feb 2011 - rh

THE RADICAL HUMANISTRs. 20 / month

(Since April 1949)

Formerly : (April 1937- March 1949)Independent India

Founder Editor: M.N. Roy

FEBRUARY 2011

491Vol. 74 No 11

Death Sentence–Some observations

—R.A. Jahagirdar

Amartya Sen and The Idea of Justice

—Amitabha Chakrabarti

Lokpal Bill 2010: A Farce On Public

—Rajindar Sachar

Deschooling Minds

—Uday Dandavate

Lessons of Talengana

—Balraj Puri

Editorial Comment: Youth synergy at work

—Rekha Saraswat

THE RADICAL HUMANIST FEBRUARY 2011

The Radical Humanist

Monthly journal of the Indian Renaissance

Institute

Devoted to the development of the Renaissance

Movement; and for promotion of human rights,

scientific-temper, rational thinking and a humanist

view of life.

Founder Editor:

M.N. Roy

Editor:

Dr. Rekha Saraswat

Contributory Editors:

Prof. A.F. Salahuddin Ahmed, Justice R.A. Jahagirdar

(Retd.), Dr. R.M. Pal, Professor Rama Kundu

Publisher:

Mr. N.D. Pancholi

Printer:

Mr. N.D. Pancholi

Send articles to: Dr. Rekha Saraswat, C-8, Defence

Colony, Meerut, 250001, U.P., India, Ph.

91-121-2620690, 09719333011,

E-mail articles at: [email protected]

Send Subscription / Donation Cheques in favour of

‘The Radical Humanist’to:

Mr. Narottam Vyas (Advocate), Chamber Number 111

(Near Post Office), Supreme Court of India, New

Delhi, 110001, India [email protected]

Ph. 91-11-22712434, 91-11-23782836, 09811944600

Please Note: Authors will bear sole accountability

for corroborating the facts that they give in their

write-ups. Neither IRI / the Publisher nor the Editor

of this journal will be responsible for testing the

validity and authenticity of statements &

information cited by the authors. Also, sometimes

some articles published in this journal may carry

opinions not similar to the Radical Humanist

philosophy; but they would be entertained here if the

need is felt to debate and discuss upon them.

Rekha Saraswat

Vol. 74 Number 11 February 2011

Download and read the journal at

www.theradicalhumanist.com

- Contents -

1. From the Editor’s Desk:

Youth synergy at work

—Rekha Saraswat 1

2. Contributory Editors’ Section:

Death Sentence–Some observations

—R.A. Jahagirdar 2

3. From the Writings of Laxmanshastri Joshi:

Spiritual Materialism: A case for Atheism 4

4. Guests’ Section:

Amartya Sen, Baby Homo sapiens,

Capuchin Monkeys and The Idea of Justice

—Amitabha Chakrabarti 8

Article 32: Guarantee or Mirage? (Contd.)

—S.N. Shukla 14

Deschooling Minds

—Uday Dandavate 20

In Defense Of A Committed Judiciary

—Kamal Wadhwa 23

5. Current Affairs:

Lokpal Bill 2010: A Farce On Public

—Rajindar Sachar 26

Public Accounts Committee & Joint Parliamentary

Committee; China Game; Sedition; Withdrawal of

criminal cases

—N.K. Acharya 28

6. IRI /IRHA Members’ Section:


—Balraj Puri 31

7.Teachers’ & Research Scholars’ Section:

Desire, Will And Happiness

—Tarun Patnaik 34

8. Book Review Section:

An Essay on Upanishads (A Critical Study)

—Kavneet Singh 37

From the Editor’s Desk: Youth synergy at work!

I had finishes my New Year’s

Editorial on a sanguine note that

by at least resolving to find

answers for ourselves and within

ourselves, in the coming days of

the New Year to questions such as

why things do not change for the

better, ….why is there so much

misery and scorn around us, ….why is this

humanity so alien to itself, ….we may begin to

hope against hope for a better future for the poorest

of the poor and for the weakest of the weak on this

planet! This confidence and optimism is a necessity

and the only way out from the dull morose of this

world’s rude realities.

But then, on whom should we rely for the answers?

And on whom should we repose our faith? Upon

the distinguished egotistic world-leaders? Upon

our own land’s elected egocentric politicians?

Upon our inconsiderate high-headed, colonial

bureaucrats? Upon our ill-kept, thus insensitive

police force? Upon our own ill-equipped, ill-fed,

ill-informed middle-aged population, which has

learnt to live in the misery of ill-managed state of

affairs? Or upon the minuscule group of well-off,

well-fed, well-equipped and well-informed Indians

who have no qualms about the plight of even their

next door neighbours?

Six years ago, I had written in my editorial in

February 2006 about the contemporary, modern

youth who is so sure of himself in all that he decides

to do and in all that he does.

I turn my attention to him again today!!

He is a person who can not be deluded and eluded

by catchphrases and slogans. Now-a-days, he

becomes capable enough quite early in life to

choose his path, right or wrong, and competent

enough to enjoy or bear its consequences; thanks to

the innumerable modern media of communication!

We are seeing him leading on the roads for a regime

change in Egypt. We see him pelting stones and

calling for justice in Kashmir. We see him

demanding a democratic set-up in Iran, off and on.

We saw him standing against the U.S., in his own

land, when his country attacked Iraq. We have seen

him in all the revolutions that saw their logical or

illogical ends in the USSR, in Cuba, in China and of

course during the India Independence struggle.

Yet, lest we get lost in the euphoria of

youth-synergy creating history, we must not forget

to remind ourselves about the gory deeds

performed by the same youth-power in its frenzy of

passion, fear, hopelessness, or even in its

boisterousness, wildness, rowdiness and

unruliness. Its examples are equally countless!!

You will find him in loots, in abductions, in

extortions, in kidnappings, in killings, in

terrorist-activities, in sadistic college campus

ragging, in rapes and murders, in equal numbers!

You will also find him wasting his irretrievable

precious time of young-age in meaningless passive

entertainment sources where his own growth is

stultified! Of late, he is also seen belonging to that

group of young people which has lost confidence in

its own capabilities and is suffering from a

dangerously low self-esteem!

You may doubt my sense of righteousness when I

repose faith in such hopeless, confused young

people who themselves are suffering from an

extreme sense of identity-crisis! But do we have

any one else to rely upon except the extensions of

our future selves, the parts of our own blood and

bones? No?

