats and your judgement alludes to the Sikhs for Justice. 

World wide, the Punjabi Diaspora has ensured that the Farmers rights movement reverberates in the corridors of power if their respective countries and the international media takes notice of the goodness of the farmers, the ubiquitous Guru-ka-Langar and a variety of humanitarian services,  in one of the biggest peaceful agitations in contemporary history. 

It will be interesting to see what more lies this government cooks up when it takes up the security question on 18 January 2021 with respect to the Tractors Parade into Delhi on 26 January?

As regards the proposed Tractor March,  Delhites must have a live feel and taste of what farmers look like and what are the different types of tractors and trolleys -the lifeline of the farmers and the temporary abode since the last eight weeks on the Singhu, Tikri, Gazipur, Shahjahanpur and Palwal borders.   They must witness and leave memories for their posterity. Despite the omnipresence of the farmers in the social media, urban India has still to wake up to the stark realities of farmers and the poorest of the poor landless small farm-hand. Of course, there are exceptions. 

Leading agricultural journalist and commentator -P. Sainath, endorsing the 26 January march into Delhi classically labelled it as “the farmers reclaiming the republic.” 

Undoubtedly and unquestionably, the farmers will maintain strict discipline and decorum as exemplified in their dress rehearsal trial on 8 January when thousands of tractors in all shapes and sizes, driven by men and women in traditional dresses of the regions they hail from, drove in unison from the Singhu border, Gazipur border, Palwal border to the Tikri border and back. Still, it is also the duty of the Delhi police and the governments of Delhi and the Union government to ensure that no untoward incident takes place rather than later coming with the retort, “we told you so.” 

In the concluding paras, the Supreme Court judgement of the 3-bench judge led by you reads, “Therefore, we are of the view that the constitution of a Committee of experts in the field of agriculture to negotiate between the farmers’ bodies and the Government of India may create a congenial atmosphere and improve the trust and confidence of the farmers. We are also of the view that a stay of implementation of all the three farm laws for the present, may assuage the hurt feelings of the farmers and encourage them to come to the negotiating table with confidence and good faith.”

The Kisan Ekta Morcha has participated in 9 meetings in a congenial atmosphere, eating their own food so as to not to burden the exchequer and reaffirming their simplicity as sons of the soil.  The constitution of a Committee of experts by the Supreme Court of India appears like a facade to enable the government to strategize its next move. 

The Committees formed by the Supreme Court in so many issues and their reports are gathering dust. For the farmers, the water sharing dispute between Punjab which has Riparian rights with Haryana, Rajasthan and Delhi is hanging fire in the Supreme Court for decades! The intervention in the courts and by the government has seen many a sinister turn. How and when TADA and POTA were struck down by the Supreme Court is not forgotten by human rights defenders and victim families of human rights violations in the Punjab and India where this legislation led to harassment, detention and arrests of thousands. 

We have had a very bitter experience since 1975. The silence of the Supreme Court of India on many violations of human rights since June 1984 and which continues till today. But for the role of People’s Commissions, it would have been well-nigh impossible to get pecuniary justice for the victims of the genocidal attacks of November 1984 in Delhi, Kanpur and scores of other cities in India.  

The selective suo-moto approach of the Supreme Court did not come to the rescue of the perpetrators of mayhem in the capital of Delhi less than a year ago when mobsters assaulted and killed Muslim men, women and children. The list is agonizingly long. 

Management expert C. Northcote Parkinson says and this is taught in management schools, “Committees do not achieve anything.” Government tribunals and committees barely achieve much as we know from experience. The biased working and results of the Iradi Tribunal formed to go into the water-sharing disputes between Punjab and neighbouring states worsened the situation instead of enabling a resolution of the problem. 

The formation of committees is relinquishing the duty of the judiciary by itself to uphold the vires of a legislation or any act of omission and commission by the government. In the context of the farmers, the non-implementation of the Swaminathan Commission report is enough to put off farmers and citizens from any official Committees, Commissions and Tribunals.

You have rightly rebutted the argument of the Indian government counsel who contended that the Supreme Court does not have the authority to stay a judgement citing various previous judgements, but you could have gone one step ahead and held the laws void and ultra vires the Constitution. There are enough precedents for that too. 

In the last 7 weeks, while the junior leadership of the government of India was talking to the constituents of the Kisan Ekta Morcha, they were also engaged in a parallel sinister move to counter the protesting farmers, the government including the Prime Minister was talking to pseudo-farmer organisations, the like of which have petitioned you welcoming the farm laws or agreed to appear before the Supreme Court-appointed committee or who are worried about their fruit produce.  

