When Laws Apply Unequally

The sun beats down on the white coral streets of Malé, the same heat touching everyone equally—the fisherman hauling his catch at the harbor, the shopkeeper arranging cans of tuna, the student rushing to class. But as evening falls and the sea breeze sweeps through the narrow alleys, another kind of inequality settles in the air, one that has nothing to do with the weather. There’s a saying whispered in tea shops after the day’s last prayer: “For you and me, the law is a wall. For them, it’s a curtain.” You feel it in the way certain names are mentioned—not with fear, but with a weary resignation. The same rules that would land an ordinary person in handcuffs seem to bend and curve around others, like water flowing around a stone. The phrase “rule of law” gets tossed around in speeches, printed in newspapers, but on the ground, it often feels like two different systems running parallel, never touching. I think of the old men playing carrom near the harbor, their voices lowered when certain vehicles pass. They speak of accountability as something that happens to others, a concept that floats just out of reach, like a distant dhoni on the horizon. The institutions meant to guard fairness—the ACC, the elections commission—are watched with a mix of hope and skepticism. People want to believe in them, but memory is long here. We remember too many promises that evaporated like morning mist over the lagoon. Yet, in the quiet moments, when the call to prayer echoes and the day’s heat fades, there remains a stubborn belief that the scales will balance. Not because of grand speeches or political rallies, but because of the collective weight of small, everyday decencies—the neighbor who shares bread, the youth who cleans the beach without being asked, the teacher who stays late. These acts build a different kind of justice, one that doesn’t wait for permission from above. Maybe that’s where real accountability begins: not in courtrooms or committees, but in the refusal to normalize what we know is wrong. It starts when we stop shrugging and start remembering that the law, like the ocean, should have no favorites. — Source fragments: "If it was you and me, yes. We would be brought before the law. However, Siri Sundara Kathiri Bhavana Maha Radhun and his party members are above the law." "ACC+Elections should be held accountable."