Arvind Kejriwal’s relief order and the deeper anxiety about how India now experiences justice

By Ravishankar Kalyanasundaram

A nation of 140 crore people does not demand daily arrests. It demands dependable conclusions. People do not need dramatic accountability; they need believable accountability. Because when every scandal begins loudly and ends quietly, the Republic teaches its citizens an unintended lesson — not that corruption exists, but that truth may never finally matter. And the day a society accepts that, the damage is not to a government or a court, but to the very idea of justice itself.

The recent relief granted to Arvind Kejriwal has reopened a familiar national feeling. Not about one leader or one party, but about how justice now appears to citizens. The pattern has become predictable. An arrest happens with extraordinary drama. Cameras arrive before the police vehicle. Television studios convert allegations into certainty. Political supporters and opponents instantly deliver verdicts. For a brief moment, the Republic feels decisive.

Then the legal process begins, and it belongs to a different world — slower, technical and bound to evidence. Courts ask questions the public debate never asked. Procedure, admissibility and proof replace rhetoric. Months become years. Public memory, however, freezes at the moment of arrest.

The 2G spectrum case once shook the country. Years later, a trial court acquitted the accused citing lack of legally sustainable evidence. The judgement was detailed, but the memory remained the accusation. In Tamil Nadu, a minister’s conviction made headlines; the later stay created confusion rather than closure. The Vijay Mallya proceedings stretched across jurisdictions and years, leaving citizens emotionally convinced something went wrong but legally unsure what finally stands established. Now, with developments around Arvind Kejriwal, the country again divides instantly into two certainties — persecution or vindication — even while the case itself is unfinished.

Here lies the deeper anxiety. In law, arrest is not conviction. In public imagination, it becomes one. In law, bail is not innocence. In public debate, it becomes that too. Between these misunderstandings trust erodes. The citizen does not read evidence records; the citizen experiences only two visible moments — the arrest and the relief order. Everything in between disappears.

The judiciary tests proof; it does not conduct spectacle. When evidence is weak, acquittal follows. The problem therefore lies earlier — in investigation, prosecution and the conversion of criminal procedure into political theatre. Arrests have become events, trials routines and judgements documents, while public memory remembers only the first day.

The result is permanent suspicion without permanent resolution. Supporters believe leaders are framed, opponents believe leaders escape, and ordinary citizens believe nothing concludes. Democracy ultimately rests on a shared confidence that wrongdoing is punished and innocence established. Without closure, disbelief grows.

India does not need more dramatic arrests. It needs stronger investigations, professional prosecution and timely trials. Justice is neither the moment of custody nor the moment of relief; it is the moment society itself feels the truth has been carefully established. Until then every new case will repeat the same cycle — noise, division, fatigue and uncertainty — and citizens will slowly learn the most dangerous lesson a republic can teach: not that wrongdoing exists, but that truth may never fully arrive.