4-H Club Council Constitution & Bylaws Template - University Of: Fill & Download for Free

"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office." - Aesop (620-560 BC)"Just because you (do not take an interest in politics)* doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you." - Pericles (495-429 BC) (*)original Greek definition of a village idiot, according to JFK"The abuse of buying and selling votes crept in and money began to play an important part in determining elections. Later on, this process of corruption spread in the law courts and to the army, and finally, when even the sword became enslaved by the power of gold, the republic was subjected to the rule of emperors." - Plutarch"A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise." - Niccolo Machiavelli"If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged." - Cardinal Richelieu 1641"The English people believes itself to be free; it is gravely mistaken; it is free only during election of members of parliament; as soon as the members are elected, the people is enslaved; it is nothing. In the brief moment of its freedom, the English people makes such a use of that freedom that it deserves to lose it." - Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78)"The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedients, and by parts." - Edmund Burke (1729-97)"...Neither body to jail nor soul to damn." - Lord Edward Thurlow (1731-1806) describing a new British invention, the corporation. One might add, nowadays, "nor conscience to pique, nor death to ponder.""Devil take the hindmost." - Colonial Record of Georgia (1742, when the majority of its population were slaves)"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual." - Thomas Jefferson - "There is...an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents.... The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provisions should be made to prevent its ascendancy.""The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them." - Patrick Henry"The preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks is of more importance to the public than all the property of all the rich men in the country." - John Adams"Ignorant, restless desperadoes, without conscience or principles, have led a deluded multitude to follow their standard, under pretense of grievances which have no existence but in their own imaginations." - Abigail Adams"[America] goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benign' sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit." - John Quincy Adams, US House, 7/4/1821"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it." - Frederic Bastiat"Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful." - Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - "The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher regard those who think alike than those who think differently.""Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid ..., it is true that most stupid people are conservative." - John Stewart Mill (1806-1873) "I never meant to say that the conservatives are ... stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.""There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." and "There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity." and "Divide and rule, a sound motto. Unite and lead, a better one.""The nose of a mob is its [dimmed] imagination. By this, at any time, it can be quietly led." - Edgar Allen Poe"You'll never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." - P. T. Barnum (1810-91)"It is the weakness and danger of republics that the vices as well as virtues of the people are represented in their legislation." - Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-85)"TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY.(title of a section in his book, Democracy in America, Volume I, Chapter XV, 1835) ... In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them." - Alexis de Tocqueville - "The President ... may err ... Congress may decide amiss ... But if the Supreme Court is ever composed of imprudent or bad men, the Union may be plunged into anarchy or civil war." Bk 1, Ch 8."(Jefferson's) ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. ... Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery -- subordination to the superior race -- is his natural and normal condition." Confederate Vice-President Alexander Stephens, Savannah, March 21, 1861."Fear is the parent of cruelty." - James Anthony Froude (1818-94)"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. ... corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed." - attributed to A.Lincoln, letter to Col. William F. Elkins, Nov. 21, 1864."The great mistake of my life was taking a military education." - Robert E Lee"Let them eat grass." - Andrew Myrick, a white trader to the starving Sioux, at a meeting of US Bureau of Indian Affairs agents, Indians and traders, in August 1862. Afterward Myrick was found dead with grass in his mouth."Any nation which by means of protective duties and restrictions on navigation has raised her manufacturing power and her navigation to such a degree of development that no other nation can sustain free competition with her, can do nothing wiser than to throw away these ladders of her greatness, to preach to other nations the benefits of free trade, and to declare in penitent tones that she has hitherto wandered in the paths of error, and has now for the first time succeeded in discovering the truth." - Friedrich List (1789-1846) US Consul to Germany, describing the source of Britain's wealth in his book, The National System of Political Economy, 1841."There is scarcely anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse, and sell a little more cheaply. The person who buys on price alone is this man's lawful prey." - John Ruskin (1819-1900)"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." - Anatole France (1844-1924)"I can hire one-half of the working class to kill the other half." - attributed to Jay Gould, US railroad developer and speculator, circa 1886."The Commission is, or can be made, of great use to the railroads. It satisfies the popular clamor for a government supervision of the railroads, while at the same time that supervision is almost entirely nominal." - Richard Olney, railroad attorney and US Attorney General, circa 1889, re the first US regulatory agency, the Interstate Commerce Commission."No sport is wholesome in which ungenerous or mean acts which easily escape detection contribute to victory." - Charles William Eliot, President of Harvard (1869-1909) opposing football."To disagree with three-fourths of the public is one of the first requisites of sanity." - Oscar Wilde"Everything that can be invented has been invented." - Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. patent office, 1899"There are three ways in which we may rule, by force, by fraud, or by law. We have ruled by force, we can rule by fraud, but we want to rule by law." - Charles Aycock, white-supremacist soon to be Gov. of NC, to his supporters, 1900, later to pass a state constitutional amendment that would, in effect, disenfranchise most black voters."I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B Anthony"I have read carefully the treaty of Paris, and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem. It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land." Mark Twain, New York Herald, Oct. 15, 1900."There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that, if you will only legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea, however, has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous, their prosperity will find its way up through every class which rests upon them." - William Jennings Bryan, 1896"Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them." - Paul Valery (1871-1945)"Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government, owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day." - Theodore Roosevelt, 1912 Platform of Progressive Party."Do you want to know the cause of war? It is capitalism, greed, the dirty hunger for dollars. Take away the capitalist and you will sweep war from the earth." - Henry Ford"If you want to know what God thinks about money, just look at the people He gives it to." - Dorothy Parker"Things have come to a hell of a pass, when a man can't whip his own jackass." (i.e. Democratic Party) - Henry Watterson (1840-1921), editor Louisville Courier-Journal, US Congressman (KY-D)."We will get everything out of her that you can squeeze out of a lemon and a bit more.... I will squeeze her until you can hear the pips squeak. My only doubt is not whether we can squeeze hard enough, but whether there is enough juice." - Sir Eric Geddes (1875-1937), British Conservative politician, speech on German war reparations, 12/10/1918"Is there any man, is there any woman, let me say any child here that does not know that the seed of war in the modern world is industrial and commercial rivalry?" 1919 - Woodrow Wilson - "If you want to make enemies, try to change something.""I do not understand the squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favor of using poisonous gas against uncivilized tribes." - Winston Churchill, in a letter about the Iraqi and Kurdish rebellion against British occupation, 1920"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." - attributed to Sinclair Lewis"The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization." - Sigmund Freud"The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity." - George Bernard Shaw"There is always room at the top - after the investigation." - Oliver Herford (1863-1935) British born American writer"I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that." - Thomas Edison, in conversation with Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone, 1931"We can either have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few. But we can't have both." - Justice Louis Brandeis"...the very rich... are different from you and me." - F. Scott Fitzgerald"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes." - Maj.-Gen. Smedley Butler, simultaneously highest ranking and most decorated U.S. Marine, two Congressional Medals of Honor, for capture of Vera Cruz, Mexico, 1914, and for capture of Ft. Riviere, Haiti, 1917, Distinguished Service Medal, 1919. Republican candidate for Senate, 1932. "I spent 33 years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents." "I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested." in 'Common Sense', Nov., 1935."It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair (1878-1968)"Governments can err, Presidents do make mistakes, but the immortal Dante tells us that divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted in different scales. Better the occasional faults of a Government that lives in a spirit of charity than the constant omission of a Government frozen in the ice of its own indifference." - Franklin D Roosevelt, 1936"The Democrats and the Republicans are equally corrupt where money is concerned. It's only in the amount (therefore extent) where the Republicans excel." - Will Rogers"The boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity at the Treasury." - John Maynard Keynes, 1937"The wretchedness of being rich is that you live with rich people.... To suppose, as we all suppose, that we could be rich and not behave as the rich behave, is like supposing that we could drink all day and stay sober." - Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946), U.S. essayist"All the lessons of history in four sentences: Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad with power. The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small. The bee fertilizes the flower it robs. When it is dark enough, you can see the stars." - Charles Beard (1874-1948), American historian."The things that will destroy us are: politics without principle; pleasure without conscience; wealth without work; knowledge without character; business without morality; science without humanity; and worship without sacrifice." - Mahatma Gandhi - "I think it would be a good idea." when asked by a reporter for his opinion of Western civilization."The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking." - A.A. Milne (1882-1956)"Puritanism -- The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." and "I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office." - H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) "Most people want security in this world, not liberty." and "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed ...by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." and "Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.""Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people." - Eleanor Roosevelt - "You wouldn't worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.""Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." - Joseph Stalin, and the counting starts with who's most enabled to vote."The biggest cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid people are so sure about things and the intelligent folks are so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)During troubled conditions experienced by large numbers of people "explosive and dangerous forces hidden in the archetype come into action, frequently with unpredictable consequences. There is no lunacy people under the domination of an archetype will not fall prey to." - Carl Jung"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism, because it is a merger of State and corporate power." - attributed to Mussolini, 1932 Enciclopedia Italiana."The victor will never be asked if he told the truth." - Adolf Hitler - "The great strength of the totalitarian state is that it forces those who fear it to imitate it." and "The basic feature of our economic theory is that we have no theory at all.""Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many... The resentment of the weak does not spring from any injustice done to them but from the sense of their inadequacy and impotence. They hate not wickedness but weakness. When it is in their power to do so, the weak destroy (what they're told is) weakness wherever they see it." - Eric Hoffer - "It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil... attracts the weak.""Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." - Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971), US theologian, 1944"The enemy aggressor is always pursuing a course of larceny, murder, rapine and barbarism. We are always moving forward with high mission, a destiny imposed by the Deity to regenerate our victims while incidentally capturing their markets, to civilise savage and senile and paranoid peoples while blundering accidentally into their oil wells." - John T. Flynn (1882-1964, American writer), 1944"The people don't want war, but" they "can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country." - Hermann Goering during the Nuremberg Trials"The nature of the breakdowns of civilizations can be summed up in three points: a failure of creative power in the minority, an answering withdrawal of mimesis on the part of the majority, and a consequent loss of social unity in the society as a whole." - Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889-1975) in A Study of History, V.4, part B, p.6, 1948. - "Civilizations in decline are consistently characterised by a tendency towards standardization and uniformity.""Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services." - Article 25, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948"An honest public servant can't become rich in politics." - H. Truman, 1954"When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war. War settles nothing." - Dwight D. Eisenhower - "All of us have heard this term 'preventive war' since the earliest days of Hitler. I recall that is about the first time I heard it. In this day and time...I don't believe there is such a thing; and, frankly, I wouldn't even listen to anyone seriously that came in and talked about such a thing." 1953 press conference, about being presented with plans to wage preventive war to disarm Stalin's Soviet Union."If a victory is told in detail, one can no longer distinguish it from a defeat." - Jean-Paul Sartre"Congress is so strange. A man gets up to speak and says nothing. Nobody listens - and then everybody disagrees." - Boris Marshalov (1902-67) Russian observer, after visiting the House of Representatives in 1947."Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction and our ego satisfaction in consumption. We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever-increasing rate." - Victor Lebow, retail analyst, a few years after WWII"Our willingness to part with something before it is completely worn out is a phenomenon noticeable in no other society in history... It is soundly based on our economy of abundance. It must be further nurtured even though it runs contrary to one of the oldest inbred laws of humanity - the law of thrift." J. Gordon Lippincott, industrial designer. 1947"Slums may well be breeding-grounds of crime, but middle-class suburbs are incubators of apathy and delirium." - Cyril Connolly, British critic, 1951The American economy's "ultimate purpose is to produce more consumer goods." (not better health care, education, housing, transportation, or recreation or less poverty and hunger, but providing more stuff to consumers.) - Arthur F. Burns, Chairman of Pres. Eisenhower's Council of Economic Advisers, 1953"It is our job to make women unhappy with what they have." - B. Earl Puckett, Allied Stores Corp. 1953"Our dangers, as it seems to me, are not from the outrageous but from the conforming; not from those who rarely and under the lurid glare of obloquy upset our moral complaisance, or shock us with unaccustomed conduct, but from those, the mass of us, who take their virtues and their tastes, like their shirts and their furniture, from the limited patterns which the market offers." - Learned Hand (1872-1961), noted federal judge (1909-1951)."More and more I come to value charity and love of one's fellow being above everything else. All our lauded technological progress - our very civilization - is like the axe in the hand of the pathological criminal." - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)"But the greatest menace to our civilization today is the conflict between giant organized systems of self-righteousness--each system only too delighted to find that the other is wicked--each only too glad that the sins give it the pretext for still deeper hatred and animosity." - Herbert Butterfield (1900-79) in Christianity, Diplomacy and War, p. 43 (1953)."You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" - Joseph Welch to Joseph McCarthy."... a land of slander and scare; the land of sly innuendo, the poison pen, the anonymous phone call and hustling, pushing, shoving; the land of smash and grab and anything to win. This is Nixonland." and "In America, anybody can be president. That's one of the risks you take." - Adlai E Stevenson"We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason if we remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes which were, for the moment, unpopular." - Edward R. Murrow"For the corporation executives, the military metaphysic often coincides with their interest in a stable and planned flow of profit; it enables them to have their risk underwritten by public money; it enables them reasonably to expect that they can exploit for private profit now and later, the risky research developments paid for by public money. It is, in brief, a mask of the subsidized capitalism from which they extract profit and upon which their power is based." - C. Wright Mills, Causes of World War 3, 1960."We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security." and "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." - Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961"The lack of objectivity, as far as foreign nations are concerned, is notorious. From one day to another, another nation is made out to be utterly depraved and fiendish, while one's own nation stands for everything that is good and noble. Every action of the enemy is judged by one standard - every action of oneself by another. Even good deeds by the enemy are considered a sign of particular devilishness, meant to deceive us and the world, while our bad deeds are necessary and justified by our noble goals which they serve." - Erich Fromm(A just society is the one in which a reasonable person would choose to live, without knowing, in advance, with what advantages he'd be born.) - John Rawls, Harvard philosophy professor"As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don't you forget it - whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash." - Harper Lee"Dante once said that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality." and "A nation that is afraid to let its people judge truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people." - John F Kennedy"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." - Lyndon Johnson, 1960, to Bill Moyers."The people recognize themselves in their commodities; they find their soul in their automobile, hi-fi set, split-level home, kitchen equipment." - Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979), U.S. political philosopher. One-Dimensional Man, 1964"We know that a man can read Goethe or Rilke in the evening, that he can play Bach and Schubert, and go to his day's work at Auschwitz in the morning." - George Steiner, 1967On campaign contributions: "Money is the mother's milk of politics." - Jesse Unruh, Calif. Speaker of the House and State Treasurer - on lobbyists: "If you can't eat their food, drink their booze, screw their women, take their money, and then vote against them you've got no business being up here.""The amount of poverty and suffering required for the emergence of a Rockefeller, and the amount of depravity that the accumulation of a fortune of such magnitude entails, are left out of the picture, and it is not always possible to make the people in general see this." - Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, MD (1928-1967) "I know you've come to kill me. Shoot, coward, you're only going to kill a man.""I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word." and "The time is always right to do what is right." - Martin Luther King Jr."In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God." - Robert Kennedy, quoting Aeschylus to those whom he'd just told of Martin Luther King's murder, at a rally in Indianapolis, April 4, 1968."If we believe men have any