Joint meeting with the Rotary Club of Bombay Pier and the Rotary Club of Mumbai Sion joining the Rotary Club of Bombay
Tahera Mandviwala, Solicitor in conversation with Kapil Sibal, lawyer & Member Of Parliament
Tahera : Okay. Mr Sibal, firstly, thank you so much for coming in, flying into Mumbai only for this. Truly appreciate it. I’ve had a conversation with you before and we’ve discussed your life’s journey, but today I want to discuss low-end politics in 2025 and beyond. You, as a lawyer, as a politician, as the host of Dil Se with Kapil Sibal, which you do on YouTube, have touched upon every important topic there is out there to discuss. Let’s pick a few of those important topics today and let’s do a Dil Se with Kapil Sibal on the other side. Mr Sibal, let’s start off with looking at India. Let’s do a 360 on India. We’re really in the spotlight today. United is a session on India internationally, and it is a jam-packed room, everyone wanting to know what’s next for India. We are the fastest-growing economy, demographic advantage. All of this has really put all of the eyes on India. Looking from the inside out, how do you see it?
Kapil: Well, first of all, thank you very much. Okay, let’s talk about India. Let’s talk about the positives. The positives are that, no matter what we say, India will grow at over 6% for many years to come. And there’s a reason for it. The reason is very simple. We have one hundred and forty crore people. Willy-nilly, even if they don’t get a job, they’ll do something. And we have a huge market. Europe and the United States of America want a China-plus strategy, which means they want to move away from China in many areas of investment. They’re looking to India because India has a large market. They may look at small countries, but the small countries will not give them the kind of profits that India can give them. So, therefore, India will grow at 6 to 6.5% in the next ten years. I have no doubt about that. So that’s the positive. The problem is that 6 to 6.5 or 6.7% is just not enough. If India wants to be a middle-income country, it needs to grow at a minimum of 8%. And if necessary, if we really want to move forward, we have to grow at 10%. That’s not happening. And that’s not likely to happen. Because there is a stranglehold on the economy in India. You need to release the animal spirits of industry in India. The regulatory system is so controlled, and the investigating agencies are breathing down our necks, that it’s not possible for the industry to grow at that level. That’s number one.
But when we start talking about India being the fifth-largest economy—by 2050, we will be the third-largest economy—all that is fine. But what is the real economy of India? Let’s just have a look at it. If you look at the BRICS countries alone—forget about Europe, forget about the United States of America—if you look at the BRICS countries alone, Russia has a per capita income of $14,000. China has a per capita income of $13,000. South Africa has a per capita income of $5,900. Brazil has a per capita income of $11,000. We have a per capita income of $2,540. That’s the reality.
What does that tell you? It tells you that 80 crore people in this country, out of 140 crore, live on the margins. When I say on the margins, they have a monthly income of not more than 5,000 rupees. So India can’t possibly be an economy that matters to the world unless we grow fast, and we are at a minimum rate of 8%, right? That’s not likely to happen in the years to come. We will grow, there’s no doubt about it. And we will just trundle along, but that’s what our economy is. Now, we can control our domestic factors, but we can’t control international factors. If Trump wants to impose tariffs, it’s going to be hugely detrimental to our trade. Now, let me give you one other figure, which will astound you. Our deficit with China in terms of trade is $85 billion. Our overall deficit is $75 billion. In other words, if we were not to trade with China, we would be a surplus country in terms of trade. And the Chinese control almost every aspect of our economy—from electronics to hardware to electricity to power generation. Every sector of the economy is controlled by China. And despite the fact that we have differences with China, we can’t get rid of China. This is a big problem. India is far from ever being China, isn’t it? So there’s a lot to discuss on that as well, but moving on from there.
Tahera: You said once in Parliament very recently that you asked the question: Has the Constitution failed us, or have we failed the Constitution? Today, as a citizen of India, I ask you, as a Member of Parliament, do you think the government and opposition have failed the people? You’ve been in the political landscape for some time now. How do you see it?
Kapil: You know, why do you blame the government, why do you blame the opposition? You and I have failed the Constitution. What have we done for this country? We sit in our homes, we are middle-class people, we don’t want to take any chances. We say to ourselves, As long as I am safe, it’s all okay. That’s the attitude of the middle class of this country. So why blame the government? Why blame the opposition? The fact of the matter is, all of us have failed the Constitution because we don’t embrace its values. The government doesn’t embrace its values, and when the opposition comes to power, it also doesn’t embrace its values. I mean, there may be extremes. In other words, one government may be worse than the other. But in terms of embracing the values of the Constitution, we really don’t care about freedom, right? You know, let’s be clear on it. You and I really don’t care about it. For the simple reason that we don’t fight for it.
