Why so much mercy for a celebrity?

In India a celebrity or a man from a well connected family brings about many benefits which an ordinary citizen can only dream of. Robert Vadra has seen it all and made money with such ease that it made you wonder as if it grew on the floor of his bedroom. Very recently, at a party hosted by Sahara Group Chairman Subrata Roy everyone dropped in be it the leader of the ruling party or the prominent actors or the cricketers or the industrialists. This worries me for the simple reason that in India who you know is more important than what you know. These connections or friendships will only screw ordinary citizens like us. This clique of people with power and huge net worth seem to pay no heed whatsoever for the rule of law. Another feature of these groups is that they give each other mutual access to their power to enhance it.

We are all aware of the outrage over the Supreme Court’s order to send Sanjay Dutt to jail for 5 years for his role in 1993 Mumbai serial blasts. Everyone started condemning that order as if the Court’s decision was a sacrilege. And this is our apex court, mocking its decision is simply preposterous. The whole film fraternity started to rally behind Dutt. They will have to for the obvious reason that hundreds of crores are blocked in movies starring Dutt. They are of the view that he is innocent and has already suffered a lot. Even the press council chairman and former chief justice of India Markandey Katju wrote a letter to the governor of Maharashtra in respect to this. His reasons defy logic and are no less than absurd. The likes of Digvijay Singh and our enigmatic home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde have publicly pledged their support for Dutt. But the arguments put forward to defend Dutt have lacked logic and conviction. You can always say he has a family, has suffered a lot but what about the families of those who lost their loved ones in that blast.

But wait, Does Dutt even deserve all this love, affection, mercy? Agreed with time he might have become a good human being, promoting the ideology of Gandhiji but is it enough to warrant him a reduction in term or pardoning of the full term? The answer is NO. For a similar charge another convict in ’93 blasts case has served the punishment which was as per the law. Dutt has some serious charges against his name and on the top of it his late parents tried everything in their power to save their son. They managed that with limited success else Dutt would have been behind bars pretty early. He should’ve been charged under TADA Act instead of the Arms Act. There is also the conversation between an underworld don and him released by Mumbai Police. He also helped them gain their base. There is more to this story than this with Dutt possessing AK 56 rifle illegally. He later claimed that he kept it for personal safety. Now tell me who on earth keeps AK 56 for safety? There too he got away easily but would this have been possible for you and me?

It is deplorable to see this happening; you have all the evidences of a crime and has been proven guilty by the apex court but the same people who are part of this legal system and who have to conduct themselves with utmost honesty are seen in parties such as Subrata Roy’s smiling and chatting away. The ordinary wrong doers still hide their faces in the society while these people with strong contacts and power manage to find their pictures in newspapers. There is complete absence of a sense of propriety.

It is this mindset of the people at top positions which is threatening the very existence of democracy. An ordinary Indian citizen is made to suffer a lot in jail for crimes like theft while the people, who commit crimes of a higher pedigree with their celebrity status and a position of power, get away as easily as moving away from an innocuous buffalo. The law should be the same for everyone and its protectors need to show some integrity, honesty if they have any.