personal rights at all, then they must have an absolute moral right to such a measure of good health as society can provide." - attributed to Aristotle by Robert Kennedy and others."All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." - Sergei Bondarchuk in 1968 film of "War and Peace"."In the United States today, we have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism. They have formed their own 4-H Club - the 'hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.' " - Spiro T. Agnew, 9/11/70, felon and Republican VP. (written for him by Wm. Safire, speechwriter for Pres. Nixon)"The less care they give them, the more money they make." - John Ehrlichman, describing Kaiser Permanente to Pres. Nixon, who replied "Fine." - White House tapes, 2/17/71. Kaiser and his family were Nixon supporters."Follow the money. Always follow the money." - Deep Throat"If they can get you asking the wrong questions,* they don't have to worry about the answers." - Thomas Pynchon *such as "How do we get gov't off 'our' backs?"An historical record suggesting the US has fallen short of its "transcendent ideals" is "an abuse of reality," i.e., we must not "confound the abuse of reality with reality itself." - Hans Morgenthau (1904-1980) (O yeah?)"In each cultural era, the medium in which information is recorded and transmitted is decisive in determining the character of that culture." - Marshall McLuhan (1911-80) - "Madison Avenue is a very powerful aggression against private consciousness. A demand that you yield your private consciousness to public manipulation.""The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that (if found to be lies, many) would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness." - Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1976, p. 382."The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way, and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theatre." - Frank Zappa, 1977"I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." - GHW Bush, in FREE INQUIRY magazine, Fall 1988."Two party system like two geraniums in outhouse window, look pretty but still big stink." - Taiwanese proverb"History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure." - Thurgood Marshall (1908-93) US lawyer and Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court (1967-91)"It is not our affluence, or our plumbing, or our clogged freeways that grip the imagination of others. Rather, it is the values upon which our system is built. These values imply our adherence not only to liberty and individual freedom, but also to international peace, law and order, and constructive social purpose. When we depart from these values, we do so at our peril." - James William Fulbright (1905-95)"In history, the man in the ruffled shirt and gold-coated waistcoat levitates above the blood he has ordered to be spilled by dirty-handed underlings." - Francis Jennings (1918-2000) American historian"I have seen the Octopus." - Danny Casolaro (1947-1991) to his family just before he died under mysterious circumstances."[T]he long-term political effects of a successful... health care bill will be even worse — much worse... It will revive the reputation of... Democrats as the generous protector of middle-class interests. And it will at the same time strike a punishing blow against Republican claims to defend the middle class..." - William Kristol memo, "Defeating President Clinton's Healthcare Proposal" 12/93"The 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: The growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy." - Alex Carey, Australian social scientist, 1995"Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them (aggrieved or comfortable) to deceive themselves." - Eric Hoffer"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting." - Milan Kundera"The greatest threat to democracy is the increasing concentration of major electronic media in ever fewer hands." - Rep. David Price (D-NC)"I cannot think of a time when we have had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian." - Dick Cheney, 1998, when Hamid Karzai, working for Unocal, was negotiating with the Taliban for an oil pipeline from the Caspian through Afghanistan. Henry Kissinger also worked for Unocal. A.F.Sec. under GHW Bush, Donald Rice, was on Unocal's board of directors. Unocal has since merged with Chevron/Texaco."Here is a list of the countries that the U.S. has been at war with - and bombed - since the Second World War: China (1945-46, 1950-53), Korea (1950-53), Guatemala (1954, 1967-69), Indonesia (1958), Cuba (1959-60), the Belgian Congo (1964), Peru (1965), Laos (1964-73), Vietnam (1961-73), Cambodia (1969-70), Grenada (1983), Libya (1986), El Salvador (1980s), Nicaragua (1980s), Panama (1989), Iraq (1991-99), Bosnia (1995), Sudan (1998), Yugoslavia (1999), and now Afghanistan." - Arundhati Roy, Manchester Guardian, 10/23/01 (Extending this to the present, one sees our warring and bombing increased AFTER the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.)The future is "up for grabs". - Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Paul Wolfowitz, 1991."Liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk." - DoD advisor Ken Adelman, 2/02."We need to execute people like John Walker (Lindh) in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors." - Ann Coulter, 1/02, applauded by NSA Condoleeza Rice, HHS Sec. Tommy Thompson, and Lynne Cheney (wife of the VP), all of whom were present."If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all." - Noam Chomsky - "Corporations, which previously had been considered artificial entities with no rights, were accorded all the rights of persons, and far more, since they are 'immortal persons', and 'persons' of extraordinary wealth and power. Furthermore, they were no longer bound to the specific purposes designated by State charter, but could act as they choose, with few constraints."(The Bible teaches and Christians believe) "...that government ...derives its moral authority from God. Government is the 'minister of God' with powers to 'revenge,' to 'execute wrath,' including even wrath by the sword..." - Justice Antonin Scalia, 5/02."An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head." - Eric Hoffer"The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him." - GW Bush, 9/13/01 - "I don't know where he is and I really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority." - 9/13/02 - "Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud." - 10/02 - "Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties" to Pat Robertson, 2/03."Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? Oh, I mean, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?" - Barbara Bush, ABC's Good Morning America, March 18, 2003."The corporation is an externalizing machine (moving its operating costs and risks to external organizations and people), in the same way that a shark is a killing machine." - Robert Monks (2003) Republican candidate for Senate from Maine and corporate governance adviser in the film "The Corporation"."We have long since made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the Nation's citizens." - Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, HAMDI et al. v. RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, et al., on writ of certiorari to the US Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, 6/28/04"(Reagan) has the most fraudulent reputation of any who has ever served in public office. He was certainly genial, a decent guy, a 3rd rate actor that had his career revived by the advice by his new father-in-law, Dr. Davis (a supporter the John Birch Society) 'Go where the money is!' In other words flack for 20 Mule Team Borax and GE. This confused guy even voted for FDR four times by his own admission. He learned that it was 'good business' to give up a lifetime of supposed ideals. He was a quick study, but basically a 'dope' who was lost without a script. ... He even thought that the CO2 from a tree was equivalent to a car's emissions. He was a 'stiff' built up by his handlers. His last term was a disaster, and to cap it off, during the Poindexter and McFarlane Trials, he said under oath over 400 times that he did not remember! With a history of Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, and Nixon I can understand easily that the 'flat-earth' luddites of the new GOP love to worship the memory of the 'Gipper' whose understanding of the problems of this country matched his inability to answer a question 'off the cuff.' Maybe that's why he ran out after every press conference yelling over his shoulder. They couldn't wait to get him away." - Richard J. Garfunkel, American Daily, Phoenix, AZ, 5/1/07"... leadership begins on Madison Avenue, on the desks and in the offices of people who spend hundreds of millions of dollars buying what will get them ratings." - Norman Lear"Profits, like sausages... are esteemed most by those who know least about what goes into them." - Alvin Toffler(Iraq has the third largest reserves of conventional oil in the world.) - Country Analysis Briefs (2007) US Energy Information Administration, and Gal Luft (2003) "How Much Oil Does Iraq Have?" The Brookings Institution.The invasion of Iraq caused a "seven-fold increase in jihadism." - the RAND Corporation"Alan Greenspan has proclaimed himself 'shocked' that 'the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders equity' proved to be an illusion... The Reagan-Thatcher model, which favored finance over domestic manufacturing, has collapsed. ... The mutually reinforcing rise of financialization and globalization broke the bond between American capitalism and America's interests. ...we should take a cue from Scandinavia's social capitalism, which is less manufacturing-centered than the German model. The Scandinavians have upgraded the skills and wages of their workers in the retail and service sectors -- the sectors that employ the majority of our own workforce. In consequence, fully employed impoverished workers, of which there are millions in the United States, do not exist in Scandinavia." - Harold Meyerson, "Building a Better Capitalism"], The Washington Post, March 12, 2009."If we're able to stop Obama on this (health care reform), it will be his Waterloo. It will break him." - Sen. Jim DeMint (SC-R) 7/09"Don't get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly."- Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) summarizing the Republican health care plan, 10/6/09"It's class warfare, my class is winning, but they shouldn't be." - Warren Buffett"I refuse to live in a country like this, and I'm not leaving." - Michael Moore"People have the odd characteristic of objecting to the slaughter of family members and friends." - Noam Chomsky, on new rebellions in Afghanistan, 2010."I doubt there's ever been a true thing said on Fox. Maybe the weather report, maybe not." - Fran Lebowitz - "Contrary to popular opinion, the hustle is not a new dance step -- it is an old business procedure." and "In the Soviet Union, capitalism triumphed over communism. In this country, capitalism triumphed over democracy.""A nation can be one or the other, a democracy or an imperialist, but it can't be both. If it sticks to imperialism, it will, like the old Roman Republic, on which so much of our system was modeled, lose its democracy to a domestic dictatorship." - Chalmers Johnson (1931-2010) UC professor and analyst for the CIA."I was involved deeply in a system of bribery - legalized bribery for the most part" that "still to a large part exists today." - Jack Abramoff, 2013"The poorest half of the population still owns nothing." - Thomas Piketty, Capital in the 21st Century, Part III, 2014."No one has the guts to just let them wither and die." - John Johnston, GOP candidate for Indiana's 10th District, June 2014, referring to the poor."If you're in a coalition and you're comfortable, you know it's not a broad enough coalition." - Bernice Johnson Reagon"If you don't have a seat at the table, you're probably on the menu." - Elizabeth Warren"Can't govern people if you win by dividing them." - Obama, 10/19/17."A well-regulated militia will not come into our schools and kill our children." - LTE Raleigh News & Observer, 2/26/18."The promise of America, Jefferson thought, was that 'the farmer will see his government supported, his children educated, and the face of the country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich alone.'" - Jill LePore's These Truths, 2018."Fascism = Crony Capitalism + Murder." - Antifa slogan, 2020.

Explained: Everything you need to know about Nagaland insurgencyExplained: Everything you need to know about Nagaland insurgencyThe story of the long-running Naga insurgency — and peace moves that picked up pace with the efforts of Prime Ministers from P V Narasimha Rao to Narendra ModiSamudra Gupta KashyapPraveen SwamiUpdated: August 4, 2015 7:47 pmPrime Minister Narendra Modi with Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, NSCN (IM) General Secretary, Thuingaleng Muivah, NSA, Ajit Doval and others at the signing ceremony of historic peace accord between Government of India & NSCN, in New Delhi on Monday. (Source; PTI)HOW OLD IS THE NAGA POLITICAL ISSUE?The British annexed Assam in 1826, and in 1881, the Naga Hills too became part of British India. The first sign of Naga resistance was seen in the formation of the Naga Club in 1918, which told the Simon Commission in 1929 “to leave us alone to determine for ourselves as in ancient times”. In 1946 came the Naga National Council (NNC), which, under the leadership of Angami Zapu Phizo, declared Nagaland an independent state on August 14, 1947. The NNC resolved to establish a “sovereign Naga state” and conducted a “referendum” in 1951, in which “99 per cent” supported an “independent” Nagaland.WHEN DID THE ARMED MOVEMENT BEGIN?On March 22, 1952, Phizo formed the underground Naga Federal Government (NFG) and the Naga Federal Army (NFA). The Government of India sent in the Army to crush the insurgency and, in 1958, enacted the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act.WHEN DID THE PEACE EFFORTS START?Almost simultaneously with the resistance. On June 29, 1947, Assam Governor Sir Akbar Hyderi signed a 9-point agreement with moderates T Sakhrie and Aliba Imti, which was almost immediately rejected by Phizo. The Naga Hills, a district of Assam, was upgraded to a state in 1963, by also adding the Tuensang Tract that was then part of NEFA. In April the next year, Jai Prakash Narain, Assam Chief Minister Bimala Prasad Chaliha and Rev. Michael Scott formed a Peace Mission, and got the government and NNC to sign an agreement to suspend operations that September. But the NNC/NFG/NFA continued to indulge in violence, and after six rounds of talks, the Peace Mission was abandoned in 1967, and a massive counter-insurgency operation launched.WHEN DID THE NSCN COME INTO BEING?On November 11, 1975, the government got a section of NNC leaders to sign the Shillong Accord, under which this section of NNC and NFG agreed to give up arms. A group of about 140 members led