How many lawyers do you see in the Supreme Court or the High Court fighting for freedom? They don’t, because they are afraid. They are afraid of two things. One, if they keep fighting, right, they may not get the matters that they want to, you know. They’re concerned about their professional success, and they’re worried about the government. So the lawyers who were at the forefront of all movements anywhere in the world—whether in the United States of America or in India, who brought us freedom—are now taking a back seat. This is very sad.
Tahera: But you’re looking at the political scenario today. I mean, the politicians have some responsibility. They’re the elected people. Do you see that most of the politicians today have no fair thinking? Chidambaram last week was in an interview. And he was asked, what’s your suggestion on the budget? And he said the best suggestion to give is no suggestion at all. Because as soon as you give a suggestion, it’s short-term. People think that politicians only think of them around election time. And if you’re going to move to one nation, one world, there will be fewer times when the politicians think about us. But I’m seeing politicians as well, and you’ll be there for some time. So let me frame it otherwise. What would you be doing if you were Leader of the Opposition or Leader of the Government today? What’s going wrong here?
Kapil: There’s lots wrong, there’s lots wrong, very little right in this country. All right, let’s talk about our parliamentary structure for a minute.
If you see the role of the Senate in the United States of America or you see the role of Parliament in the UK or any other European parliamentary democracy, you will find the treasury benches talking to the opposition. And there’s a reason for it and the reason is simple, there is no concept of a whip in the Senate of the United States of America. There is no concept of a whip except on two special occasions in the… in the UK, in the British Parliament. And those two special occasions are when there’s a no-confidence motion against the government, the party members are supposed to vote to ensure that the government stays in power. And when there is a budget presented in Parliament, you have to vote to make sure that the government stays in power. Other than on those two occasions, there is no concept of a whip. Now what is happening in India today is that because of a whip which is issued at every stage of parliamentary processes, I as a Member of Parliament don’t have the voice to dissent with my own government, right? So in other words, what happens in Parliament is if the Prime Minister says something or a bill is brought which I don’t like even though I’m a member of that party, I can’t say anything against it. One, I’ll be thrown out, two, there’s no possibility of my getting a ministerial position. So in fact, the voice of Members of Parliament is not heard. And what’s the point of having Parliament if parliamentarians cannot speak? Now this is the basic flaw with our parliamentary system and I’ve been talking about it now for two, three, four years, telling people that look, we must change this. But nobody wants to change it.
And so how do you change that? The culture of politics must change. You must have the right kind of people in politics. What’s happening today is that, when a leader is omnipresent and he’s the one that wins the election for you, you can give a ticket to a donkey and he’ll get elected. This is the problem. And when he or she gets elected, they owe their allegiance to the person who brought them, you know, a place in Parliament. So therefore they are slaves to the mentality. That’s the reality of Parliament and therefore we need to change this system somehow. But unfortunately there are not enough thinking people talking about it.
That’s true. Mr Sibal, another thing that we see is a lot of jealousy about politics. Do you think that the minority in this country needs to be fearful of the future? And if so, who is going to be the saviour? Will it be the politicians? Will it be the judges? Will it be the majority? Will the minority have to fend for themselves? And how do you see these initiatives of the government, the Uniform Civil Code, the Work of Amendment Bill, which is in discussion right now, do you think they’re progressive, unifying, or do you think they have a divisive character to them as well?
Well, you know, that’s a very complicated question to answer. It’s simple and complicated. It’s simple because the politics of the country borders around anti-minority, you know, agendas. No, you bash the minorities at home to consolidate the Hindu vote, and if you consolidate the Hindu vote, you’ll get elected. So therefore, you can bash minorities at home and then you go abroad to the Middle East and you embrace those very minorities outside the country, right? So this constant minority bashing will not take India anywhere because you’re talking about something like sixteen percent of our population. You’re talking about two hundred million people. Two hundred million people is more than the population of many countries of the world. So you’re not going to get rid of minorities, you can’t send them anywhere. You have to actually help them to feel integrated into our society, but that’s not the politics of this country.
And unfortunately, that started way back in 2002, and that experiment was successful somewhere and even more successful now. And now the problem is that nobody is willing to stand up for them, not even the opposition. Not even the opposition. You have a Delhi government, right, which is… I don’t know what the results of the election are. You had a Delhi government who talks about Hanuman Chalisa all the time. Harish talked about God, somebody talked about God. So I’m going to tell you my views on God, but that’s another matter. So the point is that, look, the opposition is not willing to stand up for people. Lawyers are not willing to stand up for people. Judges are not willing to uphold the Constitution. Judges are not willing to actually stand up for the culture of this country, for the constitutional values of this country. If courts don’t stand up, lawyers don’t stand up, the middle class doesn’t stand up, minorities will be where they are. Every member of the minority today is afraid. The Hindu protagonists can say what they like. You will not see a response from the minority. Have you ever heard in the last ten years any response from any member of the minority to the kind of things that the Hindu protagonists say in public? Because they’re afraid. And if they were to say something, they’ll be lynched. That’s the state of our country. And if judges don’t stand up, lawyers don’t stand up, you and I don’t stand up, unless the politicians start saying the right thing for this nation, how will we move forward? How will we get the eight percent or the ten percent? That’s the only way to move forward.
