After much delay and procrastination, I finally dragged myself to write this piece on our Core Analyst School (CAS) training in Kuala Lumpur. Perhaps there is a silver lining in this, for initially I had thought of capturing the moments of our course in episodic articles spread over its duration. Mercifully for all readers, I landed up in KL with an upset stomach that simply refused to digest anything it was fed for almost three days. And the accompanying cold and dripping nose made me drop the idea. As the course progressed, I barely found any energy at the end of the long and grueling days (more due to extended lounge bar and shopping sprees than any classroom sessions) to sit down and pen my thoughts.

In a sense, CAS essentially captures that one core value of Accenture – Integration. I doubt whether any multi national organization would have a training program which would bring people from two continents, put them together for about two weeks and make them interact, brainstorm and have discussions with each other. In my team, I had two analysts from Tokyo, one from Shanghai, one from Canberra and one from Melbourne. The story was repeated across all the entire fifteen teams formed for the course. A cross cultural diversity that certainly challenged me to communicate more effectively and be more coherent with a couple of team mates who at times were not so proficient in the use of the English language. And as the course progressed, I realized that even though some of us might have had misgivings as to the relevance of the contents of the course, just the chance to work in a diverse team and the opportunity to initiate participation and carry your team mates from different countries along was an experience in itself. Its relevance perhaps can hardly be questioned, for many of us might well find ourselves in projects tomorrow where we are working with people not from our country. The experience and learnings of CAS would certainly be called upon then.

Its always lightens a training when your faculty is out to have fun as well, and we were certainly lucky to have a set like that. The mood was always light, the ice breakers (charades, chicken dance, ‘All my neighbors’ and a host of crazy videos from You Tube) made a dull session turn into fun and the faculty members never shied away from shaking a leg, sharing a drink or simply letting their hair down in the networking events.

So what was there at KL outside the classroom? The nights were spent for many in the lounge bars and pubs of the city (many landed up late the mornings after, or simply landed clutching their heads and rubbing their eyes). There was of course the mandatory pilgrimage to the holy grail of Malaysia – The Petronas Twin Towers and the sight of them at night was absolutely amazing. Even more scintillating was the view from floor 65 where Accenture has its office. The highlight perhaps was bargain shopping at China Town, a street market where every brand you could only drool over and wish you pocket could afford one day, was available for one – thousandth of a price (alright, one hundredth, allow me some scope for exaggeration as well). From Gucci, Louis Vitton (suitcases and briefcases by that brand, can you imagine?), Prada and Guess; from T-shirts (all the football clubs you could recall) to shoes from all brands to DVDs and souvenirs and mementos – everything was available at a throwaway price if you could summon your bargaining skills. And we certainly did, to the point that one shopkeeper even shooed us out of his shop screaming ‘You Indians! You bargain too much!’

And when we were not shopping we were enjoying the other sights – KL has some of the best public transport systems you can imagine. The cute monorail, a metro running through the city, air conditioned buses and a high speed transit rail connecting the main city with the suburbs. And even though there were some rumblings of protests by a civil group in the main city, the discipline and neatness on the roads was admirable. Admirable also was the suburb of Putrajaya where we were put up, which now houses all the Malaysian government complexes. The tour of its imposing mosques, multiple bridges and wide pathways at night will remain my highlight of the trip. Also enthralling was the trip to the entertainment park at Genting, where a dozen of us braved our hearts, stepped on to the free fall ride and fell at a gravity defying pace from a height of about a hundred feet. One high which none of the drinks at the lounge bar of the hotel could match!

Alas, the time to say good-bye was equally difficult. It was amusing how many friendships were made in that small period of a fortnight and the rapid exchange of mail ids, msn addresses and telephone numbers clearly evidenced the same. Also an evidence of the closeness we shared a group was the video that we finally managed after much hiccups and the bunch of nostalgic mails that appeared after everyone joined work, with promises to stay in touch in the future. It’s a promise that will have its own test with the rigor of work and time, but I would have to honestly admit that the Core Analyst School from 19th to 30th of Nov at KL surely… blasted while it lasted.

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Of all the businesses by far, consulting is the most bizzare
For, to the penetrating eye, there is no apparent reason why
With no more assets than a laptop and a pen, this group of personable men
Can sell to clients more than twice, the same ridiculous advice
Or find, in such a rich profusion, problems to fit their solutions.