by Thuingaleng Muivah, who were at that time in China, refused to accept the Shillong Accord, and formed the National Socialist Council of Nagaland in 1980. Muivah also had Isak Chisi Swu and S S Khaplang with him. In 1988, the NSCN split into NSCN (IM) and NSCN (K) after a violent clash. While the NNC began to fade away, and Phizo died in London in 1991, the NSCN (IM) came to be seen as the “mother of all insurgencies” in the region.WHAT DID THE NSCN (IM) WANT?A “Greater Nagalim” comprising “all contiguous Naga-inhabited areas”, along with Nagaland. That included several districts of Assam, Arunachal and Manipur, as also a large tract of Myanmar. The map of “Greater Nagalim” has about 1,20,000 sq km, while the state of Nagaland consists of 16,527 sq km. The claims have always kept Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh wary of a peace settlement that might affect their territories. The Nagaland Assembly has endorsed the ‘Greater Nagalim’ demand — “Integration of all Naga-inhabited contiguous areas under one administrative umbrella” — as many as five times: in December 1964, August 1970, September 1994, December 2003 and as recently as on July 27, 2015.WHEN DID NSCN (IM) JOIN PEACE TALKS?Muivah, Swu and other top NSCN (IM) leaders escaped to Thailand in the early 1990s. While Nagaland Governor M M Thomas, a Church leader from Kerala, extracted the first positive response from the NSCN(IM), Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao met Muivah, Swu and others in Paris on June 15, 1995. In November 1995, then MoS (Home) Rajesh Pilot met them in Bangkok. Subsequently, Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda met them in Zurich on February 3, 1997, which was followed by meetings with officers in Geneva and Bangkok. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee met them in Paris on September 30, 1998. The Government of India signed a ceasefire agreement with NSCN (IM) on July 25, 1997, which came into effect on August 1, 1997. Over 80 rounds of talks between the two sides were held subsequently.HOW DID PRIME MINISTER MODI TRAVEL THE LAST MILE?For the NSCN (IM), the Modi government continues from where Vajpayee left. The RSS’s Northeast veteran P B Acharya is currently Nagaland Governor, and Joint Intelligence Committee chairman R N Ravi, with his IB background, is an old Northeast hand. The state’s political scenario has changed, with T R Zeliang’s Naga People’s Front, an NDA ally, persuading all groups in the Assembly, including the Congress, to become partners in an all-party government.HOW HAVE MANIPUR, ASSAM AND ARUNACHAL PRADESH REACTED?Leaders cutting across party lines have preferred to wait and watch. Nobody in these three states would allow even an inch of their land to be added to a ‘Greater Nagalim’, if at all that term is part of the accord.WHAT ABOUT S S KHAPLANG?In March this year, he abrogated the ceasefire he had signed in 2001, and is sure to oppose the accord. Security forces have been already alerted across Nagaland, Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh.HOW ATAL WON NAGA HEARTS“Ami laga bhai aru boyni-khan. Aami Nagaland-te matiye karone besi khusi paise dei. (My dear brothers and sisters. I am very happy to be amid you on the soil of Nagaland.)”This was Atal Bihari Vajpayee, opening his speech at a public reception in Kohima on October 28, 2003. He went on to speak about the “unique history” of the Nagas — the sentence that Nagas, and especially the NSCN (IM), have always remembered.Neither Indira Gandhi nor Rajiv Gandhi ever visited Kohima as Prime Minister. A visit by Jawaharlal Nehru had witnessed an embarrassing spectacle of 5,000 Nagas turning their backs on the PM after he rejected the demand for a “sovereign” Nagaland on March 30, 1953. Morarji Desai and H D Deve Gowda travelled to Kohima, but neither of them is remembered with the fondness that the Nagas have for Vajpayee. The first NDA Prime Minister not only recognised the “unique history” of the Nagas, but also admitted that mistakes had been committed, and lamented the unnecessary spilling of blood in the state.“It is true that of all the states in India, Nagaland has a unique history. We are sensitive to this historical fact,” Vajpayee said in his speech. “But this uniqueness has in no way diminished the spirit of patriotism among the Naga people. We have the inspiring examples of patriot Jadunong, who became a martyr, and Rani Gaidinliu. Who can forget that in critical times of war in 1962, 1965 and 1971, Naga underground organisations did not fire on the Indian Army? They showed restraint. I would also like to acknowledge the sacrifices of jawans from Nagaland during the Kargil War,” he said.CHRONICLES OF CONFLICT AND (ATTEMPTED) PEACEJune 1947: Naga-Akbar Hydari AgreementSigned by The Naga National Convention and the Governor of AssamTHE AGREEMENT: “That the right of the Nagas to develop themselves according to their freely expressed wishes is recognized.”THE CATCH: “The Governor of Assam as the Agent of the Government of the Indian Union will have a special responsibility for a period of 10 years to ensure the observance of the agreement, at the end of this period the Naga Council will be asked whether they require the above agreement to be extended for a further period or a new agreement regarding the future of Naga people arrived at.”July 1960: Sixteen-point Agreement with the Naga People’s ConventionNagaland formed as a state, under the charge of the Ministry of External AffairsTHE AGREEMENT: “No Act or law passed by the Union Parliament affecting the following provisions shall have legal force in the Nagaland unless specially applied to it by a majority vote of the Nagaland Legislative Assembly:(a) The Religious or Social Practices of the Nagas,(b) The Customary Laws and Procedure,(c) Civil and Criminal Justice so far as these concern decision according to the Naga Customary Law.”THE CATCH: “The Naga leaders expressed the view that other Nagas inhabiting contiguous areas should be enabled to join the new state. It was pointed out to them on behalf of the Government of India that Article 3 and 4 of the Constitution provided for increasing the area of any state, but it was not possible for the Government of India to make any commitment in this regard at this stage”.1964: Ceasefire AgreementTHE AGREEMENT: “The Government of India welcomes the steps intended to bring about peace in Nagaland and with this object in view… they will depute representatives, with whom will be associated the representatives of the Government of Nagaland, to take part in talks with leaders of the underground. To facilitate these talks and taking note of the letter of August 10, 1964… it has been ordered that with effect from September 6, 1964, and for a period thereafter of one month at present, the security forces will not undertake: a. jungle operations; b. raiding of camps of the underground; c. patrolling beyond one thousand yards of Security posts; d. searching of villages; e. aerial action; f. arrests; and g. imposition of labour by way of punishment.THE CATCH: “Operations will be suspended as above on the understanding that the underground have accepted that during this period they will refrain from: (i) sniping and ambushing; (ii) imposition of fines; (iii) kidnapping and recruiting; (iv) sabotage activities; (v) raiding and firing on Security posts, towns and administrative centres; and (vi) moving with arms or in uniform in towns, villages and administrative centres, wherever there are Security posts and approaching within one thousand yards of Security posts.”1975: Shillong AgreementBetween Nagaland Governor L P Singh and underground leadersTHE AGREEMENT: “The representatives of the underground organisations conveyed their decision, of their own volition, to accept, without condition, the Constitution of India. It was agreed that the arms, now underground, would be brought out and deposited at appointed places. Details for giving effect of this agreement will be worked out between them and representatives of the Government, the security forces, and members of the Liaison Committee.”THE CATCH: “It was agreed that the representatives of the underground organisations should have reasonable time to formulate other issues for discussion for final settlement.”Copyright © 2018 The Indian Express [P] Ltd. All Rights Reserved