And you see this getting worse?
It will get worse. The fight is going to be the people of India versus this government, not political parties versus this government.
You know, you talked a bit about the judiciary doing its bit. For many, the judiciary seems to be the last hope today. But when you look at the judiciary, of course, we have good judges. We have quite a few things that they’ve done against the government. The current government as well, they’ve stood up to them. But in reality, when you really do a health check-up, you’re saying to yourself what is happening to today’s judiciary, especially the judges. You know, a lot of them are seeing criticism from not only what they’re doing but also what they’re not doing. You and many others have raised concerns about what a sitting judge has recently said, even asking for his impeachment. And then you will think, how did he land up there? How are you sitting as a judge and having that sort of, you know, the audacity to speak that in that process? Where is everything going from there? So do you see that these judges, who are the upholders of the Constitution, the rule of law in the country, do you think they’re strong enough? And do you think the issues in relation to this relate to the collegium system of appointment, which I believe initially you’re also one of the people who believed would work? But looking back now, do you think that instead of a cure, the system of appointment of judges today has become a different pain point?
No, I entirely agree. In fact, Mr. Nariman and I were the two lawyers who argued the 1993 Advocates-on-Record Association case, where we said that at that time, the fact of the matter is that the Congress Party was in power, and the Congress Party was also trying to fill up the judiciary with Congress-minded people, and some of them were very poor quality people. So, Fali and I got together and argued that case, saying that the power of appointment should be moved away from the government and should be vested in the judiciary itself, and that’s how the collegium system came up. But I think that I regret, and I think even Fali regretted, that we ever argued that case, because the system is much worse today.
Now, what’s the problem with the appointment? Let’s just, let’s just look at it objectively. Now, I did research on how judges reach the higher judiciary. As far as the lower judiciary is concerned, there is an appointment, there is an examination, and you get appointed through merit. Whether they are independent or not, that’s a separate issue, but at least they get appointed through merit. When it comes to the higher judiciary, I mean, I did some research on it. And what I found was that if you look at the judges who have been appointed in various courts in this country, almost fifty percent of the judges who get appointed are government pleaders. Now, therefore, the ordinary lawyer, an ordinary lawyer who doesn’t have much of a practice, would rather become a judge than continue with practice. So, he wants to suck up to the powers that be and become a government pleader. So, once he becomes a government pleader, his road to the higher judiciary is easy, right? And because he now defends the government in many indefensible matters, and if you defend the government in the most indefensible matters, the government would like you even more. So, one would like to make sure that you go to the higher judiciary. So, you have then a judiciary where fifty percent of the people are packed with government lawyers, people who have been government lawyers, who have been espousing the cause of indefensible issues.
So, that’s one part. The other part is when a Chief Justice goes from a High Court to the Supreme Court, he has his favourites. Because within the High Court, the Chief Justice knows who he likes and who he doesn’t like. So, obviously, that’s human failing and that’s, you know, even we are responsible for that. I mean, I have human failings too, all of us do. So, he’d like to bring people of his own choice. Now, I’ll give you an example. The other day, I was thinking that you had Justice Kuldip Singh who was a judge of the Supreme Court. Now, Justice Kuldip Singh had three juniors. One was Mr. R.S. Mongia. When he was a judge of the Supreme Court, R.S. Mongia became Chief Justice of Assam High Court. The second junior was M.M. Kumar, who became Chief Justice of J&K High Court. The third junior was Mr. Nijjar, who became a judge of the Supreme Court, right?
You had Jagannath Kaushal, who was the Law Minister, and he had two juniors, H.S. Bedi, who became a judge of the Supreme Court, and Ashok Bhan, who became a judge of the Supreme Court. So, now, I’m just giving you some recent examples.
This tells you that basically, the process of appointment is not on merit at all. So, in my latest Dil Se programme—well, not the latest, but the one before the latest Dil Se programme—I discuss all this and I give a solution as to how it should be done. But the fact of the matter is that today, we have judges who say blasphemous things for which I moved an impeachment motion, and that judge was called by the Supreme Court, and he stood his ground. He said, “I’m not going to change and I’m not going to say sorry.” And so, the Chief Justice has not been able to do anything about it. So, if the system is polluted in this fashion—not that the judicial institution by itself has not done great things for this country—but if you have people like this in the judiciary and you don’t know anything about it, it sends the wrong message. And then you have people who don’t get bail, innocent people who don’t get bail, you have persecutions—I mean, you have persecutions which are really persecutions—and nobody can do a thing about it. So, things are pretty bad.