Thus, our only alternative is to work with an open

mind upon the reasons for his lack of control and

lack of discipline. We need to help him re-define

his own self so that he is able to re-define the

society, the state and the world around him. This is

no exaggeration in anticipation. History is replete

with such instances where inroads were made into

mountains when the youth synergy took the cudgel

in its own hands. How to go about it, we may

discuss in the next editorial in the next month!!

1


Rekha Saraswat

Contributory Editor’s Column:

[Justice R.A. Jahagirdar (Retd.), former

President of Indian Radical Humanist

Association and former Editor of ‘The Radical

Humanist’ is now one of the members of the

Contributing Editorial Board of The Radical

Humanist.]

Death Sentence–Someobservations

I have already written on death sentence.

My said article has been published in

Radical Humanist. I have shown, in that article,

how all over the world, public opinion is veering

against death sentence. Humanists, by their

philosophy, are against death sentence.

Amnesty International is, from the beginning,

against it. Human rights activists are against death

sentence. The U.N. General Assembly has asked

for a moratorium on death sentence. India is one of

the countries that still retains death sentence.

Statistics show that 138 nations have so far

abolished death sentence. Our own neighbours,

Nepal and Bhutan, have joined the abolitionist

camp. Philippines and South Korea have also

joined abolitionist camp. Japan, which at one time

was zealous about death sentence, has recently

abolished it. The following are the supporters of the

abolition: President of Chico, Canada, Great

Britain, European Union, Turkey, South Africa and

State of Massachusetts (USA).

A report called “Lethal Lottery: the Death penalty

in India” compiled jointly by Amnesty

International and People’s Union of Civil

Liberties” (Tamilnadu and Puducherry) has, apart

from other points, mentioned lack of uniformity

and consistency in awarding death sentence.

The Law Commission of India has upheld the death

sentence in India on the ground that public opinion

demands it or justifies it. Bachan Singh was not

before the Law Commission. Bachan Singh pointed

out that Judges are ill-equipped to capture public

opinion.

Sometimes, not infrequently, public opinion may

run counter to constitutionalism and law. Well

known case is that of Bhagalpur blinding where

people came in support of illegal blinding.

To repeat, the Law Commission of India has opined

that death sentence deserves to be retained. In the

year 2005, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, who apparently is

against death sentence, called a public debate on

the subject.

It has been found in the USA that several people

who were innocent had been sentenced to death.

This has been established by studies of D.N.A.

Unfortunately, in India there is no study of this

kind. Amnesty International and PUCL in a joint

study called “Lethal Lottery Publication” has

condemned death sentence.

It is not necessary to dwell more on the desirability

of abolition of death sentence. The world opinion is

now almost veering around its abolition. The land

of Buddha and Gandhi deserves homage.

On 29th November, 2008, the Home Minister

mentioned in the Rajya Sabha that 44 mercy

Petitions are pending before the President. These

are pending since 1998 and 1999. This shows how

callous we are. Unfortunately, till 1999 they were

not attended to by the Home Minister on whose

recommendation the President acts. Now she has

commuted the death sentence of 18 convicts.

How does the President exercise the powers of

commutation?

Article 72 of the Constitution confers power on the


2

R.A. Jahagirdar

President, among other things, to commute death

sentence. It is an executive power to be exercised

on the advice of the Home Minister. The judiciary

does not come in the picture at all. It is not a judicial

power, so the convict cannot insist that he should be

heard.

A person has been convicted and sentenced by a

Judge who must be regarded as someone trained in

law. Why should such a person be pardoned? Why

should the President (or the Governor in some

cases) be given such a power? Some people still

think such a power should not be available by law

or Constitution.

From time to time power to commute death

sentence into sentence of life imprisonment has

been exercised by the President. It is a matter partly

legal, partly ethical. That is why the Constitution

does not enumerate the circumstances in which

such power should be exercised. It is a matter of

discretion. Courts cannot interfere with such

discretion. The Courts have limited power of

judicial review in order to ensure that the President

has considered all the relevant material and to see

that the President has not ignored a circumstance

which is vital for the decision.

The Law Commission of India (1967) noted that

there are matters which have not been considered

by the Court where hands are tied down by the

evidence led before it. Yet, death sentence may

require reconsideration because (1) some crucial

facts were not before the Court; (2) the facts may

not have been placed in the proper manner and (3)

Acts indicting innocence may be discovered after

the trial.

In 1925, the U.S. Supreme Court pointed out that

executive clemency exists to afford relief from

hardness or from undue harshness or evident

mistakes. It was pointed out again that there must

be some authority to ameliorate or avoid particular

judgments.

Take for example the case of Nalini in Tamilnadu.

She has a child born in jail. She is in jail for the last

18 years. She has not taken any active part in the

assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. The Advisory Board

of Tamilnadu says “No” to her release. Why?

More irrational has been a recent decision of the

Supreme Court of USA. One Teresa, a widow, was

married to one Julian who had a stepson from his

previous wife. After some years, Teresa developed

a thirst for Julian’s property and the insurance on

his son. In order to appropriate both, she decided to

kill both of them. For this purpose she hired one

Mathew and Rodney.

On 30th October Teresa left the door open to

facilitate Mathew and Rodney to enter the house

quietly. The murder took place. Both Mathew and

Rodney, along with Teresa, were arrested, tried and

convicted.

Here comes the rub. Rodney was given life

sentence; Mathew was given life sentence.

Shockingly, Teresa, who had not pulled the trigger,

was given death sentence. Why? Both Mathew and

Rodney had cooperated in the investigation. So

what? A woman who, no doubt, arranged the death

of her husband; she was not the perpetrator of the

crime. The trial Court called her the head of a

serpent. Her mercy Petition was rejected by the

Governor. State of Virginia has recently convicted

a 40 year old woman. Criminal procedure in

Virginia reeked of inconsistencies. Lack of

consistency is one of the arguments for abolition.

In 1980 the Indian Supreme Court upheld the

constitutional validity of death sentence. Firstly the

Constitution itself mentions death sentence.

Secondly, law in fact lays down life sentence first

and then death sentence. It laid down that death

sentence should be given in the rarest of rare case, a

feature not uniformly followed by all. In a recent

judgment, the Supreme Court has clarified that if

the accused is not of criminal mind and could be

rehabilitated; his life should not be eliminated.

