LETTER FROM NEW DELHI
An Indian prime minister was invited to take part in a private religious ceremony at the home of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the country’s highest court. The scene, theoretically improbable in a republic where the separation of powers between the executive and the judiciary, as well as secularism, are enshrined in the Constitution, nevertheless occurred on September 11 in New Delhi.
Narendra Modi himself posted videos and photographs on social media showing his presenter, Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud, bowing respectfully, with his wife in front of him, both hands clasped. The scene continues with the Prime Minister performing Hindu rituals to ganapati pujaa prayer dedicated to Ganesh, the elephant-headed god. What message did the two protagonists want to convey? Their complicity? Their common devotion?
It has been a long time since Narendra Modi broke the barriers between politics and religion, presiding himself over numerous grand and cathodic Hindu ceremonies, presenting himself as the most devout of devotees, declaring himself “Emperor of Hindu hearts”He has brought Hinduism to the centre of power and dreams of making India a saffron nation, in accordance with the Hindutva ideology (Hinduism or Indianness), defended by the Indian extreme right.
We have seen it again in recent days, in a video posted in which she picks him up and carries him to the park, while the brigades that protect the cow, a sacred animal in Hinduism, have increased violence in certain regions in recent weeks, lynching men accused of eating or trading in beef. Hate crimes that have become common since the nationalists came to power in 2014.
great first
India has become accustomed to these images of Modi, as a high priest, in prayer, in meditation, but this is the first time in the country’s judicial history, notes Indira Jaising, a great lawyer, “that a sitting Chief Justice invites a sitting Prime Minister to a public religious event, under the watchful eye of cameras to ensure that the event is made public”The lawyer recalls that the head of justice and the judges of the Supreme Court take, at the time of their appointment, an oath of loyalty and fidelity to the Constitution: “I have lost all confidence in the independence of the Chief Justice of India.”
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