CJI AND HIS WOKE ACTIVISM DAMAGING INDIAN SOCIETY
APRIL 20, 2023
The biggest tragedy of most Indian intellectuals since colonial times till date is the acceptance of all narratives about India as set forth by the west. Sita Ram Goel called it ‘Macaulayism’ and Balagangadhara has a more detailed thesis of ‘colonial consciousness.’ The latter is a colonial violence on Indian intellectuals who fail to look beyond the western understandings while studying both ourselves and the west. This happens much later after the colonials have left with almost a permanent altering of our intellectual frameworks. Rejecting the colonial consciousness is hard work which lazy intellectuals and ideology driven academia failed to do in independent India.
Where does this colonial consciousness work? The Aryan story; converting Indian ‘traditions’ into ‘religions’ and then accepting secularism as the best solution for harmony; superimposing ‘caste’, a western idea, into the varna and jatis of India, a different phenomenon altogether; solidifying politically and legally a rigid hierarchical “caste-system” at divergence from the socio-cultural practices; our disdainful view of traditional medicine despite its great contributions; the blanking out of Indian philosophy from all learning in schools by calling it “religion”; the need of English language to prosper and also as a national language; the idea of one dharmashastra (Manu) as prescriptive and authoritative for all eternity to come; making the western clash between “science and religion” our own; understanding our practices and rituals from a scientific perspective and making them superstitious and irrational; accepting the political ideologies of the left-right-center; the disbelief in a golden period of India which attracted plunderers from across the world; the story that we were never a nation and the British united us; ad infinitum.
Broadly, biological sex is ‘hardware’ determined by the chromosomes and the genitals; gender is ‘software’ (arising in the brain) which may think of the self as anybody in a spectrum ranging from ‘pure’ male to ‘pure’ female. The confusion between the hardware and software issues leads to bizarre activism of all kinds today with many interfering seriously in the work of medical professionals. Presently, the ‘woke activism’ of the west which has the ‘autonomous individual’ as the focus point of all its narratives has infected the Indian intellectuals. The recent ideas of the Chief Justice Of India on same-sex marriages does not make sense from an Indian cultural perspective but is an explicit example of colonial consciousness looking forever west.
Marriage or vivaaha has a special place in Hindu thought and Indian culture. Reducing it to western ideas by colonised intellectuals in positions of power can potentially cause an immense destruction of Indian social fabric. While Indian culture may accept gender identities of any form freely without persecution and may even allow same-sex people to live together, the idea of marriage and vivaaha simply is a gross violence on Indian culture, Hindu customs, and its philosophy. It betrays a poor understanding of what Indian culture is all about and exemplifies the forcible universal application of western ideas on all cultures.
INSTANT JUSTICES: A TIME TO REFLECT ON THE JUDICIAL SYSTEMS
APRIL 18, 2023
The moral and legal conundrums related to crime and justice come to the fore with extra-judicial killings of terrorists, criminals, Naxalites, murderers, or rape accused. Every single political party of all hues across the country are witness to and even party to the extra judicial eliminations. Yogi is neither the first nor going to be the last. Certain people deserve the highest punishment, whether capital or otherwise, and there can be no second opinion on this. What is debatable is the means to achieve the end which raises more uncomfortable questions than answers. When the entire country erupts in joy at the dramatic and instant killing of any accused it reflects directly on the judicial system of the country. The delays, the leniency, the ineffectiveness, the injustices of the courts themselves has come to a point that a civilised society is rejoicing in killing of a person. The instant justices are getting too common which should only make the judicial system reflect on itself rather than involving in issues which do not even remotely concern them. The activism perfected by many judges in recent times needs replacement by an aggression to clear the pending cases. Many of those killed deserve capital punishment but the vexed citizens would hold their heads in pride if a fast-track court convicted them and then proceed with the punishment. The present encounter in UP may be a feel-good solution but leaves a huge set of questions for the citizens, the governments, and the judicial systems. When judges fear to do their jobs or are susceptible to influences of many kinds it is surely a sign of deepest worry. The last surviving pillar of democracy needs some serious overhauling.
THE INDIAN JUDICIARY AND CULTURAL ISSUES
DECEMBER 11, 2021
Even a basic reading of the collegium system for the selection of judges in the high court and supreme courts leads the unaware to realize the arbitrariness and opaqueness of the Indian judicial system. The unbridled powers of a select group of justices led by the Chief Justice are hardly inspiring for the delivery of an efficient legal system. As Dr SN Balagangadhara says, superimposing Western law on indigenous culture with their own ways of law and justice lead to severe distortions which we face today.
