A spray of 'pesticide' for our Jobless young

It is only human to harbour an uncharitable thought or the odd prejudice. But keeping it to oneself would be what one would expect from persons in high office, particularly if their words carry the weight of law. So, we have been rather taken aback to find CJI Surya Kant depart from his usual judicial restraint and state there are youngsters 'like cockroaches who don't get any employment or have any place in profession. Some of them become media, some of them become social media, RTI activists and other activists, and they start attacking everyone.' Oh, he also aired his concern about the growing number of lawyers who hold fake law degrees.

Kant's critique of pure reason of India's much-aspired 'demographic dividend' is trenchant. There must have been reason for him to emphasise that there are enough 'parasites' in society, in the context of responding to a petitioner who was seeking a senior advocate designation. (Obviously, after the diatribe, he withdrew his petition.) We are grateful, though, that the CJI picked on the murky world of 'media, social media and RTI activists' - without whom India's judicial backlog would have been far less - as a conduit for jobless youngsters.

Because, god forbid, if like Michel Danino, Suparna Diwakar and Alok Prasanna Kumar - three writers of a Class 8 NCERT textbook passage that dealt with 'corruption in the judiciary' who were blacklisted by Supreme Court for being 'extremely contemptuous' - the CJI had chosen another profession, say, law, as a repository of the unemployed young, he may have had to deal harshly with himself. Meanwhile, the bench's repackaging of the 'citizen's right to dissent' as a pestiferous mindset, and its indirect doubts over India's 'demographic dividend', are worth noting.