A kangaroo court

A kangaroo court decided it was bad for girls to wear jeans!

Our journey towards better and better English speaking means taking little steps to increase our range of expressions, learning new phrases and understanding their usage in the right context.

The phrase for this post is a kangaroo court. If you read the newspaper regularly, you would come across this phrase quite frequently. Let’s take a look at some of the newspaper report excerpts:

Newspaper Report 1: Hindustan Times, Sep 12, 2012 (http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/Bihar/Bihar-man-elopes-executed-by-kangaroo-court/Article1-928777.aspx)

A 35-year-old man was beaten to death in front of his father in northeast Bihar’s Araria district for having eloped with a woman who was forcibly married to another person three months ago, police said on Wednesday.

Gobind Singh got a kangaroo court trial at Pahunshi village on Sunday evening and was summarily executed by villagers — after being held guilty — at the instigation of the woman’s father, said a police officer who did not want to be named.

Newspaper Report 2: Times of India, April 29, 2012 (http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-08-29/chennai/33475502_1_kangaroo-court-devarajan-hamlet)

Three people of Chinna Mangodu, a fishing hamlet near Gummidipoondi, around 50km from Chennai, were arrested on Monday for running a ‘kangaroo court’ and demanding money and liquor from the father of a girl who had eloped with a boy of a neighbouring village.

Alright, now these two stories would give you some idea of what a kangaroo court is.

A kangaroo court is a bogus or illegal court where principals of justice and fairness are violated to arrive at arbitrary decisions. Anything ranging from a group of village elders passing judgements or a panchayat deciding on penalties and guilt would come under a kangaroo court.

Thus, Khap panchayats or religious courts or village elders deciding right   or wrong would all come under the term kangaroo court.

Let’s take some examples:

1. We Indians are very quick to denounce jeans and other western dresses because they hurt Indian culture but we are quite ok with kangaroo courts punishing people to death for marrying a boy or a girl of their own choice.
2. Politicians do not openly oppose kangaroo courts because of vote bank politics.