I was a little taken aback to read your rejoinder to my question born out of curiousity. There was not the slightest intention on my part to draw any invidious comparison. I asked a simple question and was expecting some information back.

‘No one should take comfort in the pain of the other. It is a shared history and shared pain.’

I am not sure what I wrote to provoke this. Please be sure that nothing I said was intended to take comfort in the pain of others. If you look at some of my past posts, you will find that my basic position is that we can only understand and sympathise with each other, but resolving our problems is our own responsibility, and we cannot hope for help from neighbours. Exactly what you have articulated. There is absolutely no need to treat a simple question with such circumspection.

As far as the Indian position is concerned, it has become so difficult that wry amusement is the only reaction available. My wife, when she was a working journalist, filed a story on the oldest case in the Calcutta High Court, which dated back over 200 years, to the earliest years of this court. I doubt that any of our neighbours has such a priceless gem on their hands.

I hope this clarification allays your misgivings.

I do not have access to Pakistan Penal Code. I am sure there are more gems in there. And perhaps the police act is there just as well, with few more commas and periods.

The joke is the same for Indians as well. Recently, the Indian CJ spoke of 400 plus years to clear their docket. It is the same tragedy that engulfs people from Sri Lanka to Nepal and from Bangladesh to Pakistan. No one should take comfort in the pain of the other. It is a shared history and shared pain.

I did not mention about this even though I came across many references to the India legal code. I find no comfort in argument that Indians are worse or equally suffering the same pain of denial of justice.

India and the problems of India best solved by folks like you who understand India better.

My father took office under the Indian Police Act, 1861. What happened to that? Didn’t you have that on your books as well? Or was it modified subsequently? Curious to know.