India Political Blog

Somehow, the polity in India has accepted two major concepts: If you are a politician (and especially a Minister), there is a minimal chance that you will be prosecuted for anything; secondly, that the threatening and taking of human life in the form of a homicide or murder is not all that big a deal. However, recently there has been a trend that both of these theories are getting challenged. For the second one, there are many cases where ordinary people have challenged the almost casual investigation into murder and forced the Government and police into doing major investigations (such as into the Jessica Lal case and the Priyadarshini Mattoo case). As regards powerful people, courts in recent times have not hesitated to move against politicians, many times forcing investigating agencies to do a better role (and even though we have had shameful cases such as the Congress Government ordering the CBI to so little that both Mayawati and Shibu Soren have got off); still there have been many cases of prosecutions such as the case of Shahabuddin, Anand Mohan, and a few others who have been prosecuted and sent to jail (and maybe scared the others facing court cases).

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