Here’s a question: what do you think is more powerful?

Knowledge is powerful?

Wealth is more powerful?

Position is more powerful?

Here’s another variant of the same question:

King/State hold real power?

Religion/Priest/Maulana/Bishop/God hold real power?

Wealth/capitalist/industrialist hold real power?

Making the more contemporary sense of the question - which individual do you think is the most powerful?

Modi is more powerful?

Ramdev baba is more powerful?

Ambani is more powerful?

This question is asked by George RR Martin in his book “A Song of Ice and Fire” which is also adapted in HBO’s series “Game of Thrones”.

Here’s the question:

This is a dialogue between two of its characters Tyrion Lanister and Lord Varys. 

It’s okay if you haven’t seen the show or read the book. 

Basically, the question is that if three powerful people representing three different powerful institutions sit in the room and between them is a guy with a sword. And each of these people try to influence him to kill the other two. Who would live and who would die? 

This isn’t merely a hypothetical question but reflects real-world dynamics. While the likelihood of Modi, Ambani and Ramdev Baba being trapped in a room with a gunman is improbable, the ongoing conflict between the institutions they represent is very real. 

Who is more powerful between state, religion and corporations? Who is more powerful between Modiji, Ambani and Ramdev baba? Is there any objective way to measure this?

Until now, you either have the answer to the question or you don’t have either way let’s test your answer.

You think the State currently represented by Modi is the most powerful?

• Consider the Farm Laws where the state had to yield and take back the laws and the Ram Janmabhoomi Ayodhya case which illustrates how deeply held beliefs can override political and economic concerns.

No, now you think Religion represented by gurus like Ramdev baba is the most powerful?

• Then consider Sabrimala Temple Case wherein the state and courts established constitutional morality overriding religious opposition.  

You think corporations in a capitalist society led by Ambani are the most powerful. 

• Consider the State decisions like demonetization and lockdowns which significantly impacted businesses, regardless of size.

You think none of them are powerful but from the original paragraph think the sellsword who has the sword in his hands has the ultimate power to decide the fate of each of these individuals. 

Well if that’s the case, why does the military, judiciary, and media who could be considered as modern-day sellswords often defer to government officials, who may lack specialized training?

Confused enough now?

Tyrion Lannister shared this confusion, and Lord Varys offered this explanation:

Tyrion asked, “Did you mean to answer your damned riddle, or only to make my headache worse?”

Varys smiled. “Here, then. Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less.”

“So power is a mummer’s trick?”

“A shadow on the wall,” Varys murmured, “yet shadows can kill. And oftentimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow.”

The interpretation from the above passage is that the real power lies in the belief of an individual. The king/state has authority, the priest/religious gurus have divine influence and the industrialist/rich man has wealth. What the sellswords would do would depend upon what does he value the most - his loyalty to the king, fear of the divine or greed for gold. 

So, if the sellswords value gold, the rich man could sway him. If he respects the crown/laws, the king’s command would prevail and if he fears the divine or seeks redemption then the priest might have the strongest claim. 

Each of the contemporary examples given above highlights how power shifts based on who controls the sellsword (armed forces, media, judiciary or public sentiment).

• When the state (politicians) controlled the sellsword, the government won (e.g., Kashmir Article 370).

• When religious forces influenced public sentiment and judiciary, faith won (e.g., Ram Mandir).

• When wealth influenced policies, media and legal outcomes, business tycoon won (e.g., Reliance Jio, Adani Ports). 

Power in India, just like Game of Thrones, depends on who the enforcer believes holds the real power. 

The modern-day states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, and Assam were once integral parts of the expansive Bengal Presidency. The administrative evolution of these regions, leading to their recognition as distinct provinces, is an important chapter in Indian history.

Legislative History:

1. December 12, 1911: Announcement of a separate state at Delhi Durbar

   The Delhi Durbar of 1911, held to commemorate the coronation of King George V, witnessed a significant announcement. The British Crown declared its intention to carve out separate provinces for Assam and Bihar, marking a crucial step towards administrative reorganisation.

