A civil disobedience is underway in the supreme court of India. It’s unique: The custodians of power are disobeying, praying to the people’s court. It has flashed a rare spotlight on the court’s inner workings—for a dismayed people to see, study, and summate. Ordinarily, judges shun the media, speak only in court, to lawyers and litigants, and through their decisions. Not this time. Four senior judges abandoned the honouredcode; they went public. What they alleged reveals disquiet in the office of the chief justice. This act will haunt India. It exposes divisions among judges, doubts the practice of impartial justice, and diminishes the court. Something is rotten; it needs a prompt incision. Else, the decay may infect the democratic way of life we take for granted.