In Indian villages, authority and order still command priority over the law of judges and lawyers, though respect for, and fear of, authority have declined a great deal in recent years. Most of those born and brought up in the countryside carry this approach with them even after they have lived in cities for decades. They are instinctively more interested in the success or failure of the police in solving crimes than in stories of the third degree method the latter allegedly often use.
This difference in the perspective of a village-born Indian from city-born one, seldom figures in our public discourses but it is there.
Similarly, a small mofussil townsman’s view of the judiciary is less elevating than the one currently projected by the media. For him, the tehsildar (revenue officer) is a byword for corruption. Judges and magistrates are not equally notorious. But the best among them too often fail to deliver justice.
If a person with a background of village birth and mofussil town education happens to join the journalistic profession, the chances are that he will begin at the bottom which means crime and court reporting. The experience too is not likely to enhance his respect for the judiciary or the judicial process. For him the talk of the majesty of law somehow rings hollow. I happen to be one such journalist.
The talks of the majesty of law have always left me unimpressed. That remains as true today as it was in 1975 when a single judge of the Allahabad High Court decided that his definition of justice required him to throw the country into turbulence and another judge of the Supreme Court felt similarly inclined and proclaimed accordingly.
Since 1971 at least, it is difficult to think of a person in authority who has not abused it if he or she has contested an election to a legislature, or indeed of any contestant who has respected the limit on the expenditure set by the law. Yet, Mr Justice Sinha set aside the then Prime Minister, Mrs Indira Gandhi’s election to the Lok Sabha for an offence, The Times, London, compared to a parking offence in Britain.
The judgement had leaked out before it was delivered. Even so I was not inclined to share the view then that the judge was prejudiced against Mrs Gandhi. Certainly, Mr Justice Krishna Iyer of the Supreme Court could not be said to be similarly motivated. On his own testimony, he was often in contact with the “spirit” of his deceased wife. But it would be unfair to suggest that the “spirit” influenced his pronouncement.
Once I happened to preside over a function where two former judges of the Supreme Court were to speak on the issue of the freedom of expression. It would not be much of an exaggeration to say that three-fourths of their speeches consisted of quotations from British and American judges.
Suddenly I realised that our higher judiciary consisted mostly of men who thought and expressed themselves in borrowed quotations. Indian reality and problems did not inform the minds behind those quotations.
The talk of the majesty of law ceased to dominate the public discourse in the wake of Mrs Gandhi’s assassination. Instead, attention came to be focussed on mundane questions such as the enormous backlog of cases and corruption in the apex court itself. Former judges retailed gossip of crores of rupees passing hands.
Suddenly the law resumed its majestic march recently in context of the Ayodhya dispute. For those with the memory of the 1975 emergency, still afresh, it should have sent warning bells ringing. It didn’t.
As the norm requires, I have declared my interest. I make no claim to transcendental objectivity. Even so may I recall that two views emerge of the Indian character from the writings of British officials who served in India in the 18th and 19th centuries. While judges, including the justly famous Sanskrit scholar, Sir William Jones, held our forebears guilty of every human frailty, men in the field such as Col Sleeman of the anti-thuggery campaign, contended that an Indian would not tell a lie even at the risk of death. The process does something to judges, lawyers and citizens alike.
Economic Times, 11 December 1992