Tahera: Even the delays and of course…
The judiciary is not responsible for the delay by and large because in the UK, for example, for every million population you have at least fifty judges, right? We have less than twenty-five judges, I mean, in fact, less than twenty judges.
Tahera: But that goes back to the problem of appointment of judges again.
It goes back to your infrastructure. You don’t have the infrastructure. You don’t have the right kind of people to appoint judges. If you need a library, you need courtrooms, you need a place for litigation, litigants to be, you need housing for them, you need pensions for them. Now, the government has to give money for that, no? That the state government is not willing to give because the judiciary is not a priority for them. Winning elections is the priority.
Tahera: That’s true. Let’s move to another aspect of democracy, which is very important, and that is the media. And you would agree that the media in India, we’re seeing a rapid depletion in its independence. So your thoughts on that, and also, parallelly, to discuss the new creature called social media. And with everything in life, there’s the good and bad of that as well. The good thing is that it gives the platform for voices to be heard, for topics to be discussed, which maybe the mainstream media is shying away from. For example, you’re sure you’re discussing things which nobody is discussing anywhere. But then the answer also is that it can be the root of misinformation, misleading opinions. We’ve seen this in politics, especially at the time of elections. But we also now see that in the judiciary. Many judiciaries around the world have boycotted social media platforms, particularly X, stating specifically that they are putting misinformation out there. In India, both the bar and the bench have not been spared from social media criticism. How do you look at this? Do you see social media as the modern freedom of speech and expression, which we all need to learn to live with, we’re the ones who need to sort of moderate ourselves, have less live streaming of court cases? Or is it the social media that needs to be better regulated and moderated? How are you looking at media and social media today?
Let’s go to the media first. As far as mainstream media is concerned, the problem is the structure. The problem is not, I mean, the structure is such that mainstream media is controlled by corporate giants. If mainstream media is controlled by corporate giants, corporate giants are the ones who get favours from the government, and they are the ones who subscribe to electoral bonds. They are the ones who fund the government. So, if you fund the government and you get favours from the government, you can’t possibly be free. So, it’s a structural issue, and a political party must come up with a manifesto to say that we will break this structure, right? We will not allow industry to be controlling media platforms in this country, right? And so, but that’s true even in the United States of America now, which is why the media is what it is all over the world. So, that’s a structural issue, and I don’t blame people for it. For the simple reason, the reporters in the country actually come and tell you the truth, but the management in the country doesn’t want to recognise the truth. So, it’s the management that is at fault, and quite frankly, they have actually destroyed the whole process of parliamentary democracy in this country or democracy in this country. So, that’s the problem with the mainstream media, which is a structural issue.
Now, when you have a structural issue like that, you know, as Newton’s Third Law of Motion states, for every action, you will have an opposite reaction. The opposite reaction is the social media platform. Now, it’s as difficult to manage as the mainstream media. Now, the social media platform has no structural issues. It is an irresponsible platform, but the consumer is able to understand the extent of its irresponsibility. That’s the positive side of social media. In other words, when I’m watching something, I know, unless of course, I cannot figure out that this is completely fake. Not everything is completely fake, but yes, there are many things that are fake. There’s no doubt about that. But, you know, in every walk of life, there are positives and there are negatives. So, if you want something, at least you are filtering some good news, right, which people are willing to watch. For example, my own platform now, right, I don’t, you know, we have a conversation. We don’t sort of, we don’t accuse anybody of anything. But there are many platforms which are just accusatory in nature, which is also not good. So, I think you let the consumer decide what he wants, but at the same time have some strict rules in terms of defamation, in terms of blatantly fake news, right. You should have some strict rules, and I think the government can actually formulate those rules. But here the government is trying to formulate rules so that they can actually silence the voices of that section of social media which has a positive impact on society.
But the third question was on live streaming. Now, on live streaming, I have my own take. For example, I’ll give you an example. If it’s a constitutional matter where five judges are sitting and the arguments are being regulated, I have no problems with live streaming because you are discussing national issues, right? But if it comes to a criminal case, for example, I’ll give you the example of the RG case, the Calcutta case. Calcutta, that RG case was bedevilled with politics. And at one stage, the Solicitor General said to me, why are you laughing? The fact of the matter, I was not laughing. I was not laughing at all. Now, I can’t explain to the public that I was not laughing. Then I got trolled millions of times that I was laughing at a tragedy that took place, right? And then I went to the Chief Justice the next morning and I said, I’ve been in this court for 52 years. You can’t destroy my reputation like this by live streaming nonsense like this. The next day he stopped it. He stopped it. And there’s been no live streaming ever since. Because judges realise that the more they live stream these issues, their dignity will be at stake. So, yes, live streaming on regulated constitutional bench matters, but not in criminal matters because there are too many emotions involved.
Tahera: Selective livestream.