1. Lal Bihari, The Undead Indian​In 1976, when a teenager named Lal Bihari approached a bank to approve a loan, he was informed that he was actually dead. It took Lal Bihari 18 years to get his life and his land back. During that time, he added the word Mritak or Dead, to his name and to prove that he was alive sought arrest, tried to run for parliament, kidnapped the son of his uncle, who had stolen his property, threatened murder, insulted judges, threw leaflets listing his complaints at legislators in the state assembly and demanded a widow’s pension for his wife. Each time he was either beaten up by police or rebuked for wasting officials’ time. Unable to make headway, Lal Bihari, The Dead sought the company of other ghosts in Uttar Pradesh and found an entire underworld of the deceased and dispossessed. It was only in 1994, 18 years after being declared dead, that Azamgarh district magistrate, a Hausla Prasad Verma, declared Lal Bihari finally alive once again and also returned his land to him.2. K. M. Nanavati vs State of Maharashtra, 1959​This was a high-profile upper class crime of passion, where Kawas Manekshaw Nanavati, a Naval Commander, was tried for the murder of Prem Ahuja, his wife’s lover. The incident received unprecedented media coverage and Nanavati was at the receiving end of a huge amount of public and community support. Nanavati was initially declared not guilty 8-1 by a jury, but the verdict was dismissed by the Bombay High Court on referral and the case was retried as a bench trial. Nanavati was convicted of culpable homicide and sentenced to life imprisonment. This case was the last to be heard as a jury trial in India, as the government abolished jury trials as a result of the case. Many see this as a progressive step in our justice system as decisions of juries are often colored by societal values and norms. On the side note, Ram Jethmalani, now a prominent lawyer and BJP politician, conducted the prosecution in what was one of his first high-profile cases.3. Kesavananda Bharati vs State of Kerala, 1973​This case is now known as the case that saved the Indian democracy. On April 24, 1973, Chief Justice Sikri and 12 judges of the Supreme Court assembled to deliver the most important judgment in its history. The hard work that had gone into the preparation of this case was breathtaking. Literally hundreds of cases had been cited and the then Attorney-General had made a comparative chart analyzing the provisions of the Constitutions of 71 different countries. All this effort was to answer just one main question: “was the power of Parliament to amend the Constitution unlimited?” In other words, could Parliament alter, amend, abrogate any part of the Constitution even to the extent of taking away all fundamental rights? The judgment revealed a sharply divided court and, by a wafer-thin majority of 7-6, it was held that Parliament could amend any part of the Constitution so long as it did not alter or amend “the basic structure or essential features of the Constitution.” This was the inherent and implied limitation on the amending power of Parliament. This basic structure doctrine, as future events showed (Indira Gandhi attempting to hijack Indian democracy), saved Indian democracy and Kesavananda Bharati will always occupy a hallowed place in our constitutional history.4. State of Uttar Pradesh vs. Raj Narain, 1975​Ruling on the case that had been filed by the defeated opposition candidate Raj Narain, Justice Jagmohanlal Sinha declared then-PM Indira Gandhi guilty of electoral malpractices, invalidated her win from Rae Bareilly and barred her from holding elected office for six years. The decision caused a political storm in India that led to the imposition of a state of emergency by Indira’s government from 1975 to 1977. The decision had galvanized opposition parties and strikes by labour and trade unions, student unions and government unions swept across the country. Protests led by Jayaprakash Narayan and Morarji Desai flooded the streets of Delhi close to the Parliament building and the Prime Minister’s residence. The government argued that the political disorder was a threat to national security. Using the sweeping powers granted by the Emergency decree, thousands of opposition leaders and activists were arrested, press censorship was introduced and elections were postponed. During this period, Indira Gandhi’s Congress (R) used its parliamentary majority to amend the Indian Constitution and overwrite the law that she was later found guilty of violating.5. The Shah Bano Case, 1985​Shah Bano, a 62 year old woman from Indore was divorced by her husband in 1978. Unable to support herself and her five children, she moved to courts to be granted maintenance from her ex-husband. Seven years and several judgments later, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of granting Shah Bano alimony. Largely seen as a threat to Sharia law by some Muslims, what followed a debate over the constitutionality of including different marriage and personal laws for different religion, and resulted in the passing of the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986, by the government.The case was significant for several reasons. In giving its judgment, the Court ordered maintenance with an upper limit of Rs. 500 monthly, under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, which applies to all citizens regardless of caste or religion. Although seen by many as a secular judgment, it invoked a strong reaction from the Muslim community, which felt that the judgment was an encroachment on Muslim Sharia law. The backlash from the Muslim community prompted the government to begin parliamentary procedures that, in essence, overturned the Supreme Court’s decision. The Muslim Women Act, 1986, was passed amidst great controversy and debate. Many argued that it was a way to appease the minority group that was threatening agitation.Shah Bano’s case brought the need for a secular Uniform Civil Code into the limelight again. To date, however, individual Personal Laws based on religion are still in effect. The case remains a ground-breaking one in Indian divorce law and is often used as a benchmark by the courts.6. Himmat Lal Shah v. Commissioner of Police, 1973​This case was recently referenced in the Anna Hazare anti-corruption movement when Section 144 of the IPC (unlawful assembly) was imposed by the Delhi Police and the lawyer team of Shanti and Prashant Bhushan argued successfully in the Supreme Court over the unconstitutional nature of thisaction. The original case dealt with a common citizen’s right to hold public meetings on streets and the extent to which the state could regulate this right. Freedom of expression and assembly is an essential element of democratic