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 Ram Jethmalani – Mumbai’s Fearless Legal Avenger RIP

 Ram Jethmalani passed away at the age of 95 on September 8, 2019. The tributes have been pouring in for this remarkable yet controversial man. “He was witty, courageous and never shied away from boldly expressing himself on any subject,” tweeted Prime minister Narendra Modi. “One of the best aspects of Shri Ram Jethmalani Ji was the ability to speak his mind. And, he did so without any fear. During the dark days of the Emergency, his fortitude and fight for public liberties will be remembered. Helping the needy was an integral part of his persona.”

 (I had interviewed this larger than life figure in 2015 in New York. Below is the profile and Q and A I had done with him after meeting him at the IAAC Literature Festival where he had spoken with Hindol Sengupta. This article first appeared in Khabar magazine.)

 He is the maverick legal eagle, crusader against corruption, troublemaker and trouble-shooter. He has often championed unpopular stands, embraced controversy and consistently made the headlines.

Meet Ram Jethmalani,  India’s most famous and infamous lawyer, who has always marched to the beat of a different drummer.

A vociferous, contrarian voice, he is fearlessly outspoken and has no qualms about calling a crook a crook and a fool a fool – even if it be a big name occupying seats of power in the nation. A grandmaster of cross-examination, hell can be answering his questions in court.

Jethmalani holds the distinction, at 92, of being India’s oldest practicing lawyer who has seen the entire landscape of a changing India through the prism of law. He started out as a young lawyer in Sindh in undivided India and has been one of the guiding forces in the legal field.

Law is a beautiful word, the word which can unravel  entangled problems and clarify complex issues in this massive country – and that has always been his sword and his sceptre.

A brilliant legal mind, Jethmalani has been a law professor, law minister, minister of urban affairs and is also the oldest member of parliament. This diminutive man also holds the record of being one of the most high-priced lawyers in India and has defended a motley crew of crooks, swindlers, murderers and underworld figures, from the killers of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi to the murderer of Jessica Lal and even defended the don Hajji Mastan. He has also defended high profile political figures including former Minister of State for Home Amit Shah in the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case.

Yet he is somewhat of a contradiction, a Super Hero who defends  the poor and the downtrodden pro bono, not charging them a cent.  In fact most of his cases are fought free, subsidized by big bucks, high profile cases.

Ask Jethmalani about this Robin Hood aspect of his work and he shrugs nonchalantly: “And what are my needs?  My children are all doing well. How much money do I need? With 10 per cent of my clients, I earn enough to make a very comfortable, almost royal existence,” he says. “But don’t worry, I don’t appear only for a few accused, I also appear for complainants, plaintiffs in civil cases, for those who are victims of the government’s unconstitutional actions.”

Jethmalani has also been unconventional in his personal life, having married two women at the      same time and having had children with both. He is always charmed by and charming to the opposite sex, and even at a dapper 92, he turns on the charm full-throttle. Every woman, no      matter how homely, is ‘darling’ and ‘honey’ and he has a ready joke to share. Ask him about his  affinity for women and he is unfazed: “People are jealous and they talk of it and I make them   more jealous.” Ask him at 92 what makes Ram, Ram – and he has the perfect repartee: “Why   don’t you ask the girls?”

 While the controversies may be many, so are the accomplishments, and a new biography by   Susan Adelman documents them all. ‘The Rebel’ is a hefty, well-researched book about all   aspects of his life from his days in Sindh to Partition to the many decades in India, including the   tough days of the Emergency. The book covers all aspects of India from Hindutva and Ayodhya   to Kashmir and terrorism, from Black Money to Modi.

 

 “Critics complain that Ram fights institutional corruption, but he defends the rights of criminals,”    writes Adelman. “That is true – he believes just as much in individual rights of everyone as he      does in his cherished ideal of the heroic lawyer who stands up against oppression, fights injustice and is a guardian of freedom. Despite being in personal peril, Ram waded in with 50    lawyers to intercept a bloody pogram against Sikhs in Delhi after Prime Minister Indira   Gandhi’s assassination.”