And so I’ll try to move a bit faster to meet the time, but you did touch upon this in the first question itself, and I said we’ll come back to it. You said, we as the people are not doing enough. Now, you are a Member of Parliament, you’re the President of the Supreme Court Bar Association. We stand before the highest court in this country on the most important matters to this nation. There’s nothing in law and politics that passes you by. Now, you today have a very intellectual, influential audience. What would you tell the strata of society, you know, other than just saying, go vote? What are the other things in terms of law and politics that we as the people need to know, need to do, need to expect, maybe even need to pay for?
The problem is that most people have no time to think, you know, just look at your lives. You know, if you’re in business, you go out in the morning, you know, you come back at eight o’clock at night, your wife is saying, what the hell, why are you so late? You know, and you know, you have no time for me and then you’ve got kids and your kids say, look, Papa, you don’t spend any time with us. What time do you have for people around you? You don’t, right?
And this is part of the consumer society that is taking over the world. You know, a kid now watches television and says, Dad, I want this, I want this mobile phone at the age of seven, right, and I want this and I want that computer and all. Everything, everything is around what I want, right, and parents encourage it, right.
So, basically, you have to decide your own priorities in life. I mean, that’s not something that I can, you know, even comment on. You have to decide, look, look, it’s very simple. This life is a one-way highway. There’s no coming back. Every second that is spent is a second lost, okay. And there’s no past. Actually, in life there is no past, it’s only the future. So, if you’re on a one-way highway, right, what is it that you’re here for? Why is it that you’re here? You know, when you grow up and you try to climb a ladder, you have to take somebody’s support, no, the ladder’s support. You can’t even climb up the ladder without support. Everything that you and each of us has done in life is with support. And yet we don’t support others.
Isn’t that a tragedy? We don’t support others. Your role in life is to support as you go along wherever you are, whatever you do. Look around you, look around your community, look around your friends and support them, support them with the right thing. For that, you need to take time out for the community. That’s all that you need to do. You don’t have to be the cheerleader for the rest of the world. You are a leader within your own setup and that’s good enough.
Tahera: I think that’s a good and important message and very valid for the Rotarians here. That’s a good point for us, but tell us a bit about you, your secret in life. How have you championed being a lawyer and a politician? What does it take to be a great lawyer and politician in today’s young age? And I’m sure there’s commonality between the two as well.
Well, you know, basically, and Harish will agree with me, that by nature a lawyer has the DNA to be independent. That’s because we are always fighting for causes, right? So, as a lawyer, I don’t like to be decided by some guy who is leading the party, who occasionally talks quote-unquote nonsense. I don’t want to be guided by that. So, as lawyers by nature, we are independent and that’s how I’ve led my life. I don’t, even within the Congress Party, I used to speak my mind and ultimately I decided that if you don’t need me, I don’t need you. And I also then made a public statement that I will never join any other political party. So, when a political party came to me and said, you join us, we’ll give you a ticket, I said, no, I’m not going to join you. Then another political party came and said, join us and we’ll give you a ticket. I said, no, I’m not going to join you. They said, okay, we want you to be in Parliament. I said, then you vote for me as an independent and they voted for me. So, I say what I want to say in Parliament, I don’t take any sides, I try and say the right thing and I do the same thing in court. And the other thing that I do is that I do about 40 to 50 percent of all that I do in court free of charge. For those who are persecuted, I never charge anything. For those who are poor, I never charge anything. For those who are lower middle class, they don’t have means to pay, I don’t charge anything and I fight for causes. And you win some, you lose some.
Tahera:That’s you doing your bit.
We’ve spoken about you as a lawyer, as a politician, but we shouldn’t miss the poetry. I’m not sure if many know, but he writes a lot of poetry. Would you like to share something with this audience here today before we open up for questions?
Abb inke dil mein shayari hai toh share kar sakta hu. We were talking about God, so many times you must have seen people going to the temple and the poorest of people going to temples, the rich, you know, get a privileged place. But the poor go every day, every evening, every year, 365 days telling God, God give me something, change my life. So one day, one of these poor people got very angry with God and he said to God,
Haq mere dila tu, mujhko khuda tu nahi toh ye bata karega phir kya tu?
Haq mere dila tu, mujhko khuda tu nahi toh ye bata karega phir kya tu?
Bashindo se tere uktah chuka hu.
Dilase tere aksar sun chuka hu.
Dwar tere aakar main kab tak khada hu, iltijah karte karte thak chuka hu.
Haq mere dila tu, mujhko khuda tu nahi toh ye bata karega phir kya tu?
Jang meri ladega? Phir pata chalega.
Jang meri ladega? Phir pata chalega bin paise ka hukum maan lega?
Tere yaha bhi toh paise hai chalte
Kehte hai unko hi taufe hai milte.
Agar tu iss khel mein aise karega..
Hamare liye bin paise ladega?
Haq mere dila tu, mujhko khuda tu nahi toh ye bata karega phir kya tu?
