Somehow in my daily business, I missed one important news which has been brought to my attention by one of my learned seniors whom I treat with high esteem when it comes to any serious discussion related to legislation, Indian Judiciary, human rights.

I am not sure, if I got annoyed after reading this because our highest judicial authority has taken a bow against religious fundamentalism or am happy to see that we are so democratic that even the highest judicial authority is not exceptional and accepts mistakes. Before elaboarting, I would like to throw some light on the issue. The original news link is here.

The case was filed by a Muslim boy who wish to sports a beard and his convent school authorities have refused him. Supreme Court Justice Markandeya Katju says,

We don’t want to have Talibans in the country. Tomorrow a girl student may come and say that she wants to wear a burqa, can we allow it?

I am secularist. We should strike a balance between rights and personal beliefs. We cannot overstretch secularism.

So, here you see one of India’s famous melodramatic quandry between religion and righteousness. I was tempted to write struggle between democracy and religion but religion has already overpowered democracy where the only qualification of our vice president is that he is Muslim. There was a time when a person’s general knowledge is tested by asking if he knows the names of India’s PM, President and Vice President by heart or not but this is no more criteria, for even the best of students need not to know the name of President, forget about Vice President. I have never heard of Pratibha Patil before she was suddenly projected as India’s President and then made so. There is some Ansari who is our Vice President, and i don’t care to google that ’some’. I have read somewhere that biggest achievement of Pratibha Patil is that she has managed Indira’s kitchen after Sanjay Gandhi’s demise.

Like always, I have gone emotional on this topic and got deviated. What I was writing about is that no doubt Justice Katju has gone overboard and hyper-excited on his taliban remark and just by sporting a beard or wearing a burqa, a person doesn’t become Taliban. He has said sorry but the after events have not been real good. Why has the court taken back the decision given by the two judges and how it can entertain the replacement of Justice Katju. It should not be. Anything that’s passed by Indian Supreme Court is cited in all the cases thereafter in lower and high courts and if this case is not dealt with utmost care, it could prove to be disastrous.

To practice one’s religion is fundamental right in India but just because it’s fundamental right does not guarantee that a person can do whatever extremes are there in some holy books or some extremist’s dictums. We have to come up with a compromise between being just and progressive. Govt should intervene. The justice’s remark has been hyper but the perople can’t be allowed to practice whatever they want in civic society. If individuals have their fundamental rights then so does the  insitutes the rights to exercise the right means. If some girl wish to play Cricket or Tennis wearing Burqa then it’s not simply allowed. Tennis academy would ban that, but if the fundamental rights hue and cry is made then I would not be surprised that some of the serious thoughts be given that can tennis be allowed to women wearing burqa ?

We need to remember that every society digression starts with Judiciary. A strong judicial system is a committment to the citizens that their rights would be upheld and there would not be any injustice to them. Right from Julfikar Ali Bhutto to Musharraf, from King George IV to Hitler, all tyrants first take the control of Judiciary. All over the country, all the lower courts will use this judgement as precedents. Majority of Politically motivated groups will exploit this jurispriudence to legitamize other forms of discriminiation. Evil doing is tempting.  Saying Sorry is OK, but to give anymore breath to extremists would be very unfortunate for our country and it’s judicial system.

Photo Credit: ramesh_lalwani