3


Letter to the Editor on her Editorial in Jan. 2011 issue.......Dear Rékhâ, Just received the new issue.

‘Hoping against hope’ is indeed a positive and constructive attitude. Warm regards. Prithwindra-dâ

From The Writings of Laxmanshastri Joshi:

Spiritual Materialism – A casefor Atheism

Translated by — Arundhati Khandkar

[The book Spiritual Materialism – A case for

Atheism, A New Interpretation of the

Philosophy of Materialism written by

Tarkateertha Laxmanshastri Joshi has been

translated by his daughter, Arundhati

Khandkar, who was formerly Professor of

Philosophy at S.I.E.S. College, University of

Mumbai, India. He passed away many decades

ago but his contribution in building up the

philosophical base of Radical Humanism has

been no less. Roy acknowledged it in his life time

and the followers of the philosophy continue to do

so. I had requested Ms. Khandkar to translate her

father’s major works from to Marathi to English

for the benefit of the contemporary readers of RH.

And to our pleasant surprise she informed that

there is already the above mentioned book in

English done by her. It is being serialised in The

Radical Humanist June 2010 onwards. She has

also promised to send us in English, gradually,

more of his Marathi literature.

Laxmanshastri wrote this essay with the title

Materialism or Atheism in 1941. How

meaningful and necessary it is, even now, 70

years later, can be understood by the following

paragraph given on the cover page of the book.

—Rekha Saraswat]

“That religion more often than not tends to

perpetuate the existing social structure rather than

being reformist and that it benefits the upper

classes. They perpetrate the illusions and are used

for impressing the weaker sections of the society.

Many taboos which might have had some

beneficial effects are given a permanent sanction

and these put a fetter on further progress. The

argument that religion promotes social stability and

social harmony is examined and rejected. Without

the dubious benefit of religion various secular

worldly values have been developed and they have

benefited mankind more than the vaunted religious

values. With no sops of religion men have laboured

hard and the finest admirable qualities of men’s

spirit have been developed inspite of religious

influence – the scientists and the reformers are

examples. The humility that should force itself in

the presence of the infinite and the unknown is

more to be seen with the scientist, the philosopher

than the religious leaders and often this drives them

to fathom the depths of thought in the quest for

truth. Rarely does religion explain the how and

why. These have become the preoccupations of

people in secular fields. With a sense of

self-reliance and self-confidence guiding him, man

has dropped the earlier props of religion. In India

too, the social order was seen as embodying moral

values.”

Contd. from the previous issue............

Direct perception is the best form of knowledge

among all varieties: Direct experience is the best

form of knowledge 13 among all the other kinds of

knwoledges since in direct perception there exists a

close relation with the objects. Direct experience is

the basis of all the various kinds of knowledge. To

the extent satisfaction of human curiosity is

attained with direct experience, to that extent no

other method of knowledge can satisfy the mind.

Direct perception itself is the ultimate objective of

man and it is the primary instrument. Therefore,

according to Vedanta, Sakshatkara meaning divine

revelation retains its considerable pre-eminence

over listening, contemplation, and reiterative

meditation. Perception of the same object by many

sense organs, however, is far more desirable than

the perception by a single sense organ.

Means for establishing validity of knowledge:

The following question is considered as a

controversial issue among the philosophers. Which

is the means for determining if knowledge is true or

false, valid or invalid? Discussion of this question

is called Pramanyavada 14 in Indian philosophy.

‘Experiment and practice are the only conclusive

4


tests of knowledge.’ 15 This is a famous aphorism

from the collection of principles, Tatvasangraha,16

a standard guide for the philosophers of India

which enunciates this test.

There is only one method for establishing the truth

of our knowledge or thought. That method involves

having control over a natural process of our choice,

reproducing that thing and putting it to use in our

life. The thought that there is sugar in the tropical

plants of genus saccharum and of species

officinarium is proven true when we start

producing sugar from that tropical plant and using

it. Validity of my knowledge is demonstrated by

my successful activity. What is this fruit in my

hand, a food, a medicine or a poison? This question

gets a sure answer only after my experimentation

with the fruit. My efforts alone prove the falsity of

my belief that there is water and no mirage. The

illusion of silver in the place of shining shell is

removed by my efforts only. I participate in a

certain activity with a certain idea. If I experience

difficulties and my efforts come to naught, then that

idea is found to be false. Success or failure of an

effort itself is evidence of valid knowledge. The

visionaries of India, the Buddhists, the Naiyayikas

and the Vaisheshikas, all of them assert that

successful effort itself is the only indicator of true

knowledge.

Struggle for Existence: Living organism

continuously struggles throughout its life. In that

struggle it experiences actions and reactions of the

objects from inside and outside. The result of these

actions and reactions, continuing from antiquity is

the appearance of a wholesome attribute in a living

organism. This attribute is called knowledge. In the

very struggle for existence of a living organism,

evaluations are made regarding the validity or

invalidity of knowledge. Man conducts his life or is

motivated to act according to the lessons learnt

from the experience, he believes to be true for sure.

I am going through a narrow lane and having learnt

that there is an elephant running berserk in the lane.

I suddenly turn around and return. From the very

conduct itself, it is understood whether the acquired

knowledge of an elephant running berserk is either

true or certainly false. The person who thinks that,

that knowledge to be false, will not return from the

lane. The person who returns has certainly upheld

the validity of his knowledge. It is possible to

understand a person from his action.

Experiment and Practice: The statement, ‘Validity

or invalidity of knowledge is proven through

experiment and practice’ has the following

meaning. Man expands his field of direct or sensory

knowledge through experimentation and practice.

He frequently acquires experiences of various

kinds and collates them appropriately. As

expansion and collation of experiences continue

apropos, validity of our thoughts also undergoes

testing. For example, it was believed by wise men

at one time, that cholera was the result of the wrath

of a goddess. This belief, however, collapsed as the

human field of experiences expanded. Through

experimental practices, eventually it became

known that cholera, that was believed to have been

caused by the wrath of Durga, the great destroyer,

had nothing to do with her anger. This epidemic

does not wane or wax by the devotional appeal to

the deity or lack of it.it spreads if the pathogen is

absorbed and diminishes if the pathogen is

eliminated. The history of diseases reveals that in

primitive societies, the theological theory of

diseases was equated with the science of pathology.

