The attempt to extract political mileage was ephemeral. Whatever the advocates of the BJP-led government sought to project following a British court’s initiating extradition action against Vijay Mallya soon dissipated into irrelevance when the Indian apex court resurrected the conspiracy charges against top BJP leaders for the vandalism at the Babari Masjid 25 years ago. It is a national shame both ways: criminal action against a fugitive from justice becoming a political football, and the self-inflicted own goal the BJP scored when dragging religion into politics. Both cases are far from nearing judicial conclusion, but it would be fair to conclude that the revival of the case against LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharati and others is potentially more damaging than the dethroning of the self-styled ‘king of good times’. For while the latter might deter crooked businessmen from swindling public money, the former indicts the calculated infusion of religion into politics ~ provided that at least one set of politicians find their conscience pricked by the strong words used by their Lordships PC Ghose and Rohinton Nariman.

“This court has the power, nay the duty, to do complete justice in a case when found necessary. In the present case, crimes which shake the secular fabric of the Constitution of India have allegedly been committed 25 years ago,” they said, proceeding to prescribe stringent guidelines for the trial process. Not surprisingly, the BJP sought to put on a brave front, Uma Bharati openly declaring she was prepared to be hanged, but deep down it must know that public opinion is slowly building up ~ despite election verdicts suggesting otherwise ~ against its Hindutva politicking, of which the razing of the “disputed structure” at Ayodhya was a visible first step.

As of now there appears to be no “threat” to Uma’ continuing in ministerial office nor Kalyan Singh’s occupation of the Raj Bhawan in Jaipur, but even by Modi-Shah standards it would be brazen for Advani and Joshi to be “pushed” for the high constitutional positions falling vacant a few months hence ~ well before the deadline the Supreme Court has set for concluding the trial in Ayodhya. It might appear ridiculous and humorous for Lalu Prasad to aver that Modi “activated” the CBI to ensure that Advani and Joshi remained out to pasture, but such is the degree of intrigue in contemporary politics that nothing can be ruled out.

What can be ruled “in” is that despite what Arun Jaitley may have achieved on a recent visit to the UK, it would be quite a complicated process to “bring Mallya back”. A common message sent out by the men in black robes is that neither religion nor criminality must determine the course of political activity. Is India “listening”?