2. March 22, 1912: The Government of India Act, 1912

   The political decision announced at the Delhi Durbar was formalized through the passage of the Government of India Act, 1912. This Act, which received royal assent on June 25, 1912, served as the legal instrument for the creation of the Province of Bihar and Orissa. The Act's primary objective was to restructure the Bengal Presidency, resulting in the establishment of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, and Assam as distinct provinces.

3. March 26, 1912: The Bengal, Bihar and Orissa and Assam Laws Act, 1912

   This Act, officially passed by the Governor-General of India in Council, came into force on April 1, 1912. The Bengal, Bihar and Orissa and Assam Laws Act, 1912, was enacted to ensure the continuity of existing laws within the newly formed territories. Its core purpose was to maintain the applicability and enforceability of the laws that were in force under the Bengal Presidency within Bihar and Orissa, as well as Assam.

Significance of 22nd of March vis-a-vis The Bengal, Bihar and Orissa and Assam Laws Act, 1912:

Section 9 of this Act is particularly significant for lawyers in India. It explicitly addresses the adaptation and modification of existing Indian laws which later envisaged under the provisions of Article 372 of the Constitution of India.

This direct reference highlights the enduring relevance of the 1912 Act's principles of legal continuity and adaptation, which played a crucial role in shaping the post-independence legal framework of Bihar and the wider Indian legal system.

This connection is vital, as it demonstrates the historical roots of legal processes that gave us what we know today as savings clause, transitional provisions, preservation clauses or repeal clauses.

Creation of Orissa and Jharkhand:

The administrative landscape of Bihar underwent further transformations with the separation of Orissa into a distinct province in 1936. Subsequently, in 2000, the state of Jharkhand was carved out from the southern districts of Bihar, marking another significant reorganization.

Final notes:

The separation of Bihar from the Bengal Presidency in 1912 was the culmination of various administrative, political, and socio-cultural factors. Simultaneously, there was a growing and increasingly vocal sentiment among the Bihari populace for the creation of a separate province. This demand was largely rooted in a distinct linguistic and cultural identity that differentiated the region from Bengal. As the saying goes, "Identity makes the state and not the other way round."

The large-scale celebration of Bihar Diwas gained significant momentum starting in 2010, largely through the initiative and efforts of the Bihar government under Nitish Kumar. Recognizing the importance of this historical milestone, the Bihar government annually declares March 22nd as a public holiday across the state. What is important here to highlight is we can’t really remove our colonial history, and what we’re celebrating today is the work done by them.

Different institutions like Patna University and High Court of Patna created on this day still functions and roots back the history to this day. The Patna High Court started functioning from March 1, 1916 ceasing the jurisdiction of the Calcutta High Court over Bihar and established an independent judicial administration. Similarly, Patna University came into existence on October 1, 1917. The establishment of the university was a result of a committee appointed by the government on May 19, 1913, to facilitate the creation of a university in or near Patna. This laid the foundation for the expansion of higher education in Bihar.

Today this day is important to celebrate this statehood and showcase the culture and state identity. For lawyers in India, understanding the historical context of Bihar's formation, particularly the legislative underpinnings, provides valuable insights into the evolution of Indian law and its continued relevance. The foundations laid on March 22, 1912, continue to shape the legal landscape of the region and resonate across the nation.

The short and honest answer to why I chose to study law is that I had to study something, and studying law was my way of securing a seat in a decent college in a big city. I believe this is what any student contemplating their further studies should do, as it has paid off well for me.

In the past 10 years, I have been able to land a job in one of the highest offices in my home state, secure a seat for my master's at a SEBI-run institution in Mumbai, and land a job in a BSE-backed securities exchange in Mauritius. All this became possible because I chose well, not exactly what to study during my undergrad, but where to study it.

At various stages of my life, I have either asked myself this question or someone has asked me, either during interviews or regular conversations. My answer has always been tailored to win the context in which it was asked, and I have never attempted to answer this question in a deep and meaningful way until now.

