When perceptions trump proof: Talwars now face an uphill battle in the court of public opinion

We’ve all grown up with the story, but let me retell it, briefly.

In the Ramayana, Sita was kidnapped by Ravana, leading to a series of events that made for a timeless story. I’ll jump right to the part where after his epic battle with the kidnapper Ravana, Lord Rama brings Sita back to Ayodhya — along with a burdensome question.

Was his virtuous queen sullied by Ravana’s vile touch? There was only one way to find out. Agni Pariksha, a trial by fire.

Sita’s purity was never in doubt. The flames left her unsinged. She was fit to be his queen.

But elsewhere in the kingdom, rumours lingered. Sita was expecting Luv and Kush, when one of them reached the king’s ears.

Doing his dirty laundry in public, a washerman was heard chastising his (according to him) wayward wife in withering terms. He would be firm with her, he warned, for unlike Rama, he wasn’t a wimp.

Lord Rama reflected on this and came to the conclusion that there was no space for even a hint of doubt about the incorruptibility of a ruler. He was forced to banish Sita. The sage Valmiki offered her shelter, and she brought up her sons in his Ashram.

Moral of the story? Despite passing the sternest test imaginable, one seed of doubt was enough to separate Sita from her husband, take away a part of her life, deny her children the company of their father.

Was the doubt reasonable? Could Sita have been given the benefit of doubt? That’s for religious scholars to debate, and the gods to decide.

For us 21st century mortals, its perhaps more important to understand the grasp the meaning of the two terms: ‘Reasonable doubt’ and ‘benefit of doubt’.

No better place to start than with the Aarushi case. Already heavily invested in the narrative that the Talwars killed Hemraj and Aarushi, the media’s double-quick analyses of their acquittal on Thursday, was that the dentist couple walked free because they were given the ‘benefit of doubt’.

Does the Allahabad High Court’s division bench say that? That phrase occurs in the judgement exactly twice. On pages 266 and 267 of the 273-page verdict. And here’s the thing, the bench doesn’t say that it granted the Talwars the benefit of doubt. The learned court was only reiterating a settled principle of law, quoting from a 1963 ruling: That the accused is ENTITLED to benefit of doubt.

As Justice Narayanan read from the last few pages amidst the dull din of the packed, furnace-like courtroom in Allahabad, all that the media took away was the phrase. Along with its baggage of suspicion, the context in which it was said was lost, so was the substance.

‘Benefit of doubt’, is a subset of ‘reasonable doubt’. It’s an accused’s right. It is also a fundamental principle of law. Surely that’s not so difficult to understand.

Reasonable doubt is pitted against burden of proof in a courtroom. That burden rests solely with the accuser. Failure to discharge this burden must result in acquittal. Was the CBI able to do this in Allahabad?

Thanks to the internet meme, we’re all familiar with the word ‘fail’. Well, variations of it (‘failed to prove’, failure to prove’, fails and so on) appear 42 times in the judgement. All of them in the context of the CBI.

The bench said explicitly that CBI failed to prove Hemraj’s presence in Aarushi’s room, it failed to prove that the Talwars’ flat was locked from the inside and no outsiders could have entered, it failed to prove they were awake at night (drinking and surfing the net, no less); the agency even failed to prove that it hadn’t tampered with evidence.

In short, as social media puts it, this was an ‘epic fail’.

Which brings us back to the epic. Not the Ramayana, but the continuing tragedy of the Talwars over the last decade, brought to you live.

The Talwars find themselves in a strange predicament today. They have been acquitted by the law, but their conviction in the court of public opinion, nearly a decade ago, well before the judicial process began, still stands — with no higher court to go to. If they were allowed to choose between trial by fire and trial by media, I’ll wager they would choose the former.

But what about us? The consumers of media. I can’t put a date to when it began, but we have changed too. We appear to be looking less and less for real information about the world, and more and more for confirmation of our worldview. 

We search for validation rather than value. The clever people who run the internet know this. Which is why we magically see only what we want to see, hear only what we want to hear, and read only what we want to read. We live in an environment where perception trumps proof.

Diwali is just days away. It’s a day that marks Lord Rama’s return from his epic battle against evil, his path lit up by lamps. There are issues with firecrackers these days, so how about illuminating this Diwali with the light of reason?

With a chorus of washermen/women screaming all around us, this may seem difficult, but I think we can do it.

The Talwars are innocent. They are walking back from hell. Let’s light up their lives a little. Let’s wish them a Happy Diwali.

The author is the bestselling author of Aarushi