We Didn't Start The Fire.

19 years ago. A series of events that eventually led to Ruchika Girhotra's suicide, were set in motion by the horniness of one man. After over 400 hearings and impassioned calls for justice, the Indian Judiciary finally sounded out their verdict. Six months imprisonment, and, dig this, a fine, of 1000 rupees. And that's not all. SPS Rathore gets out on bail almost immediately. All smiles.

18 years ago. Sister Abhaya, a 19 year old nun, went down to get a glass of water. She never got it. Her body was eventually found at the bottom of a well, in the premises of her convent. Evidence was tampered with. Evidence went missing. Sometimes brazenly so. For 16 years, the case was a mockery of justice.

36 years ago. Aruna Shanbag, a 24 yr old nurse at King Edward Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, was sexually assaulted by janitor, Sohanlal Valmiki. Using a leather belt to choke her into submission, Valmiki brutally had his way with her, after which he calmly disappeared into world. He was later arrested, but the charge of rape was never proved. Valmiki spent 6 years in jail for "robbery". And what of Aruna? The brain damage she suffered while she choked, left her in a vegetative state. She lives a shadow of a life in the same hospital where she used to tend to patients. She is looked after by the nurses there, who plead that she be allowed to live, despite many calls for euthanasia. Sohanlal Valmiki, long since free, is believed to be working as a janitor for a private hospital in Mumbai.

11 years ago. Model Jessica Lall is shot dead in plain view of the creme de la creme of Delhi's party circuit, by Siddharth Vashisht, aka Manu Sharma. Unsurprisingly, most of the witnesses turned hostile. Manu Sharma, used loophole after loophole and walked free. Finally, somehow, he was put behind bars. But, soon, he got out on bail. The reason? He wanted to party.

3 years ago. Aarushi Talwar, a 14 year student is murdered at her home. By who? The police points fingers at the domestic help, Hemraj, her father, Rajesh Talwar, and then goes on to add more names to the list as time progresses. Pretty soon the case fades into oblivion.

2 years ago. Pakistani gunmen open fire at crowded places in Mumbai, killing hundreds. Their faces are in plain view of the security cameras. Fidayeen are not meant to live through the attack. But Tukaram Omble gets in the way and one of them is captured alive. Ajmal Qasab spills everything from his nationality, to his past, to his training, in the frenzied initial stages of the trial. But slowly he learns of the innumerable loopholes in the Indian Judiciary. Pretty soon, the case assumes status quo. Already, two lawyers have been sent packing. The fires of Mumbai have died out.

These are only some of the stories that come to mind as I sit here on this cold night, a few days into a new decade. A million such cases lie unattended to in our incompetent courts. A million more never reach them.

"What will you do? File a case?" is a repartee that most auto drivers today use to silence newly-nicked car owners. That truly defines the competence of our judicial system, or the lack of it. The Indian Judiciary is the a punchline of a joke. It is without doubt the biggest failure of the Great Indian Democracy, for what is such a Democracy, that cannot protect the rights of her subjects, truly worth?

Welcome to India, where Justice is truly blind. Where killers laugh at the pathetic sentences meted out to them. Where they party on parole. Where character assassination by the police is a way of life. Where a rape trial is even more humiliating than the rape itself. Where money and might is what justice is.

"What will you do? File a case?"

"...the only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous..."