You have ordered that “the Minimum Support Price System in existence before the enactment of the Farm Laws shall be maintained until further orders. In addition, the farmers’ landholdings shall be protected, i.e., no farmer shall be dispossessed or deprived of his title as a result of any action taken under the Farm Laws.” 

However, the Supreme Court is silent on the demand by the Farmers Morcha for making these provisions legal so that the erring state governments are penalised for non-implementation of the governments’ MSP scheme, leading to full and complete implementation of the MSP system for 23 farm products.  An understanding of the currently prevailing MSP schemata will nail the lies of the state governments and the Union government. 

Sires, one after the other, this government is not only killing institutions but because of its brute majority is running roughshod of all dissenting public opinion and the points of view of Opposition parties on substantive issues. Calling this stubborn is an understatement. 

Significantly, on the social media front, the BJP’s Lies and Hate Brigade, hidden from public glare but active 24x7x365 has got its match. The social media activism of the Kisan Ekta Morcha and many other Punjab journals, online portals, video journalists, artists, child-artistes, painters, singers, videographers and filmmakers are giving them a run for their money. 

Notwithstanding the stoic and conspiratorial silence of a majority of Bollywood cinema actors, the ones who have protested or joined the protest, the hundreds of Punjabi actors, singers, social activists, humanitarian aid agencies and the like have placed the truth which only the blind can miss. 

Punjabi singers, sportsmen, actors, vice-chancellors, writers and ex-servicemen who returned their awards have taken the battle straight into the camp of the BJP who have heretofore specialised in trading lies and hatred across the country, South Asia and the world and who are still parroting that only a small section of farmers comprise the protest.  

Former President of India Pranab Mukherjee in his memoirs The Coalition Years has narrated an incident of November 1978. He says that “I remember we had gone to London in November 1978, after the defeat of the Congress in the post-Emergency elections in 1977. A large number of media persons in a fairly aggressive mood were waiting for Ms Gandhi at the Heathrow Airport lounge. The first question that was flung at her was, ‘What have been your gains from the Emergency?’ Looking at the journalist squarely in the eye, she replied in a level voice, “In those 21 months, we comprehensively managed to alienate all sections of the Indian people.” Pranab Mukherjee added a comment, “Self-correction in such situations is always better than self-justification.”

For Indian Prime Minister Modi who is shy to address and answer journalists and who trades alternative facts at the drop of a hat, this is difficult.  Still, soon someday, sooner than later, he will also have to accept this in the same way as Indira Gandhi did.  All despots have to. He has already joined the ranks of ‘democratic-autocrats’ of history. The Supreme Court can salvage some of the ignominies to the Indian Prime Minister, by repealing the laws without any delay.

A suo-moto hearing in the first week of the Farmers Morcha issues leading to the annulment of the farm laws could have saved close to 70 lives already lost and the botheration to protect the protestors that seem to be worrying you. This is blood already on the hands of the state, the judiciary, the executive, the Bharatiya Janata Party, their supporters and the teeming silent millions of this country. 

The government of India is perhaps waiting for some mistake to happen. I hope and pray that this divine mission and movement will conclude with victory for the farmers and we see on the anvil the beginning of the end of a despotic rule. No tear or death shall be in vain. 

The parliament of India let down the farmers. The President of India ignored the farmers and signed the disputed bills into law.

The Prime Minister, enthused with the unaudited contributions to the PM Care Fund and the election kitty of the Bharatiya Janata Party from questionable sources and the haste to “eliminate poverty” through handful chosen crafty mega business houses, continues to harp on misconceived benefits of the farm bills, particularly through his televised speeches and audio podcasts, which is being compulsory thrust on the unsuspecting children in schools and on prime-time television and his addresses to pseudo-farmers everywhere else except where the farmers are. 

The Indian Prime Minister’s friend US President Donald Trump has been legally impeached through bipartisan votes. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is on that route and whatever the Supreme Court does, it will not be able to prevent that happening sooner than later. 

The Indian judiciary is under the strict glare and watch of the farmers and the citizens at large. The present judgement under review does not help you or the institution you represent. The judgement is quarter-baked, not even half-baked and the linkage with the government highly suspect.  Caesar’s wife has to be above suspicion. 

The Supreme Court of India will have to come out of the shades of the degenerated Banana Republic of India.  

The ball is in your court. Please play a fair, unbaiased and impartial game.

Yours truly

Jagmohan Singh
Editor, The World Sikh News