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23 August 2024 at 9:59:04 pm

Legal Weapon

The death of Sahil Wakode at IIT Bombay is undoubtedly a tragic incident. It also raises a difficult question that should not be lost amid the understandable anger on campus: when does a genuine allegation of caste discrimination become a criminal charge, and what happens when the extraordinary force of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act is invoked before the facts have been established? Wakode, a second-year student, died by suicide last week, hours after he was caught using a mobile...

Legal Weapon

The death of Sahil Wakode at IIT Bombay is undoubtedly a tragic incident. It also raises a difficult question that should not be lost amid the understandable anger on campus: when does a genuine allegation of caste discrimination become a criminal charge, and what happens when the extraordinary force of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act is invoked before the facts have been established? Wakode, a second-year student, died by suicide last week, hours after he was caught using a mobile phone during an examination. IIT Bombay says he had uploaded the question paper to ChatGPT, but that no disciplinary proceedings had been initiated against him. He was counselled and assured that the incident would not damage his academic career. His parents have subsequently alleged that Wakode had been subjected to caste-based harassment for several months and named Professor Suryanarayana Doolla in an FIR alleging abetment to suicide, along with provisions of the SC/ST Act. The institute has denied that any complaint of caste discrimination was made by Wakode during his tenure. Its SC/ST cell has also said it received no such complaint. The investigation has now been transferred to the Crime Branch. The SC/ST Act exists because caste oppression is real, and victims require a law capable of confronting it. But precisely because the law is stringent, its invocation cannot become a substitute for evidence. The Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasised that the statutory ingredients of an offence must actually be made out. The court has also held that where a complaint does not prima facie disclose an offence under the Act, its stringent restrictions on pre-arrest bail do not automatically apply. Teachers must be able to enforce examination rules without fearing that every disciplinary confrontation could acquire a caste dimension. The tendency to turn a student’s caste into the explanation for every institutional conflict involving an SC/ST student is disturbing and must be resisted. If every disciplinary action involving a reserved-category student is presumed to be caste discrimination, the distinction between discrimination and ordinary institutional accountability begins to disappear. Equally, an institute cannot hide behind procedure if evidence eventually establishes discrimination or harassment. If Professor Doolla did indeed use casteist language, threatened Wakode or treated him differently because of his caste, those allegations must be investigated fully and dealt with under the law. But the answer cannot be to criminalise the invigilator first and investigate later. IIT Bombay now has two obligations: establish, without prejudice, what happened in those crucial hours and examine the broader pressures facing its students. The police must establish whether the allegations under the SC/ST Act have factual and legal substance. The institute must ensure that teachers can enforce academic integrity while students have credible avenues to report genuine discrimination. The tragedy demands accountability. It does not demand a predetermined culprit.

A Navy Out of Line

Writer: Commodore S.L. Deshmukh
Commodore S.L. Deshmukh
1 hour ago
4 min read

PNS Hunain’s collision with an Indian destroyer is a lethal reminder of Pakistan’s naval recklessness.

Pakistan has once again managed to demonstrate that there are few things it enjoys more than creating a problem and then blaming somebody else for it.


This time, the theatre was not the Line of Control or a diplomatic conference. It was the North Arabian Sea. On September 15, Pakistan Navy’s PNS Hunain collided with an Indian Navy warship, identified by India as INS Kolkata, in waters where warships are expected to behave with something called professional seamanship. Instead, according to Indian accounts, the Pakistani vessel approached at high speed, came dangerously close, ignored warnings and made an unsafe overtaking manoeuvre before the two vessels collided. India says its warship suffered no major damage and continued its mission; Hunain was damaged and returned to harbour.


Perilous Posturing

Islamabad predictably claims the Indian warship conducted aggressive manoeuvres dangerously close to the Pakistani vessel and caused the collision. It has also claimed that the incident took place within Pakistan’s exclusive economic zone during its SEASPARK-26 naval exercise.The Pakistani version has one familiar feature: Pakistan is the victim. It is almost an institutional reflex for them.


