The New Nation - Internet Edition

Maswood Alam Khan

Truth always triumphs when both truth and falsity are allowed to freewheel in an open society. But the reverse is true when truth has to play under duress. Throughout history, ironically, truth had to ride uphill under coercion and falsity downhill under influence when subjects had to sing songs of praise of their kings who used to run their kingdoms based on their dreams they dreamt during their nightly sleeps.

Copernicus delivered a statement which, to the eyes of the church, was a heretic falsity. His avowal contradicted what Holy Bible preached about the nature of the universe. "The world is firmly established, it can never be moved. The sun rises and the sun sets and hurries back where it rises", says Holy Bible. It was Copernicus who 'stopped the Sun and moved the Earth' by his heliocentric theorem: "The Earth and all other planets revolving around the Sun, the Earth rotating around its axis daily, the Moon in turn revolving around the Earth once a month." This scientific truth took centuries to offset the heretic falsity. Truth or falsity once established takes time to reverse its color and character.

It is encouraging as well as a little frightening to note that our government is going to float a "Truth Commission" with a view to releasing on parole, plea bargain or absolution some corrupt suspects, especially some bigwigs of large industries, whose internment inside prisons has resulted in sharp fall in production and exportation. It is hoped that heads of conglomerates, if released, will be able to revamp wheels of their machines to restore business that was sinking in the absence of the chief boss. Undoubtedly, our government deserves kudos for realizing the necessity of finding a way out to help solve the limbo in business. But the way of solving the limbo through releasing the corrupt suspects, I am afraid, may cloud the judiciary with fallacy of double standard and strew the society with malady of double crime.

Releasing on parole, if not absolution, should not mean automatic waiver of their crimes committed, if any. They will have to be tried as per law of land and they should not be segregated as a class, however tall the bigwigs are, who would enjoy an immunity a commoner cannot enjoy.

In no way a prejudiced precedence contravening the letter and spirit of our constitution should be established that may facilitate laundering falsity into truth or truth into falsity by way of waiving a crime that is not atoneable by pecuniary compensation. Truth Commission, it is hoped, would establish truth with roots to go deep while sifting out who committed unpardonable crimes and who committed irregularities that are amenable to corrections---undoubtedly a tough job and a risky venture if the commission is not equipped with judges of extraordinary caliber.

The person who, for instance, is charged for dodging taxes may be sentenced to 10 years in jail if tried in the court of law. If Truth Commission allows such a convict to go free if s/he pays double or triple the amount dodged, people who never evaded taxes may feel a little down but the country will, nevertheless, benefit by larger amount of revenue earned and lesser amount of cost defrayed on expenses his/her living inside a prison should incur.

We should not forget that truth and falsity do not run miles apart in reverse directions; they go in most cases neck and neck and at times overlap each other. What to a commoner's eyes is a falsity can, in some cases, be proven a truth in the court of law or vice versa provided the plaintiff or the defendant and their lawyers know how to negotiate his/her safe passage through the labyrinth of the legal world.

The thin borderline between truth and falsity gets blurred to our vision when we attempt to look at the 'truth' through the eyes of philosophers like Giambattista Vico, the 18th century Italian philosopher, who gave birth to the adage: "Verum ipsum factum" (Truth itself is constructed). Vico claimed that history and culture and mathematics were all man-made, as opposed to what we find through observation. If our king decrees that the sky is red and milk black who are we to dare say that our king has gone berserk?

Dispensing fair justice is more empathizing with pains of than taking revenge on the accused. Honorable justices, with ages of experience in dealing with penology, are always seen looking for chances to offer the accused benefits of doubt as they don't mind if an accused wriggles himself out of conviction, but they can't think of a person punished by their judgments, if s/he is innocent or if s/he committed a crime out of pardonable negligence, hotheadedness, ignorance, mental disequilibrium or just out of his/her leaping without thinking on the bandwagon.