In the book, she also takes on some controversial aspects of the maverick lawyer-politician.    “Ram has fought for years against the Gandhi dynasty and its trail of corruption, yet he   defends corrupt politicians,”   she writes. “He rails against dacoits in political power who  impoverish India, but he represents stockbrokers who personify corruption. In his mind, these are   not contradictions. He feels a  responsibility to expose corruption to sunlight but also to make    sure that every citizen, even if corrupt, has proper representation in court.”

  Jethmalani has never controlled his tongue and Adelman writes about a rather impertinent    conversation he once had with Mother Teresa: “Ram told her that while she might obtain personal satisfaction from washing the feet of the poor, she could do a lot more for them by     working toward laws that would give them greater rights.”

 The book records not only Jethmalani’s hits but also his misses, including the time he ran against   Atal Bihari Vajpayee for the Lok Sabha and lost, as well as his expulsion from the BJP. His     defending of Manu Sharma in the Jessica Lal murder case was also hugely unpopular.

 As regards politics, it might be pragmatism or ‘ political flirting’ but Jethmalani has flitted from     party to party, including BJP, RSS, Shiv Sena and even Congress. He jokingly told Adelman, “If you call me a political flirt, flirting is one of my great strengths.”

Giving a look into his personal life, Adelman who has known the Jethmalani family for decades, says:

      “Ram calls himself a sinner with a clean conscience.’ Indeed much of his lifestyle is an open   book, much of it known, for better or for worse, by the whole country. The parts the public does  not know about would be the yoga, the regular push-ups, and the treadmill he uses daily in Pune.             He also chants a mantra, which once it has been chanted 500,000 times, is supposed to give    freedom from the cycle of life.

He once told me that if he loses a night of sleep he can make up  for it by the simple expedient of standing on his head. Now he no longer does it. People may not   know of his daily 8 a.m. badminton game before breakfast when he is in Delhi or Mumbai. They   might guess, though, if they saw him walking purposefully through the airport every few days, at    age 90.”

His many astonishing cases, his involvement in the legal aspects of  Indian life, his many   personal and public adventures all make him great copy for the Indian press and a legal rock star   for the public.

Crowds seem to collect around him and listen to him in pin-drop silence. The   afternoon will not pass without some controversial statement or colourful quotable quote!

 Recently Ram Jethmalani was in New York at IAAC’s Literary Festival along with Susan Adelman. What followed was a lively discussion with author Hindol Sengupta and lawyer Devika Kewalramani.

Later I had a chance to personally interview the incorrigible Ram Jethmalani. He talked of his long and colorful life, of everything from Pakistan to Black Money, and yes, the crowd hung on every word! 

He was bold and outspoken about big issues and small and the younger generation loved his chutzpah. Here’s a look at his free speech on a number of topics. Even asking him a simple question about the secret of living into his 90’s got this rocking reply:

Can you tell us what is the best way to get to the 90s?

“Alcohol is something which has to be taken in moderation. It is elixir of life provided you know   how to control it. If it takes control of your life, you are a goner. I don’t take more than two   drinks. Mere ko maar dalo, main do drinks se zyada nahin peeta, kabhie. I keep good health, I  eat very little.

Of course, ice cream is my favorite sweet dish in the end, and a moderate amount of sugar in the system, and milk in the system is good. And milk also, frozen milk they say now, the latest  discovery of medical science, that yogurt is digested milk.  I take one cup of ice-cream, I love  it!   And I will not stop eating my ice cream and drinking my whisky merely because some press  people don’t like it!”

 

An excerpt from the Ram Jethmalani interview on Life & Politics

A Son of Sindh 

You grew up in Sindh, in what is now Pakistan. Tell us about your growing up years and   how that has influenced your thinking?

I loved Sindh where I was born, and I still love Sindh and Pakistan, which of course I did help to create. Sindh was known for a great synthesis of Hinduism and Islam, that is Sufism, and most Sindhis are Sufis, and our greatest poet was Shah Abdul Latif, one of the greatest Sufis that you can think of.

When partition came and rivers of blood were flowing throughout the country,  not one Sindhi Hindu was ever killed by a Sindhi Muslim, because of the influence of Sufism and the kind of cultural affinity and unity that we had developed. The Hindus were driven out not by Sindhi Muslims but by Muslims who came in from India and claimed Sindh as their homeland.

