---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: venukm <kmvenuan...@gmail.com> Date: Jul 27, 7:51 am Subject: Excerpts From SC Judgment (July 5,2011: In Nandini Sunder and Others Vs State of Chathisghad) To: Media Critique and Debate Look ,this is a political document coming down heavily on the Indian state agencies in their failure to protect its own citizens and to maintain the Rule of Law. (I would have liked to upload the full text here;but not finding the option here to upload a document) "...2. As we heard the instant matters before us, we could not but help be reminded of the novella, “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad, who perceived darkness at three levels: (1) the darkness of the forest, representing a struggle for life and the sublime; (ii) the darkness of colonial expansion for resources; and finally (iii) the darkness, represented by inhumanity and evil, to which individual human beings are capable of descending, when supreme and unaccounted force is vested, rationalized by a warped world view that parades itself as pragmatic and inevitable, in each individual level of command. Set against the backdrop of resource rich darkness of the African tropical forests, the brutal ivory trade sought to be expanded by the imperialist-capitalist expansionary policy of European powers, Joseph Conrad describes the grisly, and the macabre states of mind and justifications advanced by men, who secure and wield force without reason, sans humanity, and any sense of balance. The main perpetrator in the novella, Kurtz, breathes his last with the words: “The horror! The horror!”1 Conrad characterized the actual circumstances in Congo between 1890 and 1910, based on his personal experiences there, as “the vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience.” 2 3. As we heard more and more about the situation in Chattisgarh, and the justifications being sought to be pressed upon us by the respondents, it began to become 1 Joseph Conrad – Heart of Darkness and Selected Short Fiction (Barnes and Noble Classics, 2003). 2 Joseph Conrad“Geography and Some Explorers”, National Geography magazine, Vol 45, 1924. 5 clear to us that the respondents were envisioning modes of state action that would seriously undermine constitutional values. This may cause grievous harm to national interests, particularly its goals of assuring human dignity, with fraternity amongst groups, and the nations unity and integrity. Given humanity’s collective experience with unchecked power, which becomes its own principle, and its practice its own raison d’etre, resulting in the eventual dehumanization of all the people, the scouring of the earth by the unquenchable thirst for natural resources by imperialist powers, and the horrors of two World Wars, modern constitutionalism posits that no wielder of power should be allowed to claim the right to perpetrate state’s violence against any one, much less its own citizens, unchecked by law, and notions of innate human dignity of every individual. Through the course of these proceedings, as a hazy picture of events and circumstances in some districts of Chattisgarh emerged, we could not but arrive at the conclusion that the respondents were seeking to put us on a course of constitutional actions whereby we would also have to exclaim, at the end of it all: “the horror, the horror..." -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send an email to greenyouth@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to greenyouth+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB.