Ayurveda, the Indian medical science has

developed as a secular physical theory, after the

accumulation of human experience over the

centuries. The development of modern medical

sciences is founded on the experimental physical

theory instead of on the old imaginary divine

theory. This has become possible, because human

experience has deepened.

Unity of knowledge and object: There exists

correspondence, agreement, conformity, or

inseparability between knowledge and its object, or

thought and its object. This unity is noticeable in

human effort. Experiment or practice is the primary

means to prove whether there exists conformity

between reality and knowledge or thought. Man’s

5


knowledge, his experience and thinking, grow

through the efforts made by him, his surrounding

world and society. Experience and his activities,

make for the true conformity of knowledge with

reality. Whether knowledge and reality conform or

not can be judged mainly through productive

efforts. Productive efforts mean those activities that

lead to creation of things. I plant a graft of a rose in

the ground, and after a few days there appear tender

leaves on the graft. My belief that it is the graft of

the rose plant gets confirmed. My idea of that graft

is strengthened in that reality.

Human Efforts for Correspondence between

Object and Knowledge: Arts or crafts of any

society alone, provide a measure for judging the

knowledge in that society. Crafts represent human

effort that succeeded in production or

transformation of nature and the world. The

difference and divergence between the knowledge

of mathematics and material-physics necessary for

constructing a bullock cart and that which is

necessary for constructing a railway train become

obvious from the bullock cart and the train itself.

Bullock cart and the train constitute an obvious

aspect of that knowledge. The knowledge of

hydraulics needed for the construction of the

gigantic dam of Bhatghar on the river Neera, is

tremendous in comparison with that of the farmer

of Konkan, the coastal region of India adjoining the

Arabian Sea. The farmer builds a barrier at the edge

of his farm for its protection from the rising waters

of the stream. The enormous difference in the

knowledge required is demonstrated by that

massive dam and a small barrier. Man creates

physical products using physical techniques.

Human knowledge can be assessed from the nature

and speciality of that technology and of those

objects. The science of geology and mineralogy

grew in the society in which minerals such as

copper, iron pewter, gold and others entered the

stage of production in large quantities. Geophysical

science flourishes in the society which uses mines

and the mineral objects to a large extent. It is only

the men who work in geosphere acquire adequate

knowledge of the geological layers. Human efforts

not only generate the correspondence between

knowledge and its object but also vindicates that

correspondence.

Knowledge and Self: The way in which the

correspondence between physical knowledge and

its object is established is the same way the relation

between self knowledge and its object is proven.

Self or the soul is the power of the human spirit.

The development of that spiritual power depends

upon the design of a society. Social institutions are

the instruments of the development of spiritual

power. Development of the self or the soul is the

intrinsic purpose of the attempts at transformation

or revolution in a specific social organisation and in

specific social institutions. How capable the

organisations or the institutions are in promoting

self development of the individual members of the

society, can be determined from the specific

number of the structure of the society and its

institutions. Look at the French Revolution as an

example. It was a struggle for the creation of social

organisation and social institutions of a much

higher quality and standard after the destruction of

the feudal society and feudal institutions therein.

The knowledge of self that was at the basis of that

revolutionary movement had risen considerably to

a higher level than that of traditional Christian

religion. The self knowledge of the Christian

religion sided with the old feudal society and

opposed the efforts at reform. The French

Revolution delivered the peasants from the

servitude of the warlords and the landlords. In that

slavery, the souls of the peasants and the other

common people had been subjected to degradation.

The self-knowledge of those who justified feudal

social organisation was meagre. On the contrary,

those revolutionary groups who struggled to

overthrow the feudal social order, had superior

self-knowledge. They had right vision of secular,

non-transcendental ideals that were inspired by

materialism. That self-knowledge gave rise to the

governmental institution called the people’s

republic. There was the principle of the sovereignty


6

of the people at the foundation of that institution.

There was no god as the foundation of that

movement. There was only the theory of

sovereignty of the people. The movements that

claimed divine power fought with all their strengths

to justify the feudal social order.

Development of the Soul: Explanation in terms of

the divine origin was the apologist philosophy

intended for the people’s servitude. Instead of

helping promote the development of the power of

the soul of the people, it did the work of its

suppression with a superior skill. One can test the

self-knowledge that goes along with every

organisation and institution through inspection of

its social structure and specific design. All those

people’s movements, which came into existence

after the French Revolution, gave birth to the

institution of the people’s republic. They were

inspired by only one objective, which was to offer

the maximum opportunity for the development of

the soul of each and every individual in the entire

human society. The success of this objective can be

determined from the very specific character of the

institutions originating from those movements.

Idea or knowledge ahs to correspond with its object

or reality. From the nature of an object one can

ascertain the nature of an idea. The meaning of

those ideas is understood invariably from the

specific institutions arising from those ideas!

Spiritual Knowledge: Just like self-knowledge,

other kinds of knowledge such as the physical

sciences of a society also can be assessed from the

nature of the social institutions. A visit to the tribal

nomadic communities, can easily reveal that they

do not possess knowledge of land or farming.

Those who acquire this knowledge, gain stability,

having given up their nomadic life, and according

to the nature their structure also changes. It is easy

to understand that the society in which the

institution of war thrives and in which the class of

warriors obtains high status, that society desires

either to live upon the wealth of another society by

launching an attack or some other similar society

desires to survive through counter attack on the

former. From this, it is easy to conclude that the

philosophy of social democracy has not become

pervasive and it has not got rooted in society. the

entire human society, however, can create good life

for all without mutual exploitation or placing any

social group in bondage. By harnessing infinite

powers of nature through science and technology,

the entire human society can produce enough

wealth for the satisfaction of the physical and the

spiritual needs of all the members. Marxist socialist

philosophy coupled with social democracy alone is

capable of giving such an assurance.

One can evaluate and measure the levels of

knowledge from the nature of the social design and

social institutions, from the relationships among

the social classes and especially from the merits

and demerits of the technology of production in a

society. This is because, the essence of knowledge

and science does permeate through human industry

and productive technology. The power of

knowledge and its efficacy is clearly reflected in

the physical facilities, instruments and implements

the like. Social organisation depends on the

technology of production and the mode of

production. Behind that technology stands the

treasure of scientific knowledge obtained through

traditions of the past. The enormous modern

expansion of technological manufacturing and

business is indicative of the growth of sciences.