The strategy that they pursue, to give advice instead of to do
Keeps their fingers on the pulses, without recourse to stomach ulcers,
and brings them monetary gain, with a modicum of pain
The wretched object of their quest, reduced to a state of cardiac arrest
is left alone to implement, the asinine report that they have sent
The masochistic clients invite them, until merciful reliever invokes the company reliever,
no one seems to know, the rate at which these consultants grow

The paradox is each adviser, if he makes the client wiser,
inadvertantly destroys, the basis of his future joys
So does anyone know, where latter day consultants go??

Reprinted with due regards and respect to the Ralph Windle of the Financial Times. And with due apologies to all consultants.

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I am what I am. I wish I could quote this Reebok tag line and then sit back. But is it true? Am I really what I am, what I profess to be or is there is a different self behind the masquerade? Am I the competent professional or a bumbling, careless fool? Am I the liberal moderate or a shy conservationist? Am I religiously agnostic or just a plain religious hypocrite? Am I the eternal optimist or a hidden cynic? Am I the one with the solutions or simply a part of the problem? Am I the outspoken radical or a cowering and silent coward? Am I the sensitive family guardian or an ignorant relative?
Rolling along and finding new question marks…do I know what I am? ...

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It is a little difficult for me to assess where I stand in this whole Sanjay Dutt affair. Ever since he has been consigned to six years of imprisonment by the unrelenting and strict P.D.Kode, opinions have been flying thick and fast as to the merits and demerits of the judgment. Most of us probably do not question the fact whether Dutt illegally possessed a firearm or not, but we do dispute and debate whether six years of incarceration is too harsh for keeping an AK-56 rifle on behalf of an underworld gangster.

Opinions have been broadly divided in four categories – the first who think that he deserves his years, simply because everyone linked with the gruesome blasts of March’93 need to be punished. The second type is the one which believes that being a celebrity he needs to be made an example of and hence punished harshly than others around him. Then there is a third and a contrary opinion which believes that he is being made an example of precisely because he is a celebrity and is an easy prey. And finally there is the fourth lot, his many ardent admirers who genuinely believe that he isn’t guilty.

You can easily discount the ‘punish him to set an example’ argument quite easily because it lacks the maturity that jurisprudence and legal interpretation demand. It was an argument used quite often in the case of that frequent law breaker Salman Khan, but it is one that is not strong enough to hold its ground. A person should be punished according to the measure and severity of his crime and not according to this social status, for status and wealth are precisely the attributes that courts are supposed to ignore. The same could also be used to counteract the opinion which paints Dutt as the scapegoat. There are others in this case who have probably been dealt with more harshly than him – Yakub and Rubina Memon being the prime examples. They were first of the Memon family to have surrendered and returned home believing they would be tried freely. And now, the former faces the gallows for being a conspirator and the latter goes to prison for life.

Which then leaves us with the two arguments debating the correctness of quantum of sentence and it is here that I have some element of sympathy for Dutt. Not because he is a celebrity or because he is the endearing Munna Bhai but simple because as this trial has worn on he has displayed that he truly is his father’s son. His moral compass finally came around to admitting that he did commit a wrong and that he stored a firearm in his house while not having a permit to do so. You could of course argue that there are thousands of people around the countryside and even in our cities who possess firearms without a license and go unpunished. But that is missing the point – an illegality is an illegality and non-punishment of one is no excuse for letting off another. But Dutt’s case is slightly different than many of the other high profile celebrity criminal cases in recent times. Despite all the media attention and hype around him, he has displayed a certain poise and maturity while appearing before the courts. Even till the end, as he tearfully admitted before Judge Kode, he acknowledges that he made a mistake but that he had no inkling of the larger bomb blasts conspiracy. His stand is so refreshingly honest when compared to the likes of Salman Khans and the Sanjeev Nandas, who somehow vanished from the wheels of their cars or through an inspiration from Houdini turned their cars into trucks. For that matter, Dutt has also come out in a much more straightforward fashion when compared to the open hypocrisy of the celebrity eyewitnesses of the Jessica Lal case or the verbally fluctuating Sunil Kulkarni of the BMW case. At a time when accused show scant respect or regard for the law, it is heartening to hear some one take a stand and acknowledge his guilt, albeit only partially against the charges pressed against him. And in this admission of his, is reflected the moral standing of his father, the last of the Gandhians in active politics. It’s almost like your little kid admitting that he lied or stole – you might still spank him or scold him, but you would know that he has learnt the larger lessons, those of abstaining from such misdeeds and of being honest to himself and those around him. And no matter how long a time he may spend behind bars, Sanjay Dutt came claim that at the end of this all, he has still managed in a way, to protect the honor and dignity of himself as well as that of his deceased father.