The first time I asked myself this question was when I finished school in 2013. I distinctly remember my father asking me what I wanted to do with my life. I didn't have any plans until then, but I had to have an answer, so I said I would study English Literature from Delhi University. He asked me about the prospects after studying that. I said I could prepare for the Civil Services Examination and work in government departments. My answer was at the intersection of a standard template for any student born and raised in Bihar and my interest in literature.

Up until then, I knew for sure that I was naturally better at words than numbers, and a career in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics was not well-suited for me. My 12th-standard marks were also a representation of this, so I completely ruled out applying for IIT and NIT examinations. I don't know how students approach college examinations now in 2024, but back in 2013, most of my friends from defense school who couldn't get into the armed forces would appear for all examinations to secure a seat in any college for any course. My approach was also pretty much the same, with the only filter being that I was done living in a small town, and I wanted to move to a big city, preferably either Delhi or Bangalore, because I had relatives in both places.

I moved to Delhi in 2013 and realized that securing a seat for a course like English Literature based on my 12th-standard marks was not possible. I had been humiliated by a professor in one of the colleges, who, after looking at my marks sheet, told me that with those marks, I wouldn't do anything in life. After wandering from North to South Campus, I realized that I could only get admission to one of the evening colleges in South Campus, and I would have to study Political Science there.

I told my father that I wanted to return home and give myself some time to think about what I wanted to do with my life. At that point, I knew I was better than what I was receiving, and I wouldn't be happy with the options I then had.

I researched and looked for my options, and that's when law came to my rescue. I learned about the program, and unlike admission to Delhi University, it required an entrance examination, and mathematics was only 20 marks. I thought to myself that this was my second chance in life, and it seemed pretty doable. I communicated my decision to my father and took a gap year to prepare for the law entrance examination in a coaching center in West Delhi.

Up until then, I had only heard of a senior from school who had cleared CLAT to secure a seat at NUJS Kolkata. I wasn't close to him, so I never called to ask about how to go about my preparation. Thankfully, I found a guy from school who also decided to study law, and we rented a place together and started our respective preparations.

This CLAT preparation developed my interest in law and I would always look forward to Sunday for law classes. The class was conducted by a practicing lawyer named Mr. Sanyog Vyas. He shaped my formative understanding of law, and it was his lectures that helped me sail through my Torts and Contracts paper even after I got into law school.

Even at that point, I was only interested in English and law classes, and I hadn't really worked hard for mathematics and IQ.

I applied for three law entrance examinations - CLAT, AILET, and Christ University - and luckily got into Christ. I was lucky because my scores in other examinations would have left me nowhere again.

Anyway, here are my top take-aways from the answer to the title of this essay for anyone who's contemplating the decision of finding the right college (not limited to law school):

• Choose a college over a degree, a teacher over a subject:

  When you're contemplating the question of what you should study after 12th standard, you must keep in mind this principle, i.e., to choose a college over a degree. They say that one should study what they're interested in and thus should choose their degree accordingly. Well, this argument has some merit, but according to me, not entirely. Your interest matters; that helps sustain a career, but what matters above all is the institution that is going to help you kick-start your career. A good college is going to place its average student somewhere in the real world; a bad college is not going to place its best student anywhere. Now, we're all different, come from different backgrounds, facing different challenges, thus a good college is very subjective and varies from person to person. But here's some of my objective criteria based on my experience that could potentially help anybody navigating the right college to commit to:

• Choose a college in a city:

  A college placed in a metro city would have better access to people, institutions, both public and private, and all the rich and smart kids would go there. So, if you're someone from a remote village in Bihar, you must at least aim for a college in your district. If you're someone from a district, you must at least aim for a college situated in the capital of your state, if not the top metro cities in India.

  Point to note:

  I didn't sit for placement after my undergrad because a) I wasn't confident that I would get a job, and b) because I thought that being a lawyer, I must know the courts and institutions of my hometown, so I returned to Bihar. But when I applied for Judicial Clerkship at Patna High Court, my application stood apart because I had studied in a good college in Bangalore. This was highlighted and told later to me by the Secretary Establishment who was responsible for conducting the selection process, and later, upon my selection, I was engaged in the Chief Justice's office of Patna High Court. So, you get a sense of how the branding of a city and a college go with you wherever you go.