But this is not merely another exercise in diplomatic finger-pointing. Warships do not operate on the principle that the vessel with the louder public-relations department gets to decide the rules. The sea has rules of its own - and they are rather less accommodating of Pakistani bravado.


The International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, or COLREGs, exist for precisely this purpose. They prescribe how ships should manoeuvre, which vessel should give way, how lights and sound signals should be used and how navigators should avoid turning a close encounter into a catastrophe. SOLAS - the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea - lays down standards for navigation, equipment and the protection of human life. STCW establishes minimum standards for the training, certification and watchkeeping of maritime personnel. UNCLOS provides the broader legal framework governing maritime zones and freedom of navigation.


They are not optional guidelines to be consulted when convenient. And they certainly do not come with a Pakistan exemption.


There is an additional problem for Islamabad. India says the conduct of PNS Hunain violated Article 10 of the 1991 India-Pakistan Agreement on Advance Notice of Military Exercises, Manoeuvres and Troop Movements. That agreement requires naval ships and submarines of the two countries operating in international waters to maintain a minimum separation of three nautical miles.


Conduct Unbecoming

India’s Ministry of External Affairs has described the Pakistani conduct as “unacceptable and unprofessional”. It summoned Pakistan’s Chargé d’Affaires and instructed India’s mission in Islamabad to lodge a strong protest. MEA spokesman Randhir Jaiswal described Pakistan’s response as the “usual prevarication” and reiterating India’s account that Hunain had carried out a dangerous overtaking manoeuvre in violation of both the 1991 agreement and international collision regulations.


A warship is not a motorcycle on a crowded Pune road, weaving through traffic and assuming everybody else will get out of the way. At sea, speed, distance, relative bearing and manoeuvring room are matters of life and death. The bridge crew is expected to anticipate what the other vessel may do and to leave sufficient room for error.


The reported behaviour of Hunain represents something rather more serious than a simple navigational mistake. It suggests a failure of judgement at precisely the level where naval discipline is supposed to prevent such failures. Indian sources have said that the Pakistani vessel shadowed the Indian ship, approached at high speed and crossed its bow despite warnings. Other reporting has similarly described the encounter as a close-in manoeuvre by the Pakistani vessel.


For Pakistan, it is doubly uncomfortable because the episode exposes the gap between its military posturing and professional military conduct.


Pakistan has long cultivated the image of itself as a security state, perpetually ready for confrontation with India. Yet military professionalism is not measured by how loudly a country threatens its neighbour. It is measured by whether its soldiers, sailors and airmen can operate dangerous equipment without turning every encounter into a gamble.


The irony is that India appears again to have demonstrated the more useful form of strength: restraint.


The Indian commanding officer took action to avoid a more serious accident even as the Pakistani vessel allegedly manoeuvred dangerously close. The result was a collision that could well have turned into a catastrophe.


The Arabian Sea is not a private playground for Pakistan’s theatrics. It carries commercial shipping, energy supplies and some of the world’s busiest maritime traffic.


In 2011, Pakistan’s PNS Babur brushed against INS Godavari in the Gulf of Aden, causing minor damage and triggering diplomatic tension. The recurrence should make the Pakistani Navy particularly conscious of the consequences of close-in manoeuvring around Indian vessels.


The PNS Hunain episode deserves to become a lesson in the difference between naval power and naval posturing. A serious navy understands that discipline is the foundation of power. A reckless navy, by contrast, can turn a routine encounter into a major diplomatic incident with potentially dangerous consequences.


Sir Julian Corbett, one of the foremost theorists of naval strategy, had observed that naval strategy was not a contest in theatrical aggression. Even offensive action, in his formulation, had to serve a strategic purpose.


The incident shows that Pakistan, as usual, has confused tactical bravado with ‘strategy.’ Islamabad should have the maturity to realize that the sea is wonderfully unforgiving of such confusion. It has no patience with post-facto accusations.


(The writer is a retired naval aviation officer and a defence and geopolitical analyst. Views personal.)

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