****

Jury is still out on who actually threw the jelly beans at Zaheer Khan at Trent Bridge but Michael Vaughn and Peter Moores would be well advised to keep the toffees back in the dressing room the next time they take the field. This incident reminds me of a famous anecdote once narrated by Ian Healy on television. Now the Aussies are universally acknowledged as the motor mouths on the cricket field but it doesn’t always pay. This was in the mid – 90s and Australia were playing Sri Lanka in Colombo. The Lankans were three down for not much and Asanka Gurusinha (no less a pugnacious character himself) was finding himself all at sea against Warne and Mcgrath. After another across the line play and miss, Healy chirped to Mark Taylor standing at first slip, ‘No harm in playing straight’. It was an inoffensive and innocuous remark which Gurusinha took so seriously that he went on score a big hundred by the end of the day. While walking off the field at the end of the day’s play with the Lankans firmly in commanded, Taylor chided Healy, ‘No harm in you keeping your mouth shut.’

No harm in keeping those jelly beans where they belong – in a big jar on the top shelf, way out of the reach of naughty kids.

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Jeevan ke bikhre sire lekar, darpan ke toote tukde lekar
sookhe se ujadi fasal lekar, baadh mein behte ghar lekar
kya karoon me tumhari samvedna lekar?

rishton ki aadhi kadiyaan lekar, deewaron se chhoti seedhiyaaan lekar
aangan mein bikhre phool lekar, aandhi mein udti dhool lekar
kya karoon me tumhari samvedna lekar?

milne ke jhoote vaade lekar, band darwaze ki dastak lekar
greeshm mein julse patte lekar, sheeth mein jame iraade lekar
kya karoon me tumhari samvedna lekar?

woh kabhi na aayi chitthi lekar, woh lautne ke vaade lekar
paane pe chithki siaayee lekar, woh tooti hoyee kalam lekar
kya karoon me tumhari samvedna lekar?

woh udhari hoyee chunari lekar, sringar ki khaali maez lekar
woh haar ki muskan lekar, woh door ki ummedein lekar
kya karoon me tumhari samvedna lekar?

registaan ka sooraj lekar, prashant ka paani lekar
Jeevan ke bikhre sire lekar, darpan ke toote tukde lekar
kya karoon me tumhari samvedna lekar?

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I sometimes wish sport could be explained through theory. Its assumptions listed and consequences predicted. Its processes and flows explained much like a calculus problem with a chalk on a blackboard. But unfortunately, sport does not lend itself to such easy analysis and ‘ceteris paribus’, two words through which economists earn their fame, bread and butter don’t often find mention in a sportsman’s dictionary. Other things do not remain constant in the field of play. The action there is governed more by instinct, the result very often dependent on the call made at the spur of a moment. Too many variables combine to make the applicability of any mathematical model a bit of nightmare. From the vagaries of a cricket pitch to the home and away games in soccer (one would wonder why it would make such a difference, since unlike cricket the playing surface does not change in nature in any way) to the impact of that one critical and match turning line call in tennis and that heartbreaking engine failure in F1 – nothing can be encapsulated by the tightness of any model. In short like life, sport lends itself perfectly to unpredictability.

Disappointingly yet unpredictably India are out cricket’s biggest tournament. And predictably the reactions have been one of outrage. Adjectives have been ascribed to the performance, posters and effigies been burnt and funerals conducted. The competence of those representing the country has been questioned and in what is surely the biggest slur for any sportsman, their commitment to the game doubted. Now if you were a fan of the game and not of victory you would understand what I was talking about in the introductory paragraph. In sport like in life, at times you are bound to lose. And if you are not good enough even bound to lose badly as India did last night. So what are we mourning about? Mourning…it’s a strange word isn’t it? Who died if I may ask? When asked after his team’s defeat to India in that epic series in 2001 whether there was an atmosphere of mourning in the dressing room, the ever practical Steven Waugh replied coolly, “Mourning? It’s just a game mate. No one died out there.” So I ask again, whose last rites am I supposed to attend and whose departure to mourn? The death of over baked and unreasonable expectations? The loss of advertising revenues running into multiple zeroes or of those monies spent on armchair experts mulling over the team’s prospects in television studios?