Haq paiso se bante hai, bin paise ujadte. Woh haq dila jinse paise hai bante….
Phir unke tere bhi darwaze hai khulte woh nuske tu sikha tu.
Dua unki bhi dila tu hisab karke thoda mujhko dila tu.
Iss saudein ki duniya mein sauda kara tu..
Haq mere dila tu, mujhko khuda tu nahi toh ye bata karega phir kya tu?
Kapil:
I’ll tell you something about God. So let me tell you my idea of God. This is a book that I wrote, a book of poetry that I wrote, in which there’s a poem on God. It goes like this, it’s called My God.
I want my God to smile like me, virile and strong, alive with me.
A comrade who believes in me, a friend seldom agrees with me.
Yet guides me in my destiny, ensures my mind is rancor-free.
Our blessed gods are calm, serene, lure us with an attractive dream.
Those who live by faith today, their God will pay them back someday.
Our hopelessness will keep hope alive, the reason for us to survive.
This illusion is Maya’s trap, our short-lived strength, a painful lap.
Mortals are where the aftermath follows the Buddha’s eightfold path.
Desires central to human greed embrace a world of sons’ wants and needs.
Should I await a vulture’s flight to find out if at all you are right?
Or perhaps let my fire burn ashes afloat within an urn, saddled around layers of earth, safely ensconced within the earth, might be too late to realize that your sermons were not so wise.
Help me now to find my God, whose counsel I can learn to applaud.
Need to absorb the sights I see, find beauty in what seems ugly.
Your reach should run for those in need, a just repose to every deed.
Treasures I wish to excavate, help my spirits to limit it.
My God of truth should partner me in laughter and in misery.
This life is what was meant to be. The other side is yet to be.
I want my God be with me now.
Let me manage my life somehow.
Reward me before the aftermath, guide me along the righteous path.
If not, my God is too remote, conceived to be an antidote for those who dare to be at par with others who have traveled far.
Your miseries have been ordained.
If you lose here, you are bound to gain. This mirage I have failed to see.
My God is my contemporary.
ROTARIANS ASK
President Satyan Israni, RCB : Now, Kapilji, first of all, thank you so much for taking time out and coming today and sharing such nuggets. Tahera, you expertly moderated the entire conversation. My question is a little controversial. You know, we always say that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And you can see the way democracy, the majority the party is getting, BJP is getting. Why can’t Congress see that people don’t want to go over the Gandhi family, they want an alternative but because there’s no alternative, they’re going to the BJP.
Quite frankly, I don’t agree with that question, I’ll tell you why. Why do you think I said to you that the next election, whenever it will be if the present dispensation is defeated, it will be the people of India versus the government? I said that some time ago and why is that? Probably you don’t know why I said that. You see, in a game of cricket, you play by the rules of the game, everybody gets an over to bowl, right? There are ten wickets that go and if there’s a controversial decision, there’s a third umpire who decides, right? Now here the third umpire decides in the government’s favour. Everything, the whole system of electoral politics is controlled. I’ll give you some small examples because I’ve been in politics, I’ve been, you know, fighting direct elections, I’ve fought four of them. Now, today the situation is that in a Muslim area, first of all, they will make sure that their names are deleted from the electoral roll. So when somebody goes to vote, he’ll not find his name there, number one. Number two, where the names are not deleted and they failed in this particular area, Muslims are going to vote en bloc in favour of A political party or B political party. They will get the police there, right? And they will threaten them that we will arrest them if they don’t leave. So you’ll see low voting in Muslim areas because the administration is used, I mean, the police are used by the political party in power to ensure that they will not vote, right?
That’s number two. If there is a basti, for example, the jhuggi jhopdi police and the government thinks that those jhuggi jhopdi people won’t go to vote for one political party, they will go and pick up all the pradhans and keep them in jail, right, overnight. And they will allow the ruling party’s supporters to distribute paisa and distribute liquor, right? So when they vote, the jhuggi jhopdi people feel they helped us so we will vote for them. The other method that is being adopted today is that they will go and give them 10,000 rupees and they will put this mark on their finger, on their nail, so that they can’t vote, right? And they will vote in their stead. The other thing that they do is that they know in this street so many people are dead or so many people are missing or those people are gone out, they won’t vote. They know all that and then they will cast their vote and then the returning officer sitting in the booth is their own man. Somebody will be called from Gujarat to come and be the returning officer, right? So that’s one part. So they are flushed with money, they can spend as much as they want partly because they are the richest party in the world today. So when you say if Congress gives an alternative, none of these alternatives are going to work. If you have controlled the system and you have bought over the system, no opposition is going to win this election.
You are living in a fool’s paradise because we know how the system works on the ground. So yes, I have heard this talk so many times that if the Communist Party were to change the leadership, people want which alternative are you talking about? There is no alternative. The alternative is only the people of India. That’s the problem. It’s not a controversial question.