system. At the root of this system lies the citizens’ right to meet face to face to discuss problems social, religious or political. This right was upheld in this case.7. ADM Jabalpur v Shivakant Shukla Case, 1976​ADM Jabalpur V Shivkant Shukla is one of the landmark cases in Indian constitutional history. Its judgment came on 28th April 1976. This day is known to be the blackest day of India’s constitutional history. Right to move to any court for enforcement of any right conferred by Articles 14, 21 and 22 was suspended during the emergency of 1975 by a presidential order. The maintainability of this order was challenged in this case. Several high courts held it not maintainable while Supreme Court’s 4 judges out of 5 declared otherwise and concluded it to be maintainable and valid exercise under emergency provisions of Indian constitution. Anybody who was sought to be a political threat was detained without trial and sent to prison under the MISA, a preventive detention act on the ground of maintaining the internal security in the country. This was case where an attorney general of India wrote, Even if life was taken away illegally, courts are helpless. For the disagreeing opinion, H. R. Khanna J lost his possibility of becoming the C.J. of India when he was the senior most person eligible for it. His Junior Beg J. became instead. P.N. Bhagwati J pleads guilty for the judgement of this case after 30 years. Now you see how politics influence the lives of common people devastatingly. This case has many strange, tempestuous facts and statements of judges. It was distrustful judgement, a holocaust to the fundamental rights of people in disguise.8. Bhawal case – The Princely Imposter​The Bhawal Sanyasi case has been one of the strangest among judicial cases in British India. In the Hindu way of life, a Sanyasi is a person who has taken ‘Sanyas’, or entered the final stage of his life in which he is to seek the Truth and turn his back upon the material word. In more popular parlance, any garden-variety sadhu or mendicant may be called a sanyasi. Bhawal was a large zamindari near Dacca (now Dhaka, Bangladesh). It was, as with the case of many similar Zamindaries, closely supervised by the British bureaucracy. It had an Englishman as a manager. After the Zamindar died, it passed to his three sons. All led lives of ease. The second son, Ramendra, died in Darjeeling in 1905, apparently due to syphilis, and was believed to have been cremated. He left his widow, Bibhavati, behind him. Several years later, in 1921, a Sadhu appeared in Dacca. Soon people noticed many resemblances between him and the supposedly dead Ramendra. Jyotirmayee, one of his sisters was convinced that the sadhu was indeed her brother. Several educated Indians too were convinced of his identity. The British official world, on the other hand, looked upon him as a pretender. Bibhavati refused to accept him as her husband. The claimant (sadhu) claimed his 1/3rd share from the revenues of the zamindari. The Court of Wards which was administering the zamindari refused the claim and the matter went to the court. From the very beginning there was a clear division between the British officialdom and the Bengali elite, the latter siding with the claimant. The claimant filed a suit in 1930.The judgment in the first trial went in favor of the claimant. The Court of Wards appealed to the Calcutta High Wards. After some delay caused by the Second World War, which kept one of assigned judges stranded in London, the High Court too found in favor of the claimant in 1940. Bibhavati appealed to the Privy Council in London. The Privy Council ruled in favor of the claimant on July 30, 1946. The judgment was telegraphed to Calcutta the next day.That very day the winner/claimant went to the Kali temple to offer prayers upon his victory and suffered a stroke there. He died two days later, which, according to Bibhavti, was the divinely ordained punishment for the imposter.9. The Ayodhya Cases​One of the most controversial cases in Indian constitutional history is the Ayodhya case. In fact in one of the cases related to Ayodhya, one party was Shri Ram himself. Any way there are four principal title suits pendingbefore the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court over the disputed land at Ayodhya. The legal battle over the 80 feet by 40 feet land far predates the VHP movement to construct the Ram temple.The first case was filed in January 1885 by Mahant Raghubir Das seeking permission to construct a temple on the chabutara (a raised platform) outside the Babri Masjid was dismissed. The mandir-masjid issue then remained in suspended animation until the night of December 22, 1949, when trespassers broke into the Babri Masjid and installed an idol of Ram. Subsequently, the city magistrate attached the premises. In the next 12 years, four title suits followed (all still pending before the courts). These include the one filed in December 1950 by Mahant Ramchandra Das Paramhans, who is now the chairman of the Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas and another by the Sunni Central Boards of Waqfs, UP, in December 1961. All the four suits were clubbed together and broughtbefore the Allahabad High Court, which began recording oral evidence in July 1996.The case has always moved at a snail’s pace. Out of the 100 witnesses, only 23 have testified till now. On an average, the examination of a witness takes a fortnight. Says former Delhi High Court chief justice Rajinder Sachar: “It is really impossible to find whether Ram was born on that exact piece of land. The matter will go on and on for years.”The Union government on March 5 filed a petition before the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court to expedite the case by holding daily hearings. Further, it suggested that the court appoint a commissioner or a judge to record the statements of the witnesses. But all this does not necessarily mean a speedy settlement of the issue. The case, fear legal experts, could be a long-drawn one.10. INA trials​Not many Indians are acquainted with this case, which had a profound impact on India’s freedom struggle. INA (Indian National Army) was a force that comprised of Indian Prisoners of War abroad, and was formed by Subhash Chandra Bose – to secure India’s independence from the British. When it was disbanded, INA’s top officers were tried by the British on charges of Sedition etc. Seeing that that there was a wave of sympathy throughout the country for these brave officers, the Indian National Congress decided to form a team of legal stalwarts to prepare a thorough legal defense for the officers. Such was the impact of this move, that Lord Wavell India’s then Viceroy, promulgated an ordinance with retrospective effect to confer jurisdiction on court-martials in cases related to PoW’s.The pinnacle of this trial was the legal ingenuity demonstrated by Bhulabhai Desai. Desai’s primary argument was that Bose had formed a provisional government of India, and since the Axis powers had recognized that government, the officers of the INA were representing their country, and not a rebel force. Thus, Desai argued, the municipal law in this case, the Indian Penal Code was not applicable and they ought to be tried under International Law. He placed enormous evidence on record to establish that the INA was representing the Indian State; and thus, the officers were acting in furtherance of their duty as India and Great Britain were at war. Even though he lost the case, he earned his place in the pantheon of legends.