Let Justice prevail!

Yesterday, the Houses of Parliament expelled 11 of its ‘distinguished’ members on the charge of having accepted bribes to ask questions in their respective Houses. To me, it seems rather inane to ask for money to ask questions. After all, what possible harm or good is a question going to do, even if it is raised in the highest legislative body in the country? And then I realized that it wasn’t the harm the question was doing. It was the harm the bribe would do to the legislature, to the system of a reasonable State, driven by the actual needs of the people, and not by the desires of a few demented groups. The representatives of the people must be ideal, someone the people can look up to for inspiration, who conjures images of integrity and trust, and inspires confidence and hope in the minds of the most despondent soul. They cannot be affected by human afflictions like greed, sloth, lust, envy, and all the cardinal sins. Not too much to ask, is it?
Unfortunately it is. What right does a people who will give bribes just to get their jobs done, maybe out of coercion but nonetheless performing the act, to demand such high standards from its representatives? After all, he is your ‘representative’ and will therefore contain all the characteristics of you, those whom he must represent. I plead that you, my reader, not construe this as a defense of those charged. For it is not so much a defense of the accused as an entreaty to my fellow Indians to introspect as to whether we do inhabit such high moral ground to expect such high standards from our politicians?
The manner and procedure followed by the Houses of Parliament is not of concern to me. That they deserved to be punished goes without saying, and the most appropriate punishment was the one that has been meted out, that being revocation of the membership of the accused in the clan whose trust, honour and prestige has been sullied by their nefarious acts. But, one must pause to ask whether even in the light of evidence as obvious as television videos, can the laws of natural justice be relaxed? Can, in the presence of seemingly infallible odds against the accused, he be denied the right to defend himself before his peers? In our urge to inhabit a high moral ground, are we guilty of having transgressed on the most basic of moralities, the law of permitting an accused to a proper trial?
I may seem to have political pretensions or prejudices when I write this, but in truth, I agree with the punishment. The guilty must suffer, and that they suffer will be ensured by the Fates. But, in our pursuit for Righteousness, we must not inflict wounds on Justice, for one without the other is of no value. Have a trial, hear them out. The verdict may be predetermined in your minds, but even then Justice will be satisfied that you gave her a chance, an opportunity to be fair.