If your life revolves in the matrix of India and one day cricket, then I guess you are free to go ahead and mourn. But if you follow the game because of your love for it, then I would suggest swallow your pride, accept the defeat gracefully and move on. There is a World Cup going on (and as I write in a possible precursor to the final Australia are matching wits with South Africa) and there are talented sportsmen out on the field plying their wares.

I often believe cricket enjoys that same degree of unreasonable passion in India as soccer does in England. And this I say unflinchingly despite being a die hard fan of both games. The English haven’t come any where close to being the world champions in soccer for more than 40 years and yet before every World Cup the tabloids and the mainstream media would make you believe that title is theirs by right. And with defeat come recrimination and the predictable cycle of coaches and players being sacked. And this concept of passion without knowledge, of love of victory more than the love of the game is something we repeat with alacrity. You have poems sung, albums cut, brands being sold, yagnas performed – all to bring the cup home. And then with defeat you have bonfires and demands for sacking everyone right up to the baggage boy of the team. So why do we treat our sportsmen so shabbily? Why do we subject them to the kind of treatment that we often reserve for our worst politicians? And yet when was the last time you saw a politician’s effigy being burnt? Even Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, the current day prevailing villain has been exempted from that unique humiliation. So what crime are the cricketers guilty of? Killing our dreams? Tarnishing our reputations? Or simply depriving us of an opportunity to rise above our complex of underachievement in life?

But somehow like in life so in sport a reality check is not such a bad thing after all. I hope this reality check wakes India up to some of the worrying questions opened up by their defeat. Questions such as why there appears lethargy among those moving in the field, why running the extra run seems so difficult and why the extra run is given away in the field? No matter how talented you may be, sport at the end of the day is about simplicity. And the more you are good at doing the simple things efficiently, the more successful you shall be. I hope it also brings to light the longer term problems Indian cricket faces – that of the drying supply of quality spinners, of younger batsmen not stepping up and succeeding at the international level, of the puzzling and worrisome decline of Irfan Pathan and most importantly of all where the leader of the next generation of Indian cricketers would come from?
These are tough questions but certainly not equal in magnitude to that calculus problem sketched on the blackboard, and unlike theory sport often throws up its own answers. Someone’s problem is someone’s opportunity. As a good friend of mine bemoaned this morning, champions rise to the occasion. And as I replied to him, what we need right now are not funerals or processions but a few good men who possess that one irritating quality the best student in your class in school displayed so passionately – the ability to raise one’s hand whenever a question was thrown in the air.

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As a cricket fan the last twenty fours have been completely surreal. Late last night an insipid Indian team huffed and puffed to a humiliating loss to a young Bangladeshi squad. A couple of hours later came an even bigger shocker as Pakistan got knocked of the World Cup by a group of amateurs from Ireland. This piece was originally supposed to celebrate the eccentric nature of the results that the game of cricket often comes to produce. But celebration is probably the last thing on anyone’s mind as news filters in from the Caribbean of the sad, tragic and shocking death of Bob Woolmer, coach of the Pakistan team and unquestionably one of the giants of the modern game. His death is by far surely the biggest tragedy in the history of the tournament.

A man of limited cricketing accomplishments on the field but one of the sharpest brains off it, Woolmer represented the quintessential global cricketer. His Indian connection went all the way to Kanpur – where he was born to English parents in 1948. He went on to play county cricket after his family moved back to England and won nineteen inconspicuous caps for his country. A batsman with limited abilities and a modest test record, Woolmer never really set the field on fire. But till his death, Woolmer probably remained the strongest proof of the argument that a good coach need not necessarily be a great player. His coaching abilities essentially came into limelight during his days at the Warwickshire county team where under his tutelage played two of South Africa’s greats, Allan Donald and Shaun Pollock. As a coach, Woolmer brought a kind of Midas touch and a professional attitude to the teams he coached. Warwickshire were a force on the English county scene when Woolmer coached them and post him they never really did attain those glorious heights.