2 Rtn. Mudit Jain : Thank you Kapilji, you are more a statesman than a politician and lawyer. My question is, do you see a groundswell of support coming for re-elections because it’s been proved beyond doubt, there’s been fudging in the electoral rolls and all and I’ve heard you also live streaming on your Article 370 in Kashmir where the procedure was not followed but that’s just a comment.
No, you’re right, but there is now a general feeling amongst the public. The public says, what’s the point of voting if they are anyway going to win? So that feeling is there, but I think that feeling will grow in time to come.
- Rtn. Kiran Srivastava : You think embracing one’s faith and being vocal about it is putting down any other faith, and it’s not. I am just talking very honestly and neutrally. As a Hindu, if I am vocal about my faith, as in Hinduism, and I respect other religions also, it is considered that it is sloshing the minority. Do you think that is happening right now? Because when minorities talk about their faith, that’s considered very divine. But when a Hindu, because we are into mantras, we are into chanting, and we have a great legacy in history, when we are vocal about our history, then why is it being considered as bashing minorities? I mean, is there some reason for it?
Let me try and answer that. It’s a difficult question. First of all, faith should never be a matter of public display. My first answer: faith should never be a matter of public display. Faith is a matter which is private. I believe in my God, right, and I should pray to my God within my home. I am not against what you are saying. I am trying to say, as a concept, faith should be a matter that should not be part of any public display, okay? Now, you are talking about Azaan. Now, Azaan has been a tradition for thousands of years, thousands of years. Now, going to a temple in Ayodhya, which has been consecrated and made a spectacle, is not a tradition for thousands of years. Any tradition must be allowed to continue. They are not doing it for public display; this is part of their tradition. So, you are putting one against the other. No, I don’t mind. I mean, I think the Namaz should be at home, also should be at home. I agree with you. It also should be at home, just as you or I praying to God should also be at home. These are not matters for public display, right? And therefore, if you make politics out of it, then that’s even worse. What you are doing is, while an election is going on, you are showing somebody taking a dubki, or standing on… for what? You want to influence politicians for the politics of the country. That’s completely wrong. Which Muslim has done that? Nobody has done it. There is nobody… Media will not even show it. Media will not even dare show it. So, you see what is happening in our country, and if you ask that question, it seems to me as a matter of this thing that that’s the kind of mindset which is very dangerous.
- Just to kind of change the question a bit, just in case, you know, as India goes to the five trillion and beyond, which is what we are trying to look at, what legal or policy changes would you suggest which would be crucial in achieving the same?
You know, this five trillion, three trillion is just meaningless. The question is, in whose money, in whose pocket is the money going? Do you know there’s a world report which says that the income disparity in India today is as it was in 1922? That’s the level of income disparity in India. There were sixty-eight billionaires who became billionaires during two years of COVID. And that’s one in the health sector, right? We are not even a five trillion-dollar economy, we’re not even a three trillion-dollar economy yet. But, we have a hundred and sixty-seven billionaires, right? With a thirty trillion-dollar economy, you have a thousand trillionaires. A hundred and sixty-seven billionaires in a country where the per capita income is two thousand five hundred and forty, and eighty crore people live at the margins. What are we talking about? So, making it a three or five trillion economy means nothing to me. What is important is putting money in the pockets of those who have no money. Then only will the economy move forward. So, if you have a budget that talks about tax cuts, right, to the rich, and it doesn’t have a budget. For example, they have reduced this time, they have not increased the expenditure on education. They’re not increasing the expenditure on health. They’re not extending the expenditure on social programmes. They’ve cut down the expenditure for the simple reason that they’ve given a benefit to the middle class, right, by saying that you won’t have to pay tax if you earn ten lakhs, right? The middle class lives in the urban areas of this country. They’re not going to fuel the economy. Ninety-four percent of the workforce in this country is in the informal sector. What you need to do is to put money in their hands, in their pockets. Then only will five trillion mean anything.
- Do you think there is some subconscious sentiment in the people of India which lies really in that sense dormant but is a part of their DNA as a result of their cultural heritage, which can be tapped by an astute politician? Now, why I am asking this is, if you recall, just after the Emergency, or when Mrs Gandhi had imposed the Emergency, you know, everything was so completely disciplined as it were, and when she declared the elections at that point of time, she was told by the intelligence agencies that her name was being sung in every street corner and there was no way she could lose the elections. But when she had the elections, she lost 300 out of 300 seats in the north because the people said, “It doesn’t matter, you can’t stifle our voice.” But that’s a sentiment which is very much a part of our cultural heritage. Do you see some such sentiment prevalent here, which can be tapped by a far-thinking or a clever politician or a party, which then therefore cuts across all these barriers of religion?