There is a need for further studies on how law and culture relate and how we can evolve better legal systems. The rhetoric goes about the great British law as a ‘gift’ to us. British society and law were corrupt to the core in the 18th and 19th centuries when they were ruling a great part of the globe. Their neighbors, allies, and cultural relatives saw them as corrupt, contemptible, hypocritical, and immoral. The British in India did whatever pleased them but the judges and bureaucrats clothed these acts in a legal language and many non-existent laws. Ironically, there was hardly equal justice in British India. Local European communities did not allow Indian judges and law officers to try them and they got away with the most brutal crimes through lenient European judges.
Indians, as cultural beings, believing the British law and institutions to be the ideal, mixed them with their own ideas relating to justice, truth, persons, and so on. The notions of truth and falsity play a crucial role in Law. These notions root in Christian theology. In Indian culture, there is a clear semantic distinction between lies and deception. Falsity, in its core meaning, is to be in error. The socialization process in Indian culture involves even learning to lie. Thus, lying under oath loses its reasonings of law (ratio legis). Yet, ‘perjury’ remains a punishable offense in the Indian legal system.
In western culture, it is the fair, objective, and impartial law that judges and not the person of the judge. In contrast, the Indian judiciary sees itself as the ‘embodiment’ of justice dispensing ‘justice’, often completely independent of, or even oblivious to, legal provisions and statutes. Even for many people going to the court, the judge represents justice embodied and personified. This attitude helps us understand the massive corruption of the judiciary in India. Law in Western culture tries to reduce arbitrariness and capriciousness in settling disputes. But the imposition of the Western institutions in India encourages precisely that arbitrariness which law is supposed to prevent. The figure of the ‘judge’ now uses the legal institution, which gives him the power to do what he does, to make arbitrary pronouncements because of the culturally specific notion of the judge. In indigenous cultural institutions, reasonableness prevails because the judge faces the community directly and owes explanations. In modern courts, such constraints of reasonableness are absent.
Politics and law in Western culture are meant to further the general interests of society but not that of any single community, group, or individual, especially corporate interests. In India, the notion of ‘interest’ makes no sense. Strikingly, Dr Balagangadhara says, Indian culture does not have a vocabulary to understand any kind of discourse on interests- whether institutional, private, public, general, or social. If such is the case, legislations are meant to explicitly favour specific groups which would give them votes. The Parliament’s reasons, in implementing the laws, are not in the general interests of society but are as narrow as the reasoning of an individual who contemplates his own benefit. The British made laws that favoured British interests but cloaked them in the language of ‘general interest’ and ‘interest of the empire’. Protecting the British ‘interests’ later took the form of the ‘protection of minority interests’ in the Indian Constitution.
When the State promulgates laws that only favour and further narrow interests, citizens end up using such laws mostly retributively. Seeking personal vengeance (dowry, atrocity, and so on) becomes the major if not sole goal of the citizenry, when they go to the courts. Thus, when implemented in India, the institutions of Western law encourage just the opposite of what such laws are meant to do: a vengeful, spiteful, and ‘selfish’ citizenry. Instead of promoting a cohesive society, such laws encourage divisiveness and conflict in society. This is what we get when we superimpose Western law on indigenous frameworks. Our legal systems need a lot of deep thinking even as our judges are spreading out further in their extra-judicial activism and moral judgements on practically every institution in the country without looking into the mirror first.
HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISM
DECEMBER 10, 2021
The article on Human Rights on 10th December in THI by Dr Padmaja was nice and illuminating. However, the paradox about human rights activism is very difficult to understand. It seems to have a maximum voice where human freedom is also maximum. The activism is vocal in free democratic countries but becomes increasingly silent as the governments become less democratic. In strict communist countries, they become almost silent. The activism is something like the reporting of rapes. The incidence of rapes is highest in the countries where the reporting and documentation is robust. Draconian laws should go definitely; the military should not get involved in civilian affairs; and the weak should have protecting agencies to stand up against autocratic governments. There is absolutely no problem with these ideas and are desirable, but the entire functioning of the human rights agencies is that of a stupendous hypocrisy. For all the noise and hype created, the public perception of human rights activism is simply as ineffectual with some nuisance value and sometimes even providing entertainment. In India, human rights, a few times, is a front for fighting the government for their own agendas rather than protecting the weak individuals. There is also a need to know how exactly these organizations work and how they get their funding too in national interests.