But Woolmer’s life will always be remembered the most for his tenure as the coach of South Africa. Recently out of isolation due to apartheid, South Africa came out like a breath of fresh air to a cricketing world which in spite of being fully professional still followed an amateurish work ethic in most parts of the world. And nothing typified this approach better than their laptop wielding, theory prophesying, fielding emphasizing coach who would take his squad through innovative field drills and training methods. I still recall watching him gazing over his laptop sitting outside the dressing rooms when South Africa toured India in 1996. And those were days when desktop computers were themselves a rarity in Indian homes and the Windows software was barely a year old. As school kids we often derided this unaccomplished player, forever believing that it was foolish to think that cricket could be played on a laptop screen instead of out on the field. But Bob Woolmer was a man who always saw beyond when it came to cricket. The laptop was followed by the innovation of the ear piece which Hansie Cronje used to communicate with him at the 1999 World Cup. His period as the coach of South Africa will be remembered as the golden era of their cricketing achievements. It saw the coming of age of such greats as Allan Donald, Jonty Rhodes and of course that mercurial captain Hansie Cronje who forged one of the most successful partnerships with his coach. Bob also oversaw the induction of youngsters like Pollock and Jacques Kallis, two players he always believed were destine for greatness. And though South Africa failed in their two World Cup attempts under Woolmer in 1996 and 1999 and always fell one step short of beating Australia, the team of that period unquestionably carried an aura of invincibility around them much the same way as the Aussies do today. Whatever South Africa may have done after him and they might go on to win the current edition of the World Cup, yet they have never again been able to capture that image of solidity that surrounded them with Cronje and Woolmer in command.

And then of course came that stint in Pakistan, a team and a country that many believed would be Woolmer’s biggest challenge. He managed temporarily to bring a semblance of unity in a fractured dressing room, produced results after the morass Pakistan found themselves in when he took over and oversaw the flowering of the likes of Younis Khan and Mohd.Yousuf. But the erratic nature of Pakistan cricket and those who govern it, eventually Woolmer began to show signs of strains. The Oval test fiasco disappointed him no end and then of course the old bogey of dressing room conflicts and biased selections further put pressure on him. Taking a depleted side to the World Cup was always a challenging task and as Pakistan unexpectedly floundered against the West Indies and then against the minnows Ireland, Woolmer fall was complete. His image of shutting down his laptop and packing it in his bag after Ireland had hit the winning runs would probably remain the most ironical snapshot in cricket coaching. It is most tragic of course that it would also remain our last image of one of the greatest thinkers of the game. The laptop coach had shut his system and would not wake up the next morning. Coaches would come and coaches would go but very few will probably have such a impact on the game as Woolmer did. Every time a John Buchanan or a Greg Chappell peers into a laptop screen in the dressing room, it would bring back memories of the man who never became a great player but was undoubtedly the Vince Lombardi of modern day cricket. His death is a tragedy the World Cup and the game of cricket could well have done without.

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These are interesting times for the Indian judiciary. A highly regarded, vocal and distinguished Chief Justice has now given way to a man who would be the first person from the backward castes to reach the pinnacle of judicial system. Justice Y.K Sabharwal was a man who never held back, did not hesitate from taking tough decisions and walked as straight and a diplomatic line as possible in times of increasing inter democratic organ friction. His rulings mostly panned the executive of the day – from declaring the dissolution of Bihar assembly by Governor Buta Singh as unconstitutional to the Delhi sealings judgment that made life miserable for the centre and the state governments. But his most far reaching decision and possibly the one which may end up having the greatest impact on India’s polity in the future was the last one he passed in the capacity of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. It was a nine judge constitutional bench (the very acme of the Lordships inhabiting the Supreme Court) headed by Justice Sabharwal which ruled that every law including those placed under the Ninth schedule of the constitution were subject to judicial scrutiny. In effect, it meant that the executive could now not place populist laws under the said schedule and then take cover behind the judicial immunity granted by Article 19 of the constitution. To cut a long story short, Article 19 was introduced by Nehru in the early fifties to grant immunity to land reform laws from judicial inspection. It basically stated that all laws placed by the executive under the Ninth schedule of the constitution could not be challenged in the courts. Over a period of time, politicians had misused this provision to place populist legislations under this schedule, the most prime example being the Tamil Nadu legislation reserving 69% of seats in educational institutions for backward castes in spite of the fact that a Supreme Court ruling exists that states that quotas cannot exceed 50%.

