[Reader-list] The Impossibility of satire

[Lawrence Liang]

Hi All

I attended the hearing of the ongoing Kalyan Sanstha case in the Delhi 
high court and made some notes which i wanted to share


Lawrence



The first impulse that one has after coming out of a court hearing is to 
create a satire that accurately captures the slightly bizarre and 
terrifying vision of judges that one has had a chance to experience. But 
can caricature really live up to its responsibility of laughing truth to 
power? John Beger has said that “Graphic caricature is dead because life 
has outstripped it. Or more accurately, because satire is only possible 
when a moral reserve still exists, and those reserves have been used up. 
We are too used to being appalled by ourselves to be able to react to 
the idea of caricature”. So instead of imposing an impossible goal for 
satire, let us allow the court speak for themselves.

I attended a hearing in the ongoing case of Kalyan Sanstha Social 
welfare Organization v. Union of India which deals with the question of 
encroachments on public land. As many of you are aware, the Delhi high 
court has in recent times, turned its zealous gaze on the massive 
encroachments on public lands which are resulting in ‘massive losses to 
the exchequer’. Their answer has been to appoint a monitoring committee 
and a large number of court commissioners who report on encroachments in 
various parts of the city. The matter that I was interested involves the 
Sanjay Basti, near civil lines, which consists of almost 2000 dwelling 
units.

On 9th February 2006, the Monitoring Committee in its 8th Report 
referring to the “encroachment” at Sanjay Basti recommended that the 
High Court direct the CPWD to take action at once to remove these 
encroachments and ask them to give reasons for not taking any action so 
far and submit a compliance report on the next date of hearing.

Pursuant to this, the high court passed an order dated 14.02.07 
directing all concerned authorities to file action taken reports, with 
particular reference to the observations made by the Monitoring 
Committee. On 1st March 2007, a notice was pasted on one of the 
shop-cum-jhuggis on Timarpur Road. However, when residents enquired as 
to why and on what basis such notice was issued they were not given any 
information by Police or CPWD officials. None of the mandatory statutory 
requirements of Public notice under Section 30 of the DDA Act, such as 
individual notice, statement of reasons were complied with and the 
shop-cum-jhuggi dwellers given opportunity to show cause.
On 6th March 2007, about 40 shops along the Timarpur Road, were 
demolished. Several residences, which were attached to the shops were 
also demolished in the process. Persons were not allowed to remove their 
belongings from the premises before the demolition and lost their 
belongings and means of livelihood. The Demolition team which comprised 
of members of the CPWD, MCD and NDPL was accompanied by two local 
political leaders and after the demolition another local political 
leader came to the site and made a public speech stating that the 
jhuggis would be brought down.
The Sanjay Basti matter has been impeded with the mammoth Kalyan Sanstha 
Social Welfare Organisation case which involves almost all the ongoing 
demolition matters.

The hearing began with an extended report by one of the court appointed 
commissioners on the status of illegal farm houses which violated 
building norms which stipulate that the maximum built up area for a farm 
house cannot exceed 1500 square feet, where as some of these farm houses 
had in fact exceeded this figure many times over. The commissioner 
produced photographic evidence of the blatant violations that were 
taking place and demanded that the court direct the officials of the MCD 
to take immediate action. What was interesting to note was the majestic 
manner in which the objectivity of the law was being played out. Anatole 
France’s famous dictum that the law prohibits the rich and the poor 
equally from sleeping under bridges was being given flesh and blood by 
the almost farcical manner in which a case involving the demolition of 
massive luxury farm houses and bastis were clubbed together.

When faced with the accusation of being anti poor, the judiciary has in 
fact been quick to remind us that it is not just the houses and shops of 
the poor which are being targeted by encroachments by the rich as well. 
A similar line has been followed in Bangalore as well, where sealing 
drives have begun in the elite spaces of the city before moving into the 
poorer parts of the city. It is thus able to invisibilizes the 
differential impact that law has on different classes, and preserves the 
myth of its own objectivity.

Another thing that struck me was the immense cartographic authority that 
the court wields; as reports from various parts of the city are brought 
to their notice, the judge links them using his invisible measuring tape 
of legality ( This area is off by fifty degrees while this one by 
seventy). It constantly strikes me that the interpretative task of the 
judge, which also provides him with his sense of the social world and 
for the city must be such a depressing one. If all one had to view life 
and urban experience are legal lenses, the view can only be an 
impoverished one. While one feels anger and outrage at some of the 
outrageous orders, one cannot but feel a certain pity at the 
impoverished lives that judges lead. In our greatest moments of anger 
and frustration at the inequalities of class and the arrogance of power, 
it is perhaps worthwhile to remember that Howard Hughes, at one time the 
richest individual, died of starvation.

So to return to the case, the discussion on hospitals and farmhouses 
took u most of the afternoon and there wasn’t even a chance of Sanjay 
basti matter to come up ( never mind that the demolition had been slated 
for a few days later). The only respite from the overcrowded court room 
and the constant whining of the air conditioner and the court 
commissioners came towards the end of the day with two explosive 
exchanges that can only be terms in filmi language as paisa vasool.

A senior advocate who had started his arguments in a very soft spoken 
and tentative manner slowly built up into an appropriate operatic 
crescendo, thundering at the judges that their orders were converting 
Delhi into a police state. The judge’s calm response was to inform him 
that if he wasn’t happy with the orders of the court then he could go 
elsewhere. It was not clarified where this elsewhere was. But it does 
seem clear that the judge’s because of their vast cartographic 
experience do have a very good sense of an elsewhere which is better. 
Recall Ruma Pal’s query in the Nangla Manchi hearing “if they cannot 
afford it why do they come to the city”. The mysterious elsewhere 
resurrects itself again.

I was outside the ear shop of the lawyer otherwise I would certainly 
have suggested that he try his luck with the gatekeeper in kafka’s 
parable about the law. But it is probably best that I could not offer 
this suggestion or else I would have run the risk of violating my own 
rule against satire, and in the current atmosphere one does not want to 
risk being within the breathing space of any mode of illegality.

The second part of the Paisa vasool saw a not so soft spoken lawyer 
having a duel with the judges on the merit of his voice, the quality of 
acoustics in the high court and the advantages of remaining standing. 
This lawyer, particularly agitated by the fact that the judges seemed to 
listen only to the court commissioners and not anyone else demanded the 
attention of the ear by the tested and respected strategy of raising 
ones voice. And we then learnt that it is not violence which is the sole 
monopoly of the law, but also all sound exceeding a particular decibel. 
The lawyer who was ‘encroaching’ the acoustic space of the judiciary was 
asked to lower his voice. His defense that this was his natural voice, 
and that it could not be changed, even at the dictate of a judge was not 
acceptable to the judges. Fearing a fatal heart attack, the judges, in a 
moment of concern the ordered him to sit down, but this offer was also 
declined and the lawyer instead chose to remain standing as he delivered 
his tirade against the judiciary over stepping its bounds.

For all of us deprived of a vicarious victory (with India’s early exit 
in the world cup), these two moments had to be the closest thing to the 
double century that none of us got to see. And yet at the same time, at 
the end of the two paisa vasool moments in a rather dreary and 
depressing afternoon, I also had this uncanny post-ejaculation feeling 
of emptiness…… such a short lived moment of pleasure for so much effort.