No human virtue sits above justice. And a government that is not interested in delivering justice to its citizens is a curse upon the nation. It’s unfortunate that the leader of the opposition, not the prime minister of India, has been constantly rubbing this message into the indisposed and insensitive system. That should help us measure the depth of the enduring political crisis.What Rahul Gandhi did by forcing the police to register an FIR in the pellet-gun case must not be seen in terms of personal triumph or defeat. The opposition leader’s peaceful struggle achieved a far bigger success. It’s restoration of the rule of law; a task originally assigned to the government and the judiciary. By resorting to the exceptional method of protest as he staged an impromptu dharna at the police station, Gandhi risked his image, drawing senseless allegations of creating anarchy from the government spokespersons and the mainstream media.The establishment has demonstrated stunning ignorance because anarchy is rejection of the state’s moral and legal right to decide for citizens. Rahul Gandhi was only reinforcing the state’s responsibility, reminding them of their legal duty to initiate action for justice to an aggrieved citizen. His action was motivated by constitutionalism. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders and the media said the Supreme Court had already constituted a committee to look into the incident and hence there was no need for an FIR. This is not hypocrisy; this is deceit.Did the BJP, or the media, demand investigation into the pellet-gun firing after the incident, when the entire opposition had shut down Parliament seeking answers from Union home minister Amit Shah? They said Gandhi was doing a drama. Isn’t the nexus of silence between the government and the mainstream media much uglier than any drama staged for justice?This country has seen FIRs being registered on outrageously frivolous grounds. Gandhi is the greatest victim of this ploy; he was thrown out of Parliament because of a legal verdict following a frivolous FIR that he insulted backward castes in one of his speeches. Former Uttar Pradesh minister Azam Khan faced FIRs for murgi-&-bakri chori (hen and goat theft). A woman in Indore filed an FIR against a neighbour’s murga (rooster) because it created noise early in the morning. Is the demand for an FIR for destroying a youth’s life whose only crime was that he went to a protest so unreasonable?Aren’t heinous crimes against innocent citizens the concern of the prime minister and the home minister? Why should Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi jolt the system for delivering justice when a young girl is raped and killed in Hathras in Uttar Pradesh? Why should cases folded-up abruptly because the accused joined the BJP not shock the home minister? Why should allurements and coercion triggering splits in parties not become the prime minister’s worry? Why should national assets being transferred to one capitalist not prick the prime minister’s conscience? Is the prime minister hell-bent on proving that only LoP Gandhi is bothered about constitutional morality, truth and justice?The right question is not whether home minister Shah will ultimately resign or not. The question is whether he has rendered himself unsuitable for the post of home minister. He falls silent on policing concerns and starts singing on Vande Mataram. The mainstream media dutifully informed us that Shah was poised to become deputy prime minister in the impending Cabinet reshuffle.The media, which spared no pains in portraying Shah as the master strategist – Chanakya – who won elections for the BJP, never examined his performance as the home minister. From Delhi riots to Manipur, from drugs menace to toxic communalism, there are telltale signs of his failure everywhere. The news of his promotion coming without a dispassionate assessment of the reasons behind it, and whether Shah deserved it because of his stellar role as the home minister, is journalistic oddity. Unfortunately, the media allowed him to ride the wave of an uplifting rhetoric, burying their critical assessment beneath the mountain of sycophancy.Children’s mutinyLittle girls who coyly hummed jara yaad karo qurbani (remember the sacrifices) till the other day are now fearlessly screaming – Tanashahi nahin sahenge (we won’t tolerate dictatorship). Barely in their teens and their self-esteem bruised by wretched poverty, these girls felt shy in saying hello to a friend. Today they dare to taunt the rulers: Thoda toe sharam kar lo (At least have some shame).The exhilarating sight of girls running to the collector’s office to demand basic facilities in their schools creates an exceptional moment of democratic awakening in India. They stage sit-in protests, shout slogans and refuse to budge unless their demands are met. Adequate number of teachers in schools, drinking water and toilets, a usable approach road that’s not a muddy death-trap, a repair of the crumbling building, or resisting shifting of the school far away because a hotel has to be built there. That’s all; they are not crying for the moon. Waseem Barelvi’s magnificent couplet rattles the mind – “Unhen ye shauq ki badal gharon mein band rakhen/ hamen ye huqm ki baarish ka intezar karen…(here are arguments and fights at home (clouds are entrapped inside) but they tell us that the rainfall should occur outdoors).Striking visuals of small mutinies are coming from villages and towns of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan and Maharashtra. Schools are in abysmally bad shape everywhere, in almost all states, and no party can be absolved of responsibility and guilt. But the BJP is facing the heat today because its attitude towards education is far worse.Around one lakh government schools have closed in the past decade. Cost of education has soared because of