Open letter to Justice Ujjal Bhuyan

Respected Justice Bhuyan, On 21 February last, addressing a seminar in Hyderabad, your Lordship reflected on what you described as India’s enduring “deep societal faultlines”-that persist even after seventy-five years of constitutional democracy.

In illustrating this proposition, your honour cited two separate and seemingly “random” instances: first, that of a PhD scholar in Delhi allegedly denied accommodation after her Muslim identity became known; and second, an incident from Odisha in which schoolchildren were reportedly prevented by their parents from partaking of a mid-day meal prepared by a Dalit woman.

Let me state at the outset, without reservation, that discrimination based on religion or caste is morally indefensible and constitutionally impermissible. Yet, the question that inevitably arises is whether the articulation of “deep societal fault-lines” can remain selective?

It is in this context that I was struck by a contemporaneous development that received comparatively muted attention within the very circuits that routinely and justifiably raise concerns over caste-based oppression. Around the same time that your remarks were widely reported, an incident of violence involving Dalit victims surfaced in Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh.

The complainant, Akash Kumar, alleged that a social gathering, which featured DJ music and dance, had paused for local Muslim residents to perform prayers. After prayers, the music resumed, but around 15 to 20 men allegedly barged in with sticks, assaulting attendees, including women. He added that the assailants used casteist slurs and vandalised the property.

An FIR was registered under relevant provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act against individuals, including village head Moyeen Khan, Matlub Ali, Mohd Adil, Akram Khan, among others.

The silence that followed in certain sections of civil society raises uncomfortable but necessary questions. Why is it that caste atrocities acquire differential moral urgency depending upon the religious identity of the accused? If the perpetrator is presumed to belong to the so-called “upper-caste Hindu” category, the outrage is immediate and national; yet when the accused emerges from a minority community, there is silence.

Surely, constitutional morality-of which Your Lordship spoke so eloquently-demands a rejection of precisely such selective indignation.You also observed in your address, as media reports, that constitutional morality requires democratic institutions to exercise restraint and adhere to foundational values rather than bulldoze through on the strength of numbers, authority and power. This is, without doubt, a salutary reminder.However, it would be equally apposite to acknowledge that constitutional morality also demands intellectual honesty in confronting patterns of coercion, deception, or exploitation-irrespective of the ideological discomfort such acknowledgement may generate.

The recent controversy surrounding the film ‘The Kerala Story 2: Goes Beyond’ has brought into public discourse the vexed question of coercive religious conversion through romantic entanglement, popularly termed ‘love jihad’.At a press conference in New Delhi on 23 February, the filmmakers were joined by 33 women from different parts of the country, survivors of forced religious conversion, including cases allegedly facilitated through deceptive interfaith relationships.

 Several of these unfortunate women recounted experiences of physical abuse, coercion, and forced consumption of beef following marriage, an act that, for many Hindu women, carries deep civilisational and religious significance.

Among those who narrated her ordeal was Tara Shahdeo, a national-level shooter from Ranchi. Her case dates back to July 2014, when she married ‘Ranjeet Singh Kohli,’ whom she later discovered to be ‘Raqibul Hasan.’ According to her testimony, within days she was subjected to physical and emotional abuse, alongside sustained pressure to convert.

She has publicly recounted her ordeal in stark and unambiguous terms: “I have spent 40 days in hell, and all I could think of is how to escape. They also took me to the magistrate’s house, and I was told that I had to eat beef,”Tara further stated that her marriage had been arranged following recommendations from influential quarters. In her words: “In my case, a judge brought the marriage proposal for that person… At the judge’s request, we agreed to the marriage.”

In October 2023, a Special Court of the Central Bureau of Investigation in Ranchi delivered its verdict: Raqibul Hasan was sentenced to life imprisonment; his mother, Kaushar Rani, was awarded ten years’ rigorous imprisonment; and Mushtaq Ahmed, then Registrar of the Jharkhand High Court, was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

The issue is not merely that an individual concealed his identity in order to perpetrate a criminal act- for individuals of criminal disposition exist across communities. The deeper concern arises when such deception appears to be facilitated or normalised within broader local networks, including clerical intermediaries and, in certain allegations, family complicity.

Most of such crimes aren’t committed by lone wolves but, in most cases, by organised social and familial networks. What’s the doctrinal glue that binds such a team for this sort of evil activity?  Shouldn’t civil society reflect on this? There have been numerous cases described as ‘love jihad’. This social menace has assumed the characteristics of an organised criminal enterprise. A newspaper article, constrained by limited space, barely scratches the surface of this complex issue.

Interfaith marriages in India are neither novel nor unlawful. Religion should never impede consenting adults acting in good faith. Yet when religious identity is intentionally concealed as part of a structured strategy to convert through deception, the matter transcends personal autonomy and becomes a matter of societal concern.

Expressions of solidarity against injustice must not be contingent upon the identity of either victim or perpetrator. Unless every instance of discrimination, irrespective of community, is subjected to consistent scrutiny, the perception of selectivity will persist, corroding public confidence in the neutrality of moral discourse.

Your Lordship, when talking of “societal faultlines”, can one ignore the dispensation of our law courts? A 2007 survey by ‘Transparency International’ found that “77per cent of Indian respondents” perceived the “judicial system” to be “corrupt” at the time.

During contempt proceedings in August 2020 before the Supreme Court, the then Attorney General K. K. Venugopal submitted that nine former Supreme Court judges had publicly spoken about corruption in the higher judiciary-seven of them immediately after retirement-before the Bench declined to hear him further on the issue.More recently, Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal informed Parliament on 13 February 2026 that the Office of the Chief Justice of India had received 8,630 complaints against sitting judges over the past decade, which are processed internally through the judiciary’s in-house mechanism. The revelation came in response to a written question posed by DMK MP V.S. Matheswaran.

Your Lordship, corruption is a ravenous termite, steadily eating away at and hollowing out our system from within. To combat this menace, the system must identify corrupt politicians, expose venal officials, discipline unscrupulous businessmen, and punish them suitably.

But can we achieve all this without a fair, honest, and efficient judiciary? Judges, by virtue of their office, speak not only through their judgments but also through the normative reflections they occasionally offer in public fora. Selective outrage and amnesia don’t serve any purpose.

With respectful regards,— Balbir Punj

The writer is an eminent columnist, former Chairman of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), and the author of ‘Tryst with Ayodhya: Decolonisation of India’ and ‘Narrative ka Mayajaal’.; views are personal