All the President's men- A Fairy Tale

It is almost exactly 5 years since the Madras High Court ruled that the then President of DCI, Dr Anil Kohli's membership in DCI from Delhi was illegal. The then President of DCI resigned after his illegal membership in DCI was exposed through a Writ Petition filed by me. History now repeats itself. Dr Mazumdhar's nomination from a little known University in Jharkhand called Nilamber Pitamber University appears to be faulty just as the membership of 21 other members of the DCI ( for various other reasons). Here is the reason why Dr Mazumdhar is likely to be an illegal member.

1. To become member of the DCI under section 3(d) i.e Representative from University, one must be elected from amongst the Faculty of Dentistry of the University ( not teaching faculty).

2. While the Nilamber Pitamber University has an affiliated private dental college called Vananchal Dental College, it has no Faculty of Dentistry in the University. So the Nilamber Pitamber University cannot elect a member to DCI u/s 3(d).

3. Dr Mazumdar was made a honorary teaching faculty of Vananchal Dental College which is a private Dental College, in 2013 ( and it was kept a secret) despite he being a government servant of the Government of West Bengal. Either due to ignorance or by design the Nilamber Pitamber University has thought that being a member of the teaching staff of an affiliate dental college is the same as being a member of faculty of dentistry of a University. The two are quite different.

4. On May 31st 2015 Dr Mazumdhar who lost his membership to DCI from West Bengal ended up losing his Presidency of the DCI too, as they are co- terminus. He again stood for the post of president on June 11 th 2015 by claiming membership from Nilamber Pitamber University. He suddenly revealed his Hon. Professorship to claim membership under 3 (d). Based on this illegal membership he was elected by DCI members without opposition ( no one was allowed to oppose).

5. The question now is whether we have an illegal president Dr Mazumdhar and 21 members including the famous Ketan Desai in our statutory body. Dr Ketan Desai in fact found it convenient to enter DCI after being disallowed in the MCI. The reason why Dr Mazumdhar's Presidency is illegal is very simple. The Dentist Act does not allow membership from amongst faculty members of a private dental college ( which Dr Mazumdhar claims he is by honorary appointment). It only allows a person who is a member of a duly constituted faculty of Dentistry of a University who should thereafter be elected by a senate of the University. Nilamber Pitamber University by its own RTI admission does not have such a faculty with a fixed tenure and the election by senate was a farce. The member of an affiliated college's teaching faculty CANNOT be a legal member of DCI and therefore Dr Mazumdhar CANNOT  be president of DCI.

His membership and election as President will hopefully be challenged.

Nirbhaya- The story of a nameless martyr!

It is impossible to not have moist eyes after viewing the Chanel 4 BBC documentary ‘India’s Daughter’.  The movie had the desired effect - a sordid revulsion against the heinous things man is capable of! It is the touching story of the young girl and her parents who suffered so that India will be shocked into action. A story has different voices. I see the interview with the rapist as part of a narrative that exposes the dark side of society- not as a platform for justification. Unfortunately, a large section (mostly males) have seen it as being anti national. Somewhere, we have missed the wood for the trees!

My daughter, who is the same age as the unfortunate victim of the gruesome rape in 2012, called me up on the same day the documentary was released to express her angst at the move to ban or restrict the showing of the visual drama. As a woman and a lawyer my daughter should know better than those who wish to hide the story of a young girl in a city- not different from her background. At the end of the documentary, the father reveals with candor the name of his daughter while the rest of the country still goes on with the charade of a pseudonym that is meaningless to the family or her memory. Why are the government and a segment of the media so concerned about the revelation of her identity, when her own parents want to honor her life and death so that others will not suffer? In fact this ostrich like attitude of our leaders and our media is the reason why we cannot confront our demons. I purposefully said ‘our demons’ because, in one of the interviews in the documentary, Gopal Subramaniam, the former Solicitor General,  explains how the women who testified before the Justice Verma commission said in unison that “the perpetrators are our people”. This is the bitter truth. The justification of Mukesh Singh, one of the rapists, can at best be the narrow vision of a closed society that veils and mistreats its women in the name of ‘Indian Culture’. I can see where that opinion is coming from- Ignorance, deprivation, poverty and a system that objectifies women as commodities! What I cannot forgive is the attitude of the defense lawyers. Granted, it was their duty to defend their clients. But what they revealed to the camera is the twisted mind of a patriarchal society that has reduced women to mere decorations.  One of them called ML Sharma in almost poetic cadence describes women with ‘flowery’ metaphors and predicts their fate on their literal use- worshiped in the temple and crushed in a gutter! He therefore prescribes a curfew of 6.30 PM for women to ensure that the men will be ‘good’. His lawyer colleague A P Singh brazenly says on camera that he would burn to death the female members of his family if they misbehaved.  It is unfortunately the mindset of a large number of our people including leaders and religious heads who have said it without fear on our television channels before. It is important that these devious opinions come out into the open- not hide them from the world in the name of ‘Indian pride’.  So, why are we so scared to look at the blemishes on our social mirror?  This documentary revelation should help us understand the lurking dangers even within our so called educated class so that we can protect our women. Closing our ears to the rabid voices of some of our own, is not the answer.

I was shocked to hear Meenakshi Lekhi, BJP MP, on TV saying that her concern was the ‘Image of India’. For a country that has a rape happening every 20 minutes we are concerned about what others think about us, not what we do to ourselves! That is the problem with a certain kind of nationalism founded on pride and past glory and espoused by certain political parties. The argument that this happens in other parts of the world is true, but it is a tepid excuse to ban a documentary that delves into the heart of our hypocrisy.

The transparency of the Nuremberg trials in post war Germany, exposed the genocide by the Nazi leadership. Herman Goering and Rudolf Hess were given a chance justify their actions of killing a million Jews and telecasted it to the world on news reels! It was important that the world knew of such monsters. More importantly it was important that Germany knew what happened to its citizens in that horrific period. Nobody was shamed in the process! I hope this documentary does the same and……. Give her back her name!

George Paul

March 2015