PENDENCY OF CASES IN OUR COURTS
NOVEMBER 28, 2021
Our honourable CJI seems to be very keen on improving the legal services in India. This is commendable and gives some hope for the beleaguered citizens of the country squeezed by the weight of our legal systems especially in the delays involved.
He has rightly assessed that the pendency of cases is a multi-faceted issue and the Parliament is also responsible in some ways. The Parliament does not seem to assess the impact of its laws, he says. Maybe true, but as an ordinary citizen of the country, why cannot the important pillar of democracy be made into an essential services?
Today, including the Sundays and the vacations, the courts do not work for almost 130- 135 days of an year, a whopping amount of official holidays (almost 30-35% of the year). Is it any wonder why the backlogs runs for many decades in many cases? Why cannot the courts run like all other essential services like electricity, railways, hospitals, all days of the week? There can be provision to deal with the cases after hours and on Sundays by emergency rotations of the judges like they do for doctors. Increasing the number of judges, which our articulate CJI seems to batting for, is a good solution, but only a partial one. We need more working hours.
The courts and judges are very quick to make moral judgments on rest of the society but it would be nice if they reflect on their working pattern and also address the extreme corruption rampant in our courts at all levels. Justice and Law, a legacy of colonial system foisted on our indigenous law systems, has only generated corruption, inefficiency, and arbitrariness leading finally to confusion and anger on part of its citizens. An ordinary citizen of the country does not look at law or the judiciary as bodies of protection but only as agencies to be extremely scared of. Our learned and concerned judges should give a thought to address these fears too of its ordinary citizens.
The English law was a very corrupt system and our own legal systems had great strengths. Yet, we thought nothing was better than the colonial system in a classic case of colonial consciousness persisting strongly even today, decades after independence. Our legal systems are a complete mess and we need fresh thinking at the root level instead of addressing some superficial issues. Increasing the working hours would be the first step in the right direction.
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT IN INDIA
SEPTEMBER 21, 2021
One may call it cynicism or a clear understanding but most citizens were sure that Pallamkonda Raju would be having an unnatural death. It is an amazing facet of Indian society that whenever such a gruesome incident happens, both the citizens and its leaders talk the language of ‘encounters’ and instant justice. The human rights activists, who seem to have plenty of voice only in free countries paradoxically, end up with just a raised voice. Clearly, they simply add colour to the proceedings with absolutely no ability to influence anyone in society. Every time an encounter happens and the society rejoices, it is simply the most severe indictment of the entire legal system of the country. The judiciary needs to introspect at every such death. What are the extraordinary reasons why the citizens have lost complete faith in the judiciary to deliver effective and quick justice? The instant solutions gaining popularity and causing questionable and generalized happiness is simply a mirror of the state of law in our country. It is also a distressing matter that our law enforcers become effective only when the perpetrator comes from not a privileged position. The law in the country unfortunately goes by the adage, ‘show me a man and I will show you a rule.’ We are also equally cynical about the Law offices and agencies making great fuss about the celebrities in the drug case. Except for some unknown persons, no celebrity is going to see the inside of a jail. The rape and murder of an innocent child is the most distressing thing in the world. The encounter of the accused however raises larger questions to our society and is arguably more disturbing.
ENTHUSIASTIC JUDGES
AUGUST 16, 2021
Our honourable Chief Justice of India seems to be a media-savvy and a media friendly person. He is getting great coverage for his statements almost daily. Today, he expressed regret at the present functioning of the Parliament. The degenerate present is apparently so different from the once great golden past when the Parliament was full of lawyers. Only lawyers and judges fill the judicial system, so why is the latter in such a mess? The huge backlog of cases, the frequent vacations, justice almost always delayed, the corruption, the selective justice to people based on their positions, the overenthusiastic judicial activism, and such, hardly paint a pleasant picture of our judiciary. Can the honourable justices do something about the rot in their own house before addressing the rest of the country at frequent intervals? Judicial activism is good; a strong judiciary is a pillar of democracy. But do our concerned judges realise that most citizens of the country fear the judicial system rather than feel protected by it? It would be appreciable if collectively our judges and the courts (filled exclusively with lawyers, I am sure) start overhauling the entire system to be citizen friendly and deliver justice effectively. The country needs urgently to get back its confidence in the judicial system rather than looking at it with utter fear and disdain.
RANDOM MUSINGS 