Yeah, it can be tapped, but unfortunately, you’re talking about a time in 1976–77, which you cannot compare with the times today. Because the nature of the power structure and the control over every aspect of state life was not existent then. If you remember, courts were very independent at that time, right? The media was very independent at that time, right? Both of them… Both of those are non-existent today. So, you really can’t compare, but I still feel there is a groundswell of feeling in this country that what’s happening is not right. I think… I think we need a leader to emerge to actually help that groundswell to grow because this can’t continue for very long.
- Just moving the tack away, I mean you talked about people of India versus the government or whatever would be the solution. That’s what you mentioned. But we all talk about plan A and plan B, and in my view, as an optimist, I’m sure that there are people on both sides on an informal level who know each other, who know one another because people from this side have gone that side, people from that side have come this side. You know, I’m an apolitical person. Don’t you think that some of these people can get along and agree at least on some minimum programme which everybody agrees on and not politicise everything?
How do you defend things like bringing back the Old Pension Scheme, getting rid of NPS? I think there is something wrong on both sides. I mean, these are my two questions. Why can’t we have a common programme which everybody agrees on? And secondly, why bring back things which your own party had introduced, which are good things, and you want to get rid of them? My own party is no longer my own party.
You are asking a very difficult question because you are now assuming that there are Members of Parliament who think like that, but there are none. I am a great friend of Shashi’s. I’ve been telling him for years now that, look, you should start the movement in Kerala and be the chief ministerial candidate, we’ll support you. But he doesn’t dare do it. Ask him here. I’ve been saying it every time I meet him. I say, then if you become the Chief Minister, if not this time, next time, then you can have a national platform. That’s true of many, but they don’t do it. They don’t have the courage. See, for what you are saying to work, you should have Members of Parliament who have the courage to think like you, but they don’t. A lot of these people who belong to—I’m not going to take any names or even a political party—come to me and say the same thing that I am saying to you, but they don’t have the courage to do anything about it. That’s because they are more involved in themselves than they are with the community. That’s the problem.
- I have two questions, but I am going to ask the first one: with a group majority changing the Constitution, how far is that possible?
Not possible. You need, you need, you know, three-fourths, two-thirds for some of the amendments, which they don’t have.
I come to my second question: how was the word secularism introduced in the 70s when it was not there in the original Constitution? Even if it had not been introduced, we are a secular nation.
We were, or we are, by nature we are not a secular nation. But constitutionally, we are. And there’s a historical perspective. Let me just explain that to you. Why are we secular? There’s a reason for it, and that’s entirely historical. So if you look at geography—actually, history is a byproduct of geography. Now, in a domestic economy, a pastoral economy is sedentary. It’s inward-looking. And a non-pastoral economy is outward-looking. And climate has a lot to do with it. So when people from Central Asia were looking for pastures, the only way out for them was to move through the Hindu Kush into India. Because of the Himalayas, at that time, nobody had the technology and the wherewithal to cross the Himalayas to go to China. And very few in large numbers could go from oceans from one country to another. So the only movement, historical movement that took place was from the Central Asia region, you know, through the Hindu Kush, through Afghanistan into India. And that’s how swathes of invasions took place through centuries, right?
Now, if you look at the people of Haryana or the people of Punjab, you will find that they are fair-skinned. A lot of them are fair-skinned. And the reason for that was simple: because all these invasions took place, and cross-fertilisation happened, right? And therefore, there was a lot of cultural absorption that took place. So you have in different parts of the country, because of the nature of our invasions, different kinds of people with different DNAs living together, right? If you go to South India, you will see another entirely cultural tradition, where they were pushed down, right? In North India, we were always fighting the invaders, and the cross-fertilisation was happening, right? So therefore, there was no cultural affinity, right? Then you had the Assamese coming from the Asian side, right?
So therefore, as a nation, because of our geography and our climate and because of the invasions that took place, we are by nature secular. It has nothing to do with any policies, nothing to do with the Constitution. We are by nature secular because we got together through a political process when we were not together for thousands of years. And so this is a political system that has evolved from a disparate set of people who have gotten together to be India, to be Bharat, right? And we are by nature secular because we have to live together—we have no choice. So the only way the country can move forward, and this is true of Muslims living in India, this is true of Hindus, this is true of Adivasis, this is true of people from Myanmar who came to India. We have to be together because otherwise, we can’t survive. So whether that constitutional amendment took place or it didn’t take place, we are by nature secular, and we have to be secular—we have no choice but to be secular.
- So I work for a non-profit organisation which supports college-going children who live below the poverty line, and a government official who didn’t necessarily receive what he wanted revoked one of our permissions, which now finds us in court. On the first court date, the government attorney was not ready. On the second court date, the bench didn’t sit. On the third court date, the government attorney was unwell. And on the fourth court date, it was changed without informing us. How would you encourage me as someone who is trying to do good work but not getting support through the system?
Reach out to me.