While I reiterate my faith on the Constitution in the context of Justice P.D.Dinakaran...

I can insist upon that everyone must believe in the Constitutional scheme and wait for the Hon’ble judge, P.D.Dinakaran to be impeached; after all,neither did I have any land in Kaverirajapuram (where the Lord owns a couple of hundred acres in his own name and encroached a similar extent of land from the public) nor did I suffer directly due to his orders such as the one involving the land in the famous Binny Mills case. I can afford to believe in the Constitution and the rule of the law because I have not lost anything to the Dinakarans.

I shall insist upon living with the hope that Justice Dinakaran will be impeached some day because I know that I will not lose anything and that nothing will happen to my own life or property even if the Hon’ble judge is not impeached. I do know, even before someone reminds me, as to what happened to the grand idea of impeachment in the case of Justice V.Ramasamy. A majority of the Hon’ble MPs, at that time, decided to vote against his impeachment even while they knew that the Hon’ble judge was guilty of corruption. I remember Kapil Sibal’s defence of Ramasamy then. And I do feel that Justice Dinakaran too will find a lot of prominent men to defend him and ensure his exoneration even if he is sought to be impeached.

I will not be affected either way. And in the event he is impeached, I shall go around telling my friends that I was also a small cog in the wheel. I might even be able to exaggerate my role in the campaign at that time!

The point is that it is impossible to expect someone who lost his land to the avarice of the Dinakarans or for that matter to one or another of the miners (who benefited from Justice Dinakaran’s or another such judge’s orders) to believe that the Constitution and the scheme it prescribes to ensure justice, freedom and all the rights of a human being will take care of such men who abuse their powers and wait for the law to take its own course. And someone who seeks to resist the alienation of his land may, at some point, refuse to stop with prayers, petitions and appeals.

The struggle for preventing such alienation of land, in the natural course, does not turn violent; because those who agitate to save their land and property also know for sure that the armed might of the state is too big for them to overcome. In other words, the people know for sure that the police will beat them up and even shoot them down even at the slightest pretext; and hence will insist on remaining non-violent. And try to petition the powers that be seeking justice. The trouble, however, is that such acts do not lead them to anywhere near justice. The media refuses to take note of such struggles. And in the event the protests are led by someone like us, who believe in the Constitution and its scheme, it loses steam at some point.

But then, to those who had lost their land and their livelihood, the choice is then between death due to starvation or death while fighting for restoration of their rights. And that leads to some of them taking to arms. This is now happening in the large swathes of land in West Midnapore in West Bengal. This was noticed for some years in the villages in Chattisgarh and has intensified now. This was happening for sometimes now in large parts of Jharkhand. And this is also happening in some parts of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa. As for the media, it is a fact that in most cases the long story of this process is sought to be pushed under the carpet and any resistance, in any form, to the alienation of land and livelihood of the people by the state and its machinery (whose Constitutional duty is to protect these rights of the people) is simply described as being a menace!