Under a right-wing Hindu nationalist government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the law is being applied differently when it comes to dealing with prisoners. 

The Bombay High Court that denied emergency parole to a jailed Indian scholar who wanted to attend his mother’s last rites has granted bail to a Hindu fanatic so that he could attend the last rites of his father. 

Vikram Bhave, who is associated with an ultranationalist Hindu group, is one of the accused in the murder of a well-known rationalist, Narendra Dabholkar, who was gunned down in 2013.  

Dabholkar ran a campaign against superstition and religious fanaticism, which invited the wrath of fundamentalists. 

Bhave was granted bail on July 15.  

Although it is appropriate to allow prisoners to attend the last rites of their deceased parents and relatives, this was not permitted when former Delhi University professor G.N. Saibaba had applied for emergency parole to the Bombay High Court on similar grounds last year.  

Saibaba lost his mother to cancer and wasn’t even given an opportunity to visit her on compassionate grounds and see her one last time when she was on her deathbed. This is despite the fact that he is 90 percent disabled below the waist and suffering with multiple ailments and could not have escaped anywhere.  

He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 2017 after being arrested on the accusations of being a Maoist sympathizer.  

Saibaba is a human rights defender who was raising his voice for the poor and marginalized and had dared to question power.

His jailing came in response to his advocacy against repression of Adivasis (Indigenous peoples) at the behest of an extraction industry eyeing their mineral-rich traditional lands. That brought him into the focus of security forces, which are engaged in battle with Maoist insurgents in those areas. Needless to say, he was framed under trumped-up charges and didn’t commit a murder, unlike those who pulled the trigger against Dabholkar. 

The judiciary’s indifference toward Saibaba and leniency towards Bhave is in line with the mandate of Modi administration under which attacks on religious minorities and political dissidents have grown. That Modi government continues to patronize Hindu extremists, while suppressing the rights of the non-Hindu and left-wing groups, and this is well documented.  

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that antiterror laws in India are mostly used against either Sikh or Muslim political activists or harmless scholars such as Saibaba. Those seeking to turn India into a Hindu theocracy remain immune to such regulations. 

The growing majoritarian Hindu polarization in such a toxic environment has greatly influenced different institutions and segments of the society. How could then judiciary remain unaffected?