Arrest the virus of arbitrary power

Context: The arbitrary use of power by a democratically elected government, implied by the absence or selective use of the law, is deeply troublesome. 

Case Involved: Denial of bail to a pregnant student-activist, arrested for actively participating in Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 protests, display arbitrary use of power by the state.

The 3 viruses infecting India: COVID-19 virus, Virus of Communalism and Virus of Arbitrary Power

Critical analysis of Arbitrary curtailment of liberty:

• It blocks our freedom: Arbitrariness is inversely proportional to freedom and liberty.

• Role of stabilized expectations: Laws enable our actions and interactions to become predictable.

• Citizens cannot function freely without a stable set of expectations.
• E.g. The stable law of driving only on the left enhances the freedoms of both citizens and the state

• At the mercy of the whims and fancies of the powerful: 

• By the executive: E.g. A policeman issuing a ticket to a driver just because he does not like the color of his/her vehicle is grossly unjust.
• Political Enslavement: the laws, good or bad, flow from the like and dislike of colonial masters.
• Social Slavery:

• • • • Unexpected treatment from masters- one moment: objects of affection/charity, the other moment: treated with disdain. Such arbitrary use of power is still exercised by patriarchs.
      • Hire and Fire at will: unconstrained capitalism has placed the workers at the whims and fancies of employers 

• Glimpse of Emergency : Even democracies contain authoritarian spaces within them where the law can be used arbitrarily.

• During Emergency, Oppositions were jailed on a false charge of conspiring against the state.
• Rising number of first information reports (FIR) filed based on unsubstantiated claims by the state provides a glimpse of heading towards the emergency.

• Rights Upended : arbitrariness in case of arrest of activists

• Article 21: gives every citizen the right of basic liberty and security. No one can be deprived of such rights without following procedures established by law.
• Article 22: required the grounds of arrest and detention must be on reasonable grounds; preventive detention to be used in rare cases

• Arbitrary use of the law : Police acting on the moods of ruling leaders use the law to harass people.

• Mere presence of an individual at the crime scene is arbitrarily represented as a threat to internal security.
• Political activists and journalists are charge sheeted for simply doing their jobs.

Conclusion: 

• Frequency and brazen partisanship is worrisome in present times and is on the verge of giving up the gains from the chastening experience of the Emergency.
• By restoring faith in democracy, India must walk the way of maturing as a democracy and not the way of authoritarian rule.