What are your thoughts on today’s Pakistan?

 We came to India and stayed in Bombay in a refugee camp. But I must tell you here something about my attitude to Pakistan. While I was living in that refugee camp for a while, I came to one firm conclusion that India and Pakistan must become friends or both will be ruined.  It is still my belief in spite of terrible acts of misbehaviour from Pakistan against India and I must tell you this is the typical reaction of the Sindhi Hindu.

I continue to believe that India and Pakistan must become friends and I have lived up to it, I have suffered for that belief, I am still willing to suffer more but my advice to Pakistan is that please give up this flirtation with China and other countries they think are with them because they are Islamic countries which is not true. I hope one day sense will dawn on them but Pakistan has not turned out to be a successful democracy at all.

Where is India Headed?

You have had a long and prolific career in law and politics and have got to see a changing India firsthand. Seen through your eyes, where is India headed?

 Things were so bad from 2004 onwards that a change was absolutely essential. A person like   Rahul Gandhi was being projected as future Prime Minister of the country, and obviously the     people trusted  Modi. They may not have trusted BJP and the kind of leaders that they had at that            time. Modi came to    people as a change, and I was at that time an expelled member of the BJP,  but I still supported him and therefore the BJP. But so far, I think that he has been failing and he  is failing because of the choice of  his advisors. He will have to take a bold step to get rid of  them – otherwise they will get rid of him.

 In 2013, you had said that Modi is 100% secular. But in a July 2015 interview you said that secularism in under serious threat in India. So what do you feel is the outlook for secularism in India under the Modi government?

 Secularism today is in danger but it is not in danger merely because of Modi.  It is also the major minority in the country, the Muslim minority. They want Hindus to be secular but they don’t   want to be secular themselves. So secularism is in great danger from that vast Muslim   majority, because at least these people are in a sense patriotic. And I regret that whatever     evidence is furnished by Kashmir for example, how can Kashmir want to be away from    India    when they see what is happening in Pakistan? And how can Kashmir tolerate so much of terrorism and whenever there is a slight sort of brave act by the Army there––naturally a       brave   act by the Army against terrorists means some terrorists will die––As soon as that  happens, there  is a clash. Now this is again unfair.

 I believe that the Kashmir problem required a little more help from our Muslim citizens. They  are sitting as if they are neutral. That creates a bad impression about them too. I mean, after all  your duty as a   patriot requires… we have not gone and occupied Kashmir. Kashmir ultimately     had the proud distinction that for all other states in India it is the Constituent Assembly of India which created their Constitution. Kashmir is the only state which was given its own Constituent        Assembly and the Constituent Assembly of Jammu and Kashmir has framed the Constitution of    Jammu and Kashmir and also carried out that draft constitution which is now the Constitution in  force.

But could education be the solution in Kashmir? Because once people are educated, have jobs..

 Yes, yes but Kashmir……You should see the press reports of the 2000 election which took    place.   The whole world praised that these Kashmir elections were totally free. And we didn’t            interfere––and we won! And don’t think that merely because some of these boys have fire   crackers and bombs, that they are in a majority––no!

You have said that you do things because of your conscience, not because of popularity. But  does your conscience not bite you when, in the course of the case you learn that the person   is indeed guilty, and yet you have to find technical loopholes to help him avoid justice?

 My conscience doesn’t bother me – my intellect bothers me that I have been made a fool of!

How do you deal with that, if that happens?

Then you change your technique, change your means according to the ends that you want to    achieve. Now if I have to oppose Modi, I went to Bihar and campaigned against him. And I am  going to tell you almost certainly, he is going to lose. Doesn’t matter, Nitish and Lalu   combination will come and of course Congress is also a party. In a sense, I am now working for          Congress people also, ha-ha! You can’t help it in politics, that is the only opposition that there was.

Who do you think is the best prime minister India has ever had?

 Lal Bahadur Shastri – there is nobody to match his integrity and honesty and the kind of work   that he  did. He is the first person who appointed a commission to investigate the phenomena of    corruption… He has been almost wiped out of Indian history… it is a great injustice done    to the   memory of that man.