  There's another point to note here: my college has also given me access to a lot of smart people, and it is important to recognize here that as a human, we're all trying to mimic and impress the people we surround ourselves with. Now, a bad college will set a very low bar for you, and you wouldn't care to work hard because you won't have friends doing remarkable things in life. No matter what I still do, professionally or otherwise, like writing this essay, I still care what some of my peers, whom I have looked up to so much, think about everything that I do.

• Ranking of a college:

  Now, a lot of you would Google and research online to find the veracity of a good college. There are a lot of ranking parameters and results online, but one cardinal rule that any student could follow is to look for a college where any public bank is giving collateral-free loans to a student for their course to a particular college. On an individual level, it is very difficult to measure the associated risk of choosing either a course or a college, but these financial institutions have done that before they provide loans to any student. So, even if you don't need to take out a loan, it's a good parameter to check if, for that course and college, you'd get one from a public bank or not. One good example, from the time of writing this, is the government's National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) ranking and PM Vidyalaxmi scheme. The government has said that students who have gained admission in 860 quality higher education institutions, as defined by the NIRF, are eligible for the loans.

Always remember that, on an undergrad level, you're paying for college, not for knowledge and wisdom (that one only acquires with time and deep personal interest and experience). You're going there because this institution is going to help you become part of the economic and political engine of your country.

College provides you with a bundle of services, and not just your degree. Be conscious of it, and make this decision wisely, because you wouldn't only find your first job there, but also, this is the time when you'd probably find the love of your life.

After two years, I returned to my native village, a small village in Bihar. I met a relative who lives adjacent to my house. He is a middle-aged man with two kids who is now the patriarch of his house.

After a formal greeting, he told me that he has finalized the marriage of his younger brother who is currently working with TCS but wants to prepare for the Civil Services examination. He said that he has told his brother that it’s okay if he wants to prepare - but the decision for a career shouldn’t come in between the decision of marriage. If he cracks the exam, at all, he may find a better-employed girl who’s probably a civil servant too but that won’t give him (in his own language) any “sharireekh sukh” which literally means physical pleasure (not to be confused with sexual pleasure).

He went on to explain how an employed girl wouldn’t meaningfully contribute to the affairs of the family and wouldn’t give much joy to his dear brother either. And whilst he was explaining all of this, his little daughter of almost two years was playing around. 

I jumped onto and interrupted him to ask if he would let his two-year-old daughter work or pursue a career, he proudly declared that he wants her to become a doctor. He continued and proudly recounted how his sisters had contributed to his family’s settlement in Delhi. One sister, he said, had been well-paid and settled in a bank job, but she had chosen to quit and become a full-time homemaker upon her husband’s request. He expressed his desire to instill the same ‘sanskaar’ (values) in his daughter too.

I was called away by my father and couldn’t continue this conversation. But later, I kept on wondering that how this conversation revealed a paradox. My relative's sister had successful career, but after marriage, she became full-time homemaker. Similarly, he wants his daughter to be educated and employed, but ultimately, he expects her to prioritise family duties.

This mindset is not unique to my relative. Many people in Bihar, particularly those from privileged backgrounds, hold similar views. They prioritize family-centric values over citizen-centric ones, limiting the potential of women to contribute to the economy and society.

The consequences of this mindset are far-reaching and I hope more and more people understand this:

1. Population and Health: The well-being of a state is closely tied to the health and education of its population. By limiting women's participation in the economy, we hinder the state's progress.

2. Economic Empowerment: The economic participation of women makes our society more conducive for them - by educating and employing women, we can break the cycle of poverty and create a more equitable society that is safe, just and fair to women.

3. Raising Aspirations: Running a family is hard, but being part of an economic engine is harder - by teaching children to aspire for more challenging and rewarding careers, we can foster a growth mindset and promote economic growth.