Now however, the Supreme Court has a differing view. Call it a traditional or a flexible view as you may see it, but the nine judge bench basically held that the constitution was envisaged by its makers to possess a basic structure and grant certain fundamental rights and no provision of the constitution or any statute placed under it can undermine that vision. Thus any legislation, even if placed under the Ninth schedule (notice the role of number 9 in all this drama) if it violates the basic structure or fundamental rights (just as the Tamil Nadu statute violates the fundamental right of equality), it is open to judicial review and liable to be struck down. It is a judgment which has opened up new possibilities of interaction between the judiciary and the executive and as many lawyers and constitutional experts believe that interaction may not be a very friendly one.
The judiciary – executive interaction has taken a few interesting turns in recent times. Often the judges have come to the rescue to the legislature, as seen by the upholding of the parliament’s decision to expel corrupt MPs. But on most of the occasions, it has been a confrontational stance adopted by the courts, more like a strict schoolteacher punishing an errant student. The CNG conversion fracas in Delhi (pushed down the throat of an unwilling administration by the courts), the sealing rulings, reservations issue, the ruling on the Bihar assembly dissolution and the ruling calling for shifting of hazardous industrial units out of Delhi all have pushed the executive into a corner. The friction between the two organs has not been helped by the fact that often the netas and the babus have pleaded helplessness in implementing the orders of the court as was seen in the case of sealing of illegal properties in Delhi. One may wonder whether in a scenario of politicians increasingly resorting to short term populist politics for sustaining vote banks, is the judiciary actually assuming more and more responsibilities of the executive? Do we want our courts to decide how land should be used in Delhi or how many seats should be reserved in colleges or how or police system needs to be reformed or which fuel should buses in the national capital run on?

These are questions which lie solely in the executive’s domain but as the netas yield decision making ground to the courts in search of greener vote pastures, the turf battles it seems are ready to begin. For time and time again, the administrators wake up (notice the uproar in parliament about the fact that their decision to expel MPs could be reviewed by the Supreme Court) and try to ward off the courts. So far the courts have held an upper hand and have ridden a public opinion which is widely distrustful of those who govern.

But at the other end of this spectrum lies an equally interesting story. A story which each outgoing Chief Justice talks of but rarely acts upon. A story of judicial accountability and corruption. It is now widely acknowledged amongst the senior judges that corruption does prevail amongst the lower levels of the judiciary. Repeated cases of judicial misconduct – Justice Mukherjee of Delhi HC being indicted for disproportionate assets, the spat between two judges of the Punjab HC and the sex scandal involving judges of the Karnataka HC – have come to highlight the problems thus far ignored by both the Supreme Court and the law ministry. The question of judicial competence and accountability is of far greater import than the administrative problem of cases in backlog frequently cited by the media. One would wonder why someone like Justice Bhayana who acquitted Manu Sharma at the trial court stage was promoted to the Delhi High Court within two weeks of that verdict. And will a judge whose verdict was termed as ‘bad in law’ (worst indictment for a judicial verdict) by a higher bench of the same court where Justice Bhayana now sits, still get to hear criminal cases and decide on the destinies of other Manu Sharmas. This is an issue not just of corruption but also of competence – why are our trial courts repeatedly giving verdicts which are so resoundingly overturned by the higher courts? (SAR Geelani’s conviction and the Priyadarshini Mattoo cases being high profile examples of this trend) And has anyone in the Supreme Court woken up to this disturbing trend.

My hunch is that yes, someone may have realized the problem exists but its solution is either out of sight or way below in the judiciary’s list of priorities. Only lip service has been paid and repeatedly whenever the media has highlighted this malaise, the courts quite disappointingly have hidden behind the protective walls of the contempt laws. So who will judge our judges? The executive has so far kept away from active participation in the cleaning up process, resorting to mere lip service on ceremonial occasions to express its concern. But as the friction between the two grows and as the courts put more force on the netas, striking down populist laws and forcing them to take unpopular but necessary political decisions, the executive and the legislature may well take up the bogey of judicial accountability. It will be their ultimate ‘brahamastra’ – a weapon to ward off the judiciary as well to strike crucial blows on judicial independence. Clever politicians could well keep the domain of ruling upon the ability of judges to judge to themselves and that scenario is the ultimate nightmare of any of those black coats sitting on the benches of the higher courts.
There is thus a delicate balance existing between the courts, the parliament and the government at this stage. Each has possible lever against the other – the courts possess one that is explicit while the parliament and the executive one that is hidden and whose exact contours, sharpness and capability to hurt is as yet unknown. How this scenario pans out in the future will determine the future meetings between these three pillars of democracy. The more the courts shy away from looking within themselves, the more they will give space to public opinion supporting politicians to act on that front. The roles will then be reversed, democratic responsibilities and spaces will lose their clear demarcations and general confusion may reign. It is an interesting scenario if you are a game theorist, only the game at stake is India’s future as a healthy and functioning democratic system.

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