Ouster, Prosecution, Arrest, Punishment: The Ball is Set to Roll for Gyanesh Kumar
India will see massive Jantar Mantar and Ramlila Maidan protests across the country in the coming days if the CEC and his political patrons are not ousted and held accountable through a revamped legal process.
By NR Mohanty in Delhi
The November 1 rally at Ramlila Maidan in Delhi has set the ball rolling for not only the ouster of Gyanesh Kumar, the Chief Election Commissioner, but also his arrest and conviction on charges of fraud perpetrated on the country by manipulation of the electoral process.
The resignation is as important as the prosecution; mere resignation of Gyanesh Kumar — à la that of Dharmendra Pradhan, the education minister, who was accused of both incompetence and corruption in handling the affairs of higher educational institutions — is not enough. He must be duly punished for subverting the sanctity of the electoral process which constitutes the core of India’s constitutional democracy.
The mammoth November 1 public rally has added to the momentum for the call for Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation and it should happen sooner than later. The country cannot afford to witness the next Uttar Pradesh election with the discredited Gyanesh Kumar presiding over the electoral process.
But bringing Gyanesh Kumar to justice would largely depend upon the courage of our Supreme Court justices to unravel the nexus of the Gyanesh Kumar-led Election Commission with the saffron establishment led by Prime Minister Modi and Home Minister Shah. But that prospect is bleak as most of our apex court judges seem to have quietly caved in in the face of an autocratic regime seeking to dismantle the constitutional machinery of the country.
After the release of his recent book, Without Fear or Favour, Justice (Retd.) Sanjay Kishan Kaul remarked that Chief Justice Chandrachud was ‘more than deferential’ to the Executive; but he qualified it by saying that the CJI was bending over backward to please the Executive only on the ‘administrative’ side!
What was CJI Chandrachud’s conduct on the ‘judicial’ side?
Well, Justice Kaul was silent because he was a fellow panelist in many benches that virtually crawled before the Executive: be it the case of revocation of Article 370 or the case of clear defalcation by the Modi establishment in the Rafael deal.
We see the guardrails of our democratic institutions collapsing around us only because, as is the popular perception, our judiciary has shown no spine to stem the rot. Contrast this situation with that of Brazil during Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency between 2018 and 2023. Bolsonaro tried to do a Modi to the democratic institutions in Brazil. He sought to entice or intimidate the judges of the highest constitutional court into submission but the Supreme Federal Court of Brazil stood firm to protect the country’s Constitution.
Yes, in the process, the court aggressively expanded its constitutional powers, but the judges felt that it was necessary to take those extraordinary measures to ensure the democratic framework of the country remained intact. Thanks to the bold Brazilian judiciary, the country emerged from the dark Bolsonaro years unscathed, at least democratically.
However, unfortunately, as the Modi regime in India has been on a similar template as Bolsonaro’s Brazil, the Indian judiciary has largely remained compliant, taking the excuse that it had no power to intrude into the executive terrain. Despite this tell-tale dereliction of duty by our Supreme Court, some semblance of democracy remains intact in our country, only because we have a long history of democratic tradition, unlike Brazil, which had seen decades of military dictatorships interspersed with democratic rule.
That explains why the Supreme Court had to step in to protect the fragile democracy in Brazil.
But if the Supreme Court of India continues to abdicate its responsibility, the day is not far off when we may have a situation like that of Bangladesh where the autocratic regime was overthrown by a mass upheaval. When Sheikh Hasina was riding roughshod over the democratic process in Bangladesh during her 15-year tenure as prime minister, the courts largely functioned as an extension of her ruling Awami League government.
The templates of Modi and Sheikh Hasina have been similar; Hasina did a crackdown on peaceful protests by students, prosecuted opposition leaders and secured quick convictions from the courts, but the cases against Awami League leaders faced legal hurdles; similarly, Modi has been using the ED, CBI and Income Tax department against opposition leaders and courts have been taking swift action, but, more often than not, the cases against the ruling dispensation fail to pass muster in the courts.
That is a clear pattern.
When the people of Bangladesh found that the constitutional machinery had been subverted and they didn’t have a credible legal remedy, they hit the streets to oust Hasina from power. Indeed, the popular protests in Bangladesh turned violent, leading to large-scale death and destruction.
The massive, peaceful November 1 rally in Delhi, as most anti-establishment and youth protests in recent times in India, seems to be the beginning of a Bangladesh-like political process in India. Significantly, it was a peaceful, orderly, disciplined protest that openly abjured violence.
In Gandhi’s India, people are confident (including the fearless and brave Gen Z) that they would be able to shake the foundation of an authoritarian state through non-violent means and mass satyagraha, despite the relentless brutality unleashed on peaceful young protesters since the Jantar Mantar protests in July 2026.
Indeed, the Ramlila Maidan rally has sent out a message -- loud and clear -- to both the Executive and the Judiciary that they should either mend ways or face the consequences. The words of Rammanohar Lohia, well-known socialist leader, are resonant here. He had said: a lively democratic public does not wait for five years to make a government accountable to people. It has a right to seek accountability on a daily basis.
When the democratic institutions are collapsing all around, there is no other way for the people to seek accountability except on the streets. In the coming days, Jantar Mantars and Ramlila Maidans will spring up in different parts of the country, if Gyanesh Kumars and their political patrons are not ousted and punished through a revamped legal process.
If some judges of our highest court do not desist from being the rubber stamps for the executive, they will face a similar fate as their counterparts in Bangladesh did: the Chief Justice and five Appellate Division judges of Bangladesh, perceived to be extra loyal to the Hasina regime, were forced to resign. A similar fate might await the obsequious judges of the Supreme Court of India.
Nalini Ranjan (NR) Mohanty is a seasoned journalist, commentator and academic. He is former Resident Editor, Hindustan Times and The Times of India (Patna Edition), and former Director, Jagran Institute of Management and Mass Communication (JIMMC).