Dear Express reader, In a way, the grey turbulence in Congress in Punjab, where an ambitious leader is jostling against a veteran chief minister, or the unceremonious arrival of the third BJP CM in Uttarakhand in four months, against the backdrop of upcoming elections in both states, is reassuring. Such things have happened before in Congress and BJP, a new horse race is ahead, it’s all politics-as-usual. The Congress and BJP, in Punjab and Uttarakhand, help us pretend that, amid a pandemic that has upended our lives, life goes on. And that all it needs to get through this is that we keep our eye on the next inner party power grab, the next whim and wish of the high command, the next live election scoreboard. But the fact is that despite the appearance of normal busy-ness, the pandemic has brought a significant moment of pause in politics, as in other fields of work and play. It has opened up a space to look back and within, to ask the more searching questions. In the past, anniversaries used to be a moment when one could do that. But now, in the age of selfies and social media, when anything and everything is commemorated, and memorialisation is an immediate and arbitrary thing, anniversaries have been emptied of time and depth, and of any possibilities they might have contained of reset and renewal. After all, how seriously can you take anniversaries, when ministers and governments draw us into celebrations of 100 days of being in power, then 6 months, and then every year, relentlessly — and each one is a self-styled “milestone”? The centenary of the Chinese Communist Party, which fell this last week on July 1, though, seems more like what good old-fashioned anniversaries used to be. It offers a long span to look back on, the space for large questions to be framed, a fertile expanse to trawl for pointers to the present and the future. Our pages have carried some reflective pieces on the CPC centenary, and there will be more to come, that take stock of the storied journey of what has now become “Xi’s party”, at home and abroad, with its assertive nationalism, predatory economic policies and wolf warrior diplomacy. But to come back to the pandemic and its moment of pause. This week, Chief Justice of India NV Ramana’s voice rang out in it, as he invited us to think about the “law”. An instrument of justice, a tool of oppression, how much of one or both? What is the difference between “Rule by Law” of the colonial state and the “Rule of Law” that “we, the people” gave to ourselves more than 70 years ago, in the form of a Constitution? “At this juncture”, amid the unprecedented crisis of Covid-19, the CJI said, while delivering the 17th Justice PD Desai Memorial Lecture on June 30, “we necessarily have to pause and ask ourselves as to what extent we have used the Rule of Law to ensure protection to, and welfare of all of our people… Surely we must at least begin the process of analysing what we did right and where we went wrong”. On the broad theme of the law, CJI Ramana said things we as a democracy may be losing sight of, and need to think about in the silence of the pandemic: The citizenry has a role to play in the laws that govern them. The mere right to change the ruler is no guarantee against tyranny. Day-to-day political discourses, criticisms and voicing of protests is integral to the democratic process. The importance of the judiciary shouldn't blind us to the fact that the responsibility of safeguarding constitutionalism lies not just with the courts. The new media tools that have enormous amplifying ability are incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong, good and bad, the real and fake. In other words, the CJI seemed to be saying this: For all the grief and loss and loneliness and distress it has brought, the pandemic has also given us a lull, in which we could attempt to retrieve some of the lost voices of “we the people”, enliven the mutuality of the pact between us and the law. That’s something to think about. Vandita | 
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