When all members of a crowd commit the same crime without realizing the probable outcome of their commission 'truth of the crime' has to be placed, analyzed and dissected under a special microscope the way during a war soldiers killing innocent people or making collateral damage to the civilians without any malefic intention are given maximum benefits of doubt in court marshals. Nobody, even a murderer, is a born criminal. Situation makes most men criminals and it is the responsibility of the government to see that a situation giving birth to crimes does not prevail in vulnerable domains and areas.

Everybody knows smoking is injurious to health; still we smoke in spite of warning notice on the cigarette packs. The government and tax paying people have been spending a lat of money in the form of subsidies towards curing diseases caused by smoking. Now, if there is a sudden declaration that all chain smokers will be tried in a special tribunal and the minimum punishment for heavy smoking, if proven, will be 5 years in prison, all smokers will faint out of shocks unwarranted.

Similarly, in spite of forewarning from National Board of Revenue many people did not pay any heed to those words of warning and paid no tax on incomes of tons of money and did not declare their wealth accumulated during the last few decades. Such a corruption was a business as usual. Out of scare they may not dare even now to declare their wealth and pay their taxes lest they are caught with smoking gun evidence. Many such tax dodgers are spending their days in jails before and after their convictions and many more are at large.

Some people shied away from tax authorities learning from others bitter experiences people had to encounter while paying taxes. A farmer has to pay a minimum of Taka 100 to grease palms of middlemen for paying rental (Dakhila) of Taka 2 for his nontaxable farm lands. Farmers are ready to pay their land rental at 5 times the normal rental, if only they could deposit the amount anywhere else like a bank without their going to the premises of land revenue office.

Many people, who didn't or could not pay tax, would pay just double the probable amount due if they are allowed to pay taxes on self-assessment without the hassles of facing the inspectors. Tax payees would be extra cautious in computing their payable taxes if there is a provision that if tax authority later finds the amount of self-assessed tax paid lower than justified the tax payee will be severely penalized and any surplus amount, if deposited, will earn some interest like fixed savings deposits and be adjusted with payable tax of next year or years.

With such options available some cautious income earners, I guess, will find paying even four times the due amount of tax less painful than undergoing the hassles of chasing middlemen or consulting with lawyers to submit and get their returns preregistered.

Should not the tax dodging and wealth hiding people be treated as helpless fools jumping on the crowded bandwagons out of pardonable ignorance? Unless they committed felonies like homicide may they be treated with the same privilege of 'a release from jail on parole or absolution' the government is now contemplating to offer the business tycoons?

Can't we offer a general amnesty to all criminals and suspects of financial crimes or irregularities, convicted or under trial, if they pay their dues with fines or if the property they or their dependents own are confiscated to make good of the loss the country suffered?

If not, fair trial of each and every individual, big or small, politician or businessman, bureaucrat or private entrepreneur, for both financial and intellectual crimes should be arranged. We should also then redefine crime and punishment.

If a convict suffers 10 years of imprisonment for dodging taxes or hiding wealth, a politician, a philanthropist or anybody who apparently never committed any financial crime may be convicted of an intellectual crime if, for example, s/he directly or indirectly helped design a zigzag and detoured highway to touch or spare a favored home---causing innumerable deaths from accidents due to sudden veering in the bends and wastage of money on account of extra fuel and vehicular depreciation---and should spend at least 135 years in a prison. Thousands of such intellectual criminals are roaming in our society with white beards and caps.

We should not be oblivious to an irony that what is a falsity today may be a truth tomorrow---like Copernicus' heliocentric theorem; who is a prisoner of crime today may be a hero of tomorrow----like Galileo who was found guilty for his supporting Copernicus' theorem and had to be under house arrest till his death.

When crime has to be judged it has to be judged indiscriminately and thoroughly for all and sundry with an eye on the future when today's falsity may be presented as an unalloyed truth. If thorough justice is not possible to dispense in a short time, there should be general amnesty for both the tall and the short. Justice dispensed on 'pick and choose' is half-baked and a bad precedence that will give birth to kings who would carry on laundering falsities into truths and truths into falsities in accordance with their whims and dreams.