You had endorsed Narendra Modi wholeheartedly. What are your thoughts now?

Narendra Modi according to my judgment was the best possible candidate compared to those   who were in the field. I believe that the BJP had no other candidate comparable to him, and that is why during the election campaign in spite of the fact that I was an expelled member of the BJP       at the time, I worked for Narendra Modi. I went around the country and almost did more work for him than anyone in his own party did … but when the results of the election were announced,    I wrote in my piece in the Sunday Guardian:

” Dear Mr Modi, congratulations on your          spectacular success, I am very happy that I have some small contribution to make to your     success, but I am writing this only to tell the country that so far as I am concerned I want no        return of any kind from you. I must remind you that I am living in the departure lounge of God’s    airport and I want nothing from you and nothing means nothing!  For God’s sake,  now fulfill your promises to the people.”

And do you believe he has fulfilled those promises?

Now you are asking me a very difficult question! When the election results were announced, this is what I wrote, but soon after, I became disillusioned. First about his promise that he will get back the black money, which was supposed to be $1500 billion and his promise to the people that ‘I will get that money and in every voter’s pocket I will put Rs. 15 lakh.’ Now this promise was quite capable of being fulfilled but he did not fulfill it.

In 2013, you had said that Modi is 100% secular. But in a July 2015 interview you said that secularism is under serious threat in India. So what do you feel is the outlook for secularism in India under the Modi government?
Secularism today is in danger, but it is not in danger merely because of Modi. It is also [because of]the “major minority” in the country, the Muslim minority. They want Hindus to be secular but they don’t want to be secular themselves. So secularism is in great danger from that vast Muslim majority, because at least these people are, in a sense, patriotic.

So you mean that finally hope does lie with the rule of law in India?
There is no other hope, there is no other way. Either you surrender to a theocratic state—most of these Muslim states are the example—or you have plain dictatorship. So you have to have democracy and secular democracy at that, and I believe that whatever you might say about the [Hindu majority], a large, large majority of Hindus are genuinely secular.

According to you, “Hindutva” is not a communal word, but has been made so by  propaganda. So which word would you use for those Hindus who have a fanatical or   fundamentalist bent?

  But Hindutva is not even Hinduism. Hindutva is a totally different concept from Hinduism.   Hinduism, at least in some broad sense, claims to be a religion. Hinduism’s origin is lost in   ancient history, nobody knows when it started. There is no founder of Hinduism. And Hinduism    is not one philosophy, but ten. . I made the Supreme Court hold that Hindutva is not only not a  religion, but it is an essence of India’s Constitution because it means tolerance.

If you say Hindus are secular, isn’t there a rise of communalism amongst many Hindus?
On the contrary, with the slightest secularism on the part of a Muslim, we treat him as a god. The imam of the biggest mosque in Delhi, he asked his followers not to attend the meetings of Anna Hazare. What was the reason that he gave? That they are singing “Vande Mataram” there. Look at them, they get away with murder.

But then a case happens where a man is murdered for eating beef!
That was foolish!

That is why there is concern and anxiety. The Hindu extremists do foolish things at times…
They do that. But what can you do? After all, it is the fault of democracy not being in the hands of educated people. Democracy without education is hypocrisy without limitation—that is the saying.

Footnote:  As the news of the passing of Ram Jethmalani broke, I spoke with his biographer, Susan Adelman. These were her thoughts; 

“It was with great sadness that my husband and I woke up this morning to the news that Ram Jethmalani has died.  Even though we knew it was coming, it was a great shock.  

For the past 46 years, India, to us, has meant Ram.  He has been a dear friend, an inspiration, the source of many stories (some of them naughty) and a shining light in the world of law.  

My husband – a law professor – has called Ram the greatest lawyer in the English language in the world.  I knew him as a friend, a source of wisdom, a great teacher, and a remarkable lawyer who would attract young lawyers to his court room just to hear him argue even a simple case.  As I was writing my biography of him, he was generous with his time and anecdotes, and I learned even more reasons why he will be sorely missed.”

 

 

The Passing of Ram Jethmalani