privatisation. It’s indeed a crying shame that governments cannot provide a decent school infrastructure with essential facilities like toilets and drinking water. Less said the better about the quality of mid-day meals.This frightening reality looks like a state-sponsored crime when the prime minister gives sermons on India becoming the third largest economy and his cheerleaders chanting the Vishwaguru mantra. The world saw the miserable plight of schools in Uttar Pradesh at a time when reports suggested the state government squandered over Rs 2.3 crore daily on publicity. The government is said to have spent over Rs 7,000 crore for Kumbh last year. How much money is spent in lighting up lakhs of diya on Diwali in Ayodhya every year is not known. Add to that the district administrations hiring helicopters to shower flower petals on Kanwariya in the month of Sawan every year.The Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) has done a remarkable service to India by drawing attention to the plight of rural schools. This country has failed the younger generation by spending mindlessly on vanity projects, religiosity and political propaganda. Thousands of crores are available for unessential things like statues, new parliament building, new offices and residential complexes, luxurious aircraft, cars and inaugural functions. Hundreds of crores are spent on political rallies, purchasing MLAs and MPs and building party offices. But government schools and hospitals are left to decay.Private players mint money and bribe politicians whose sons and daughters are anyway studying in big cities in India or abroad. What’s worse, the response to this wave of protests is not a solemn commitment to build the infrastructure sooner than later. The dictatorial firman is to stop entry of outsiders into school, apart from a ban on videography. Hide the truth if you can’t deal with it. How deceitful!Modi: Anti-intellect?Prime minister Modi’s call to identify and isolate “Dimaagi Naxals” has triggered a national debate, with the majority opinion seeing this as a calculated political offensive on intellectuals. Though some ministers and spokespersons have tried to clarify the crass remark, there is indisputable evidence of Modi’s anti-intellect predisposition.Anti-intellectualism has been a global phenomenon. America has witnessed this trend not only in the wilder phase of McCarthyism in the 1950s but also during the incumbent Donald Trump regime. At the very start of his tenure as the PM, Modi dismissed serious concerns of authors, poets, artistes over lynching as frustration of the Award-Wapsi gang. That cutting “Harvard-versus-Hard Work” taunt to run down critics of the silliest policy decision of demonetisation showed Modi’s contempt for expertise.Commenting on international institutions and rating agencies undermining his government, Modi once said, “There are people who hold degrees from big global universities, but when it comes to India’s problems, their knowledge is locked in files. Our country will not change by the certificates of global institutions or the columns written by intellectuals.”Like “Urban Naxals”, he also coined the term “Khan Market gang” to ridicule Delhi’s elites. He said, “Modi’s image was not created by the Khan Market gang or Lutyens’ Delhi. It has been built through 45 years of hard work… You cannot dismantle that image with their elite vocabulary or echo chambers.” Those who advocated strictest adherence to constitutional morality were pilloried as tukde-tukde gang.The fundamental question is why authoritarian leaders and totalitarian outfits have anti-intellect tendencies? The answer is: it’s not a personal trait; it’s a political and ideological necessity. Their survival becomes difficult without fostering anti-intellectual attitudes. What do true intellectuals do? They differ and ask questions, demand equality and justice, defend diversity and freedom, seek tolerance and compassion. Anti-intellect strategy is non-negotiable for an organization that fears truth and reasoning; that values idolatry and blind loyalty more than critical inquiry.Rational thinking has to be discarded if the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the BJP want to convince their cadre that V.D. Savarkar and M.S. Golwalkar were greater than Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. If WhatsApp messages have to be sent to citizens spreading misinformation about the Nehru family’s Muslim origin and Western loyalty, an anti-intellect audience has to be readied in advance.If hatred against Muslims and Christians has to be supplied as philosophy, the recipient’s cerebral disability must be pre-ordained. If people are sent to dance in front of mosques on Hindu festival days, thoughtlessness must reign. If the natural infatuation between a boy and a girl is choked in the name of caste, religion or region, analytical capacities of the actors involved will have to be blunted first. A free mind will disagree, rebel and protect his or her love.Intellect is obviously a problem in this undemocratic realm of command and obedience. Those who think and analyse will be vilified, threatened and even jailed. People should introspect why a Kapil Mishra finds space in the BJP while a Manoj Jha stands against it. There has to be a reason why a Pragya Singh Thakur embraces the BJP and a Mahua Moitra fights against it. Brilliant student leaders, from Kanhaiya Kumar to Neha Bora, have explained the RSS-BJP’s character and chose to oppose them. If the Gen-Z uprising happened today, RSS-BJP ideology and Modi-Shah’s style of functioning are critical factors annoying students, apart from the miserable plight of educational infrastructure. Believe it or not, such bogus expressions like Dimagi Naxal and Love Jihad are born out of ideological crisis, not intellectual bankruptcy.Sanjay K. Jha is a political commentator.