Styling the strike

Those apprehensive of the ever-present spectre of a bandh in Bengal enrich our anecdotal history with how political parties time bandhs to extend weekends or the pleasures of a public holiday. Practitioners of a profession can then style a strike to help just themselves. Are lawyers who read off,between and around the lines especially those who ensured no work got done in the capitals courts on Thursday bibliophobes and thus oblivious to the scorn literature and scripture directs at them? In Luke 11.46,Jesus says: Woe unto you also,ye lawyers! For ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne. Whether or not thats the key to the joke about all lawyers being on the devils side,heres what Ambrose Bierce,ace craftsman of definitions,offered: Lawyer,n. One skilled in circumvention of the law. Circumvention indeed,given the purposelessness judges and litigants must have felt on Thursday around the law.

Ostensibly,the strike was to protest the service tax and certain other provisions of the Legal Practitioner Bill 2010. Lawyers are livid that a profession which only helps courts in administration of justice and does not come under the ambit of services should have a service tax imposed on it. The Bar Council of India,too,has asked lawyers to protest.

Lawyers are also angry at the proposed ombudsman headed by judges to decide complaints against advocates. The charitable may feel an entitlement to being spared judgment,unless from their own in this case,the bar councils. Like their legal counsellors,perhaps Thursdays unfortunate litigants should have stayed at home and watched the India vs Australia quarter-final.