References:

13- Nyayabhashya 1/1/1

14- Tatvachintamani-Pratyakshakhanda

15- Ludwig Feuerbach pp. 32-33

16-Tatvasangraha#347Arthakriyaasu/shaktischavi

dyamaanatvalakshanam

Contd. in the next issue...


7

Rekha, Thank you again. Your editorial is as so often, intense and finely written. I hope that RS and RH

have started 2011 with enthusiasm. Best wishes. —Amitabha.

Musings From France:

[Prof. Amitabha

Chakrabarti is M.Sc. in

Applied Mathematics

from Kolkata University

and Doc.ès.Sc. from

University of Paris,

France. He first worked at

National Physical

Laboratory, New Delhi

and later entered C.N.R.S.

He joined the Centre de Phys.Théor. (CPHT) of

Ecole Polytechnique, France in 1965. He still

continues to work there. Apart from a large

number of papers on varied problems of

mathematical physics in various scientific

journals and conference proceedings he has

published a series of articles (covering scientific,

philosophic, historical and other cultural aspects)

in Bengali in ‘Jijnasa’ (edited by Prof. Sibnarayan

Ray). These have been collected in a recently

published book by Renaissance Publishers. A few

articles in English have also appeared in the

earlier issues of The Radical Humanist. He has

reviewed the four volumes of ‘In Freedom’s

Quest: Life of M.N. Roy’ written by Prof.

Sibnarayan Ray (Renaissance Publishers, Kolkata

2007) on latter’s request. It has been serialised in

The Radical Humanist May 2010 onwards.]

Amartya Sen, Baby Homosapiens, Capuchin Monkeys and

The Idea of Justice

“Justice as fairness”, “Rational decisions

and actual choice”….such are the

concepts analysed in Amartya Sen’s admirable

recent treatise “The Idea of Justice” 1 (Ref. 1,

indicated below as (IJ)).

Starting with John Rawls and going beyond, Sen

explores with sustained rigour and lucidity

coherent foundations of a just society and problems

encountered in implementing the relevant

prescriptions in real human societies.

Encountering such philosophico-sociological

analyses, when I feel them to be worthwhile, I tend

to seek, if possible, evolutionary roots of the

concepts involved and the “thick description”

resulting from bringing together the different

approaches. An approach from a different angle can

contribute to the total content of a concept and

possibly, though not certainly, lead to a deeper

understanding. (I prefer to stay with the term thick

description and avoid others, often associated, such

as hermeneutics.)

Since I will also seek links of states of

consciousness, such as feeling sympathy, with

chains of events in our neural networks, I should

state to start with that Sen might not find our

approach acceptable. At the end of (IJ) he refers to

Thomas Nagel’s rejection of possible connections

of consciousness with bodily operations and

agreeing with him, states “Those distinctions

remain...” (p. 414). I will come back to this aspect

at the end of this article.

I will not try to present a systematic review of

successive chapters of (IJ). I will start by presenting

recent developments in biology directly relevant to

certain basic concepts of Sen’s approach to the idea

of Justice and what they imply. Then I will follow

Sen more closely and examine certain concepts

such as his analysis of “Positionality of

Observation and Knowledge” and the place of

Rationality and Reasonableness in human

societies. Then I will proceed directly to his

concluding section “Differences and

Commonalities” and compare out point of view

with that of Nagel and Sen. Certain themes of (IJ)

will, unfortunately, remain outside the scope of our

short study.

It so happens that recent remarkable and one may

say delightful experiments probe evolutionary

roots of the sense of fair and unfair, just and unjust.


8

Amitabha Chakrabarti

The subjects in one set of experiments are capuchin

monkeys and in another babies. After these

experiments I will present, even more briefly,

possible neurological basis of our capacity for

feeling sympathy and empathy and the

neurological circuits involved in taking rational

decisions. After such excursions we will take a

closer look at Sen’s analysis. Let us start by

observing just moral indignation of capuchins.

“Monkeys Reject Unequal Pay”: This is the title

of a paper in Nature 2. It studies broader validity of

aversion to inequality as an explanation for human

cooperation. I quote from the abstract (suppressing

references): “...this sense of fairness is probably a

human universal that has been shown to prevail in

wide varieties of circumstances. However, we are

not the only cooperative animals, hence inequality

aversion may not be uniquely human...Here we

demonstrate that a nonhuman primate, the brown

capuchin monkey (Cebus apella) responds

negatively to unequal reward distributions...”

The plan of the experiment is simple and amusing.

If a monkey gives back a token to an experimenter,

he or she receives a reward, such as a piece of

cucumber. So far so good! But though capuchins

like cucumbers they like grapes much more. If

some are rewarded with grapes those who receive

cucumbers exhibit righteous indignation, reject

their inferior rewards and refuse to cooperate. If

some capuchins receive grapes without even

making the effort of handing back a token, the

others are even more furious – indeed not cool as

cucumber.

The experimenters take elaborate precautions in

presenting and analysing the data. Let us just retain

the conclusion that the data support “an early

evolutionary origin of inequality aversion”.

“Moral Life of Babies”: If one accepts an

evolutionary origin of notions of fair and unfair,

just and wrong, can one then as a next step (after

primates) try to detect its presence in babies? For a

baby, say, one year old or, if possible, even less the

effects of varied social contexts, though not absent,

can be expected to be less complex, less

uncontrollable factors.

But to start with, the experimenters have to

implement «non-invasive» methods for studying

what is passing in the minds of the babies they are

observing. The reactions of the babies should not

be modified by the fact that they are subjected to

observations. Apart from this there is the fact that

babies cannot perform tasks like rats in a maze or a

monkey with tokens. But there has been a

remarkable breakthrough. I quote from Paul

Bloom’s article 3, “In the 1980s, however,

psychologists interested in exploring how much

babies know began making use of one of the few

behaviours young babies can control: the

movements of their eyes.

The eyes are a window to the baby’s soul. As adults

do, when babies see something they find interesting

or surprising, they tend to look at it longer than they

would at something they find uninteresting or

expected. And when given a choice between two

things to look at, babies usually opt to look at the

more pleasing thing. You can use ‘looking time’

then as a rough but reliable proxy for what captures

babies’ attention: what babies are surprised by or

what babies like.”

The eye movements are filmed without intruding

into the experimental situation. The observations

are non-invasive. According to the research teams

involved these studies have entirely changed our

conceptions concerning the minds of babies.

