The Brave Pedestrian

Here's something the media never reports: "Anaadi courts" are the instrumentality by which the State deprives tens of thousands of Indian citizens of their Fundamental Right to Life & Liberty. Without due process. For trivial offences like crossing the railway tracks, ticketless travelling and "loitering suspiciously" (combined with inability to furnish bail-bond or engage a lawyer), people are arrested and held in judicial custody for days, weeks or even months in judicial custody, without even being chargesheeted. This is happening daily, without interruption. Hello... Are the Chief Justices listening? Like  ·  Comment  ·  Share  

June 18, 2006: It’s a peculiar phenomenon. More than two decades ago, I travelled rough quite a bit in Gujarat and Maharashtra. I’d tell my parents cryptically that I’d be “in coastal South Gujarat” or “Saurashtra” or “around Mahabaleshwar-Panchgani-Pune”, and then I’d disappear for a week with maybe Rs 500 or 800. Equipped mainly with a road-map, I’d roam around, hiking all night sometimes and sleeping under trees off highways, or in nearby tea-stalls, shop-fronts, beaches, park benches, fishermen’s homes, as well as dirt-cheap, bedbug-infested lodges and  dharamshalas .  I enjoyed that. I travelled alone, and I liked my own company. I liked the silence and the introspection. I liked climbing into an ST bus on a moment’s whim, just because I liked the sound of the place where it was going, and because it was about to leave in two minutes. I liked not knowing where I would wake up the next day. However, no matter how beautiful the beaches and the mountains and the gurgli...