Freedom from freebies must not come from judicial diktat or executive fiat

The Supreme Court should stick to its normal posture of not getting embroiled in political thickets

Brigadier (later Field Marshall) KM Cariappa was required to address his troops on August 15, 1947. As a pucca angrez from Coorg, his Hindustani was rather weak. He, therefore, asked his adjutant the Hindustani word for free. Resultantly he told the assembled soldiers, "Is waqt aap muft, ham muft, mulk muft hai." Perhaps the Indian habit of getting things for free stems from misconceptions similar to Cariappa's.

Translated into electoral politics, the politician or party that promises freebies is likelier to clamber first past the post at the hustings. In the 1960s, K Kamaraj's promise to make rice