About, the views of Rousseau, Freud, Piaget,

William James and others who saw total ignorance

and confusion (“one great blooming, buzzing

confusion” James wrote famously) Bloom says “I

am admittedly biased, but I think one of the great

revolutions in modern psychology is that this view

of babies is mistaken.”

Before probing their ‘moral sense’ it might be

reassuring to note that babies have a basis of ‘naive

physics’. If shown ‘magic tricks’ where ordinary

objects behave strangely, babies “look longer at

9


them than at scenes that are identical in all respects

except that they don’t violate physical laws.”

Let us now try to share the moral world of

accomplished baby physicists.

Some tests with one year old babies go beyond

observation of eye movements. Bloom starts with

such a case: “A team of researchers watched a

1-year old baby ‘take justice in his own hands’. The

boy had just seen a puppet show. If the centre

puppet slides a ball to the right it is passed back. If

the ball is passed to the puppet on the left he runs

away with it. Finally the two puppets on the ends

are placed before the toddler with a pile of treats

next to each. When asked to take away a treat the

boy took one from the pile of the ‘naughty’ one. But

this was not enough – the toddler leaned over and

smacked the puppet on the head.”

Apart from ‘looking time’, ‘reaching out’ tests are

also revealing. Even when abstract geometrical

figures, rather than faces, are involved; if a yellow

square helpfully pushes a circle up a slope and a red

triangle pushes the circle down “… 6- and 10-

month old infants overwhelmingly preferred the

helpful individual to the hindering one. This wasn’t

a subtle statistical trend: just about all the babies

reached for the good guy”.

Reactions to sounds can also be remarkably

revealing. “Human babies, notably, cry more to the

cries of other babies than to the tape recordings of

their own crying, suggesting that they are

responding to their awareness of someone else’s

pain, not merely to a certain pitch of sound”.

Bloom’s conclusion is that though our higher

moralities (such as accepting sacrifices to help far

away famine- or flood- stricken country) depend on

social and cultural factors, they are built upon the

basis of moral notions we possess even as babies.

Without such a foundation we would have

remained amoral. “Morality is then a synthesis of

the biological and the cultural, of the unlearned, the

discovered and the invented.”

Having tried to understand possible evolutionary

roots of our sense of fair and unfair, just and unjust,

our capacity for sharing the feelings of others, can

one then try to understand how they are

implemented in our behaviour and in taking

relevant decisions through correlated processes in

our neural network? (This is where Nagel and

possibly also Sen would part company.)

From Mirror Neurons to Empathy (?): In an

interview 4 a specialist, Christian Keysers, defines

mirror neurons as multimodal association neurons

that not only increase their activity during the

execution of certain activities but also while

hearing or seeing the corresponding actions being

performed by others. They have been precisely

located in certain monkeys (macaques) and song

birds. They seem to be more spread out in human

brains and much work remains to be done in

charting them. One may note, however, that

wherever they have been located in monkey brains

they have also been located in human brains,

suggesting evolutionary continuity.

Already they have generated enthusiastic

speculations and conjectures. Being activated when

one observes the actions and expressions of others

do they thus make us capable of sharing what others

feel in certain circumstances and thus give us

access to sympathy and even to empathy?

Can a deficit in their activity lead to autism?

Keysers recommends caution. The causal

connections between these neurons and

phenomena such as empathy and autism are poorly

established. But may be, just maybe, through a

glass darkly (remember that we are talking about

“mirror” neurons) here we have a glimpse of the

direct link of a subtle and deep evolutionary

heritage with specific neurons.

Can we translate our sense of fairness and

sympathy into rational decisions shaping our

societies?

This is the evident question now. Again let us look

at relevant neurological processes.

From Emotions to Rational Decisions in Human

Brains: Data from our sense organs (such as our

eyes) are passed at an incredibly high speed (in a

10


time of the order of a few hundred milliseconds)

through a sequence of about six centres (from the

thalamus to the orbitofrontal cortex) in what might

be called our “emotional brain”. Then only they are

passed on to our “rational brain”, the prefrontal

cortex, which evaluates and contextualises, if need

be, relatively slowly than the immediate emotional

response. Here, of course, we are considering

relatively fast decisions at a personal level, rather

than decisions at the level of a society. But some

essential features emerge strikingly already at this

level. The dependence of the rational decision on

the preceding processing through the emotional

part is spectacularly evident in the case of Mr.

Eliott – the name given by the celebrated

neurologist Antonio Damasio to one of his patients

in his book “Descarte’s Error” 5.

After a brain tumour operation in the orbitofrontal

cortex the two above mentioned parts of Mr.

Eliott’s brain could not communicate. He remained

fully capable of passing tests of rational

intelligence with ease. But now he was unable to

take even ordinary decisions. Even when asked

such a question as “What day do you prefer for your

next visit?” involving a choice in his actions, he

was just unable to decide. His family life and

professional life were in shambles.

Damasio develops various aspects of his views

concerning human consciousness and

self-consciousness in works such as “The Feeling

of What happens” and “Looking for Spinoza”. I

find attractive Damasio’s ideas concerning the

emergence of self-consciousness from a class of

second order mappings of the messages sent by the

body. But strict validity of his theory is not

essential for our present purposes. Here our limited

concern is with emotional roots of rational

decisions. I will come back to related aspects.

Having noted evolutionary roots of our sense of

fairness and justice and of our capacity for sharing

the feelings of fellow human beings a central

problem has to be faced.

Evolution does not follow any “intelligent design”.

It proceeds through haphazard compromises

accumulating contradictory, conflicting heritages.

Sense of fairness and justice coexist with raging

greed and corruption in societies swept through by

intermittent waves of violence which may subside

to ‘normal level’ when, may be, some drug dealers

continue to shoot one another and terrorists are

busy planning future attacks.

Sen is not only aware of such evident obstacles on

the road to justice but notes other apparently milder

but pervasive ones. “There can also be what is

sometimes called ‘weakness of will’, a subject that

has received attention from many philosophers for

a very long time – the ancient Greeks called it

‘akrasia’. One may know fairly well what one

should do rationally, and yet, fail to act in that

way.” (p.176 (IJ)) My Greek friends informed me

that the word akrasia is still in use.

I am not surprised. The level of will power is

unlikely to have improved since, say, the time of

Herodotus. Such a word remains necessary.

Relativity of concepts such as justice is analysed by

Sen in sections such as “Positionality of

observation and knowledge” (p. 155 (IJ)).