4. Setting a Good Example: People from privileged backgrounds have a responsibility to set a good civic example. By promoting citizen-centric values, they can inspire others to do the same.

It's essential to recognize that our cultural mindset can either empower or restrict us. By glorifying stay-at-home women, we're not only limiting their potential but also hindering the progress of our state.

I believe people evolve over time, and I hope my relative does too. However, given his privileged background as an upper-caste individual living in Delhi, his views on women’s roles are concerning. If he holds such opinions, for now it’s very disheartening to imagine the perspectives of those less privileged.

1. Advent of social media platforms:

   I have always liked reading on the Internet and have admired people who write well. If I recollect today of my earliest interaction with the Internet, it’d be from my period of adolescence reading pages like “I hate when someone flirts or talks to my crush” on Orkut and later “The Ultimate Quotes” on Facebook. At one point in time, I was very active on social media platforms myself and was pretty good at it. I have liked receiving thoughtful comments from friends on the content that I had been posting. But I had stopped using social media because I realized that I couldn’t be in an environment and not be affected by it. It was not only about creating my content but consuming some of the content that I have never really subscribed to and being affected by it in some or another. I have realized I have no control over what I’m consuming and only creating for appreciation and algorithms and not for myself. These platforms stopped fueling my soul.

2. Email Newsletters/YT Videos:

   The next meaningful electronic transition in my life came when I switched to subscribing to newsletters and creators on YouTube. Today most of the things that I know and learn from the Internet are through these platforms. I have now long been reading the world through the prism of newsletters. I like the distraction-free interface of old emails over all the "cool" social media platforms. I derive so much value and enjoy watching YT videos too and hold some of the YouTubers in very high regard.

3. Blogging/Vlogging/Podcasting:

   There are various products/services people make and provide on the Internet. For me, it has always been the choice amongst what I have been consuming the most - texts in the form of blogs/newsletters, videos on YT and very recently podcasts. Of all these contents, I consume texts the most so naturally it’d be wise to start with online writing and maybe someday host a podcast. I had however on one of my worst days uploaded a video on YT as well to see if that could make me feel good but it didn’t feel natural to me - I looked very uncomfortable in camera and the underlying message didn’t seem to be communicated either so consequently that video was taken off from the face of Internet. I feel the right place (for someone who’s just starting out creating content on the Internet) should be a place which isn’t too overwhelming or too isolated. Both the feelings of being seen by too many known people or not being seen by anyone at all could be paralyzing for a lot of us.

4. Brief stint on Medium:

   Inspired by a writer named Richard Reis on Medium, I have thought of writing 52 pieces, one each week in the year 2020. I have failed miserably with that resolution just two months into the year. I deleted all that I had written soon after. My life was very chaotic back then, and there was little dedication let alone discipline to do justice to the task that I had undertaken. But this stint gave me some sense of writing online, how to structure my thoughts and make it publication-ready.

5. Buying my first domain:

   I wanted a piece of the internet in my name. The next question that I had was what name should I have for the domain. I have thought enough of this and this question alone was not letting me move any further. I eventually thought that it doesn’t matter if I love or hate my name; I’m never going to make the effort to change it ever so I thought this’d be a good idea for the domain to be in my name itself. I have prefixed it with the determiner “the” in my name to give a unique structure to my domain name. Having decided on the name for my domain, I researched around and found Godaddy to be a suitable website to buy my first domain. The domain that I’m using to write this piece was bought almost a year ago but I haven’t started using it because I couldn’t come up with the right place to host my website. The obvious option that I have had was WordPress but it’s been too expensive for me.

6. Enter Substack:

   I have been reading and following various writers on Substack. I thought of Substack as another Medium. But it was Dave Pell who, when moved his entire newsletter called NextDraft to Substack brought my serious attention to learning that one can also host their website on Substack. And Michael Dean’s List enlightened me that this can be done just for USD 50 for a lifetime.

I am glad that I have finally taken this plunge to make and start this space and I am very hopeful about its progress. Thank you, Substack for providing this platform and much obliged to the world of the internet for coming into existence. May you live longer than all of us!