The Hindi judgment is yet another conspiracy to suppress the averments of the verdict to non-Hindi speaking people. Second, this is an indirect imposition of Hindi on others through such backdoor
A. Mohamed Yusuff | Clarion India
The 28-year-long criminal conspiracy case in the 1992 Babri Masjid demolition ended with the pronouncement of the 2,300-page judgment on Wednesday, acquitting all the 32 accused, including LK Advani, Murali Manohar Joshi, etc.
The judgment has been receiving strong criticism from all quarters of justice-loving people of India, that it is “nothing but a political verdict”.
The language of the judgment itself is yet another conspiracy — it was in Hindi. The language of most of the states and Union Territories of India is not Hindi. The Babri Masjid demolition is a case of national importance which has been the part and parcel of the feelings of Indian citizens, who stand with the affected community and their agony. The judgment was deliberately delivered in Hindi language to keep millions of people residing major regions of the country in the dark.
For example, in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, the proceedings up to the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) are mostly in Tamil. It is more often than not in English in the Principal District & Session Judge (PDJ) level, including Addl. Sessions Judge.
In particular, the Special Courts like CBI, NDPS, etc., are in English only. If we come to Kerala, from Judicial Magistrate First Class (JMFC) to PDJ, it is in English. Even though the Applications/ Petitions are filed by the litigants in Marathi language in Maharashtra, the order/judgment will be pronounced in English. In Andhra Pradesh and Telangana also, they use English in PDJ level.
Even though Hindi is the official language of subordinate courts of Uttar Pradesh, the ADJ-level CBI Special Judge should have pronounced the judgment in English, since it is the case of national importance.
For easy understanding, I wish to quote an example from RTI. When we discuss the importance of the Right To Information (RTI) Act, it squarely comes under Article 19(1)(a), the Right To Freedom of Speech and Expression. To exercise this right, “Right To Know”, is very important. That’s why RTI was implemented through the Statute.
This is the basic idea of my argument with regard to the present judgment of the Babri Masjid demolition case. It is “My Right To Know” everything in the judgment, immediately after the pronouncement.
It is not only my right; exactly the right of non-Hindi speaking people, who have the common medium in English among the territories of the Union. Now, they have made us wait till the English translation is readied by somebody, even as the long wait will test the tolerance of the non-Hindi-speaking people.
The Hindi judgment is yet another conspiracy to suppress the averments of the verdict to non-Hindi speaking people. Second, this is an indirect imposition of Hindi on others through such backdoor. Third, fearing criticism, the exact English verdict was purposefully not made available to the international community and media as well as to the justice-loving fraternity at the global level.
Fourth, it is nothing but the degradation to the Special status of CBI Court at Lucknow that it lacks the command of English to pronounce the judgment in the case of national importance in Yogi’s Uttar Pradesh, which is known as the Hindi-heartland, where 7.97 lakh students failed in Hindi in the Secondary Board examinations for Class 10 and Intermediate (plus two) this year.
Let the CBI “Special” Court of Uttar Pradesh first learn English and subsequently learn justice.