Einstein pointed out that those two events

simultaneous for one observer need not be so for

another one in relative movement. Physicists know

that the laws of physics have to be encoded in

equations independent of frames of reference. How

far this is possible in social sciences and what are

the implications? The physicist will note that

‘position’ in this context involves time directly

since the inertia of past history looms as a major

factor. Some analysts explain, and to a certain

extent also excuse, manifestations of

fundamentalist tendencies by invoking

‘historicity’.

I have seen, in a television documentary, pages of a

text book for teaching charia to young children with

helpful ‘pedagogical’ diagrams. Neat lines drawn

through the wrist and the ankle for a hand and a

foot, respectively, show precisely where they

11


should be cut off to punish theft. In Great Britain

such schools function lawfully. The legislators

presumably understand the role of historicity in the

functioning of certain communities. I am expected

to ‘position’ myself to grasp that.

Rational, reason, reasoning, reasonable – these

words are essential parts of the framework of Sen’s

approach to Justice. Titles of successive chapters

are: Reason and Objectivity, Rationality and Other

People, Democracy and Public Reason,...How does

one try to understand what is rational, what is

reasonable?

In an interview with the French magazine “Science

et Avenir” Damasio says that it is impossible to

take a purely rational decision. At a certain point

one has to make an emotional choice.

But on the other hand, can reason extricate us from

emotionally entangled situations?

Emmanuel Kant appeals to “practical reason” when

his Moral Law, after having been declared to be a

Categorical Imperative, leads to embarrassing

situations. In a monograph on Kant’s Moral Law,

Ralph Walker 6 comes to the case of an Inquisitor

who, considering an honest citizen to be heretic

condemns him to be burnt alive. Kant decides that

though the Inquisitor strictly follows his moral

conviction he does not “hear the voice of practical

reason” and hence is wrong. In short, one has to be

“reasonable”.

Let us now consider a gedanken-experiment.

Suppose that a delegation of vegetarians, calm and

polite, accuses Kant (known to be a hearty meat

eater) of leading an immoral life since his habit

encourages slaughter of innocent animals. Very

probably, though I cannot guarantee, Kant would

say “You are not being reasonable”. In that case,

the inquisitor and the vegetarians are both, though

in different ways, put into the category

“unreasonable”. Such a philosophy seems to be

close to the statement “If you agree with me you are

reasonable. If you do not, you are not.”

How general is such an attitude? Ceaseless

controversies concerning political and social issues

give us some idea. There can be other specific

factors. Deep-seated corruption can also pervert

concepts such as ‘fair share’ and ‘reasonable’:

Why should I not also have my ‘fair share’ of

bribes? So many others have already pocketed

theirs.

Why is he making such a fuss? He knows the

standard rate. Why is he not being ‘reasonable’ and

paying up?

A systematic study of all the facets of (IJ) is beyond

the scope of this short article and, indeed, that of my

limited competence. So I come directly to the last

section: ‘Differences and Commonalities’ (p.412 –

p.415 (IJ)). There Sen refers to a “justly famous”

paper of Thomas Nagel ‘What is it like to be a bat?’7 where Nagel is, after all, essentially concerned

with human beings.

I quote at length from (IJ): “He (Nagel) argued

powerfully against the cogency of understanding

consciousness and mental phenomena by trying to

see them in terms of corresponding physical

phenomena (as is attempted by some scientists and

some philosophers) and in particular, he

differentiated the nature of consciousness from the

connections - causal or associative – that may link it

to bodily operations.

Those distinctions remain and my reason for asking

what is it like to be a human being is different - it

relates to feelings, concerns and mental abilities

that we share as human beings...

I have made considerable use of the faculties just

mentioned (for example, the ability to sympathize

and to reason) in developing my argument, and so

have others in presenting their theories of justice.

There is no automatic settlement of differences

between distinct theories here, but it is comforting

to think that not only do proponents of different

theories of justice share a common pursuit, they

also make use of common human features that

figure in the reasoning underlying their respective

approaches.”

I now briefly state my point of view:

(a) The conditions necessary for being able to feel

12


what it is like to be a bat are simple to state.

(b) They are entirely impossible to realise.

(c) They are all, without exception, linked to the

body and to “bodily operations.”

To share fully the feelings of a particular bat one

has to start one’s life with the genetic code of the

bat in question and then lead his life so that

epigenetic factors, say, such as those induced by

environment and group-life can act from

conception onward. There is no short cut open. An

exactly parallel set of prescriptions hold for feeling

what is it like to be, say, Thomas Nagel.

If I suffer certain types of brain lesions, consequent

changes in certain “bodily operations” can make it

impossible for me to feel what it is like to be my

present self.

Without hoping to convince anybody who is not

already convinced I quote E.O. Wilson 8

“Had Kant, Moore and Rawls known modern

biology and experimental psychology they might

not have reasoned as they did. Yet as this century

closes, transcendentalism remains firm in the heart,

not of just religious beliefs but also of scholars in

social sciences and humanities, who like Moore

and Rawls, have chosen to insulate their thinking

from the natural sciences.”

One essential question: If we continue to improve,

step by step, our understanding of the possible

neurological bases of our behaviour, can that in

foreseeable future help us to build a better society?

It is, indeed, difficult to be optimistic. But not

understanding the basic processes can hardly

improve the situation. For me each small step

forward, such as locating mirror neurons, is

exalting – one step has been taken, one understands

a little more! I am conscious that it is a personal

reaction.

For those who take mind-body separation for

granted, as something that goes without saying, do

such discoveries have any significance at all? If

“the net result is to substitute articulate hesitation

for inarticulate certainty” 9, I would find that

rewarding enough.

Acknowledgments:

I thank Lisa Chakrabarti of Institut Pasteur for

bringing me up-to-date concerning mirror neurons

and related topics and for discussions. I thank

Suzanne Kalbach for sending me from Philadelphia

the paper of Paul Bloom.

Note added:

I was surprised by the discussion (p.72-73 (IJ))

concerning the difficulty of adequately translating

“Justice as fairness” in French. Unsurprisingly, Mr.

Guillaume translates it as “Justice comme équité”.

The words équité and équitable are familiar ones.

In any French supermarket it is easy to locate

products labelled “commerce équitable”. That is

supposed to signal that, say, some grower of coffee

or sugar cane is getting a fair deal and not

being cynically exploited by big business.

A word of caution: The word “iniquité” usually

signals some act of grave injustice not something

merely unfair.

References: 1. A. Sen, ‘The Idea of Justice’,

Penguin Books (2110) [referred to as (IJ) in the

text]

2. S.F. Brosman and B.M. de Wall, ‘Monkeys

reject unequal pay’, Nature, 425, 297 – 299,

(18 Sept.2003)

3. P. Bloom, ‘Can Infants and Toddlers really tell

Right from Wrong?’ The N.Y. Time’s Mag. (May

9, 2010)

4. C. Keysers, Current Biology, 19 (21), pp. R971

-R.973 (2009)

5. A. Damasio, ‘Descarte’s Error: Emotion, Reason

and the Human Brain’ (Vintage, 2006)

6. R. Walker, ‘Kant, The Moral Law’ (Phenix,

1998)

7. T. Nagel, ‘What is it like to be a bat?’ Phil. Rev.

LXXXIII p.435 (1974)

8. E.O. Wilson, ‘Consilience, The Unity of

Knowledge’ (Little Brown, 1998)

9. B. Russell, ‘An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth’

(Unwin Paperbacks).

13


Guests’ Section:

[Mr. S.N. Shukla belonged to 1967 batch of IAS

and retired as Chairman State Vigilance

Commission, U.P., after serving as Industrial

Development Commissioner and Administrative

Member Board of Revenue. Topper of the 1964

L.L.B. Exam of undivided Agra University, he has

taken to legal profession after his retirement from

service in February 2003 basically to take up

public issues and to procure justice for the poor.

As ‘General Secretary of ‘Lok Prahri’, he has

been conducting several PILs in Lucknow Bench

of Allahabad High Court and also in the Supreme

Court.]

Article 32: Guarantee orMirage?

Contd. from the last issue......................

Prisoners without voting rights becoming

‘Hon’ble’ Legislators: Section 22 of the

Representation of the People Act 1950 and Rule

21-A of the Registration of Electoral Rules 1960

provide that the names of persons who have ceased

to be ‘ordinarily resident’ in the constituency, or

are otherwise not entitled to vote, be deleted.

Section 62 (5) of the 1951 Act provides that a

person detained in prison shall not be entitled to

vote. However, due to inaction and negligence of

the electoral registration officers at the time of

revision of the Electoral Rolls the names of such

persons remain in the rolls. As a result they are able

to contest and become members of

Parliament/State Legislature and even Ministers.

Lok Prahari, the petitioner organization, wrote to

the Election Commission of India drawing their

attention to the aforesaid situation and requesting

them to issue necessary orders in this regard under

Article 324. However, the said letter was not even

acknowledged despite oral and written reminders.

Having failed to evoke any response on this

National issue of great importance for the future of

the democracy in the country, a PIL Writ Petition

No. 593 of 2007 was filed for enforcement of

Articles 14, 84, and 173 of the Constitution and the

provisions of 1950 and 1951 Acts and to save the

democracy in the country from the clutches of

persons with criminal background.

The aforesaid writ petition was heard on

12.11.2007. The main contention of the petitioner

was that it is settled law that treating unequals alike

amounts to violation of Article 14. Therefore,

names of prisoners (who do not have the right to

vote) cannot be allowed to remain in the electoral

rolls along with those who are entitled to vote.

Moreover, this is also against the statement of Dr.

Ambedkar, while moving Article 84 in the

Constituent Assembly, that “being a voter is an

essential qualification for being a candidate”.

Furthermore, the dictionary meaning of ‘elector’

also says ‘one how is entitled to elect’. It was

further clarified that the name of any prisoner who

is subsequently bailed out can be added again in the

electoral roll any time before the nomination.

Hence, it will cause no prejudice to him.

However, the PIL was dismissed by the following

order- “Heard. The writ petition is dismissed.”

A review petition was filed for review of the order

dismissing the WP on this very important National

issue at the threshold raising important questions of

law. However, the Review petition was also

dismissed.

It is for consideration as to whether the refusal to

14


S.N. Shukla

entertain the WPs in the aforesaid two cases

making out a prima facie of non-compliance of the

constitutional provisions was justified in view of

the following: As held by the 9 Judges Benches in

Indra Sawhney v. Union of India17 and Supreme

Court Advocates on Record Association v. Union

of India18, the American doctrine of non-

justiciability of ‘political questions’ does not apply

in India as the remedial right under Article 32 is

itself a guaranteed fundamental right.

In State of Rajasthan v. Union of India19 and B.R.

Kapur v. State of Tamil Nadu20 it was held that

where the question relates to the interpretation of

the Constitution, it is the duty of the Supreme Court

to interpret it regardless of the fact that the answer

to the question would have political effect.

In S.R. Bommai v. Union of India21 and

Rameshwar Prasad v. Union of India22 and People’s

Union for Civil Liberties23 it was held that the

jurisdiction of the Court cannot be ousted and the

Court should not shirk from its duty of performing

its function merely because it has a ‘political

thicket’ and that the Supreme Curt cannot remain a

silent spectator watching subversion of the

Constitution.

Apparently, the summary dismissal of the writ

petitions challenging the constitutional validity of

first past the post system and the names of the

prisoners in the electoral rolls was not in

consonance with the settled law laid down in the

aforesaid cases.

Application Fee of Rs.500 under the RTI Act: More

than 1 year after the enactment of the RTI Act,

Allahabad High Court (Right to Information) Rules

were notified on 20.9.2006 fixing an application

fee of Rs. 500 and photocopy charge of Rs. 15 per

page as against application fee of Rs. 10 and

photocopy charges of Rs. 2/- only payable under

the Central and State Governments and even

Supreme Court Rules. When there was no response

from the Chief Justice of the High Court despite the

decision of the State Information Commission to

reconsider the matter, Lok Prahari filed WP No.

172/2008 for quashing the offensive provisions in

these rules as violative of Articles 14 and 19 of the

Constitution being arbitrary, unreasonable, unfair

and amounting to virtual negation of Right to

Information which has been held to be included in

the fundamental right of freedom of speech and

expression.

At the time of first hearing of the WP the petitioner

in person was asked to approach the High Court. It

was submitted by him that since the impugned

Rules were approved by the full Court their judicial

review by a Bench of that Court would be against

the settled principle that no one can be the judge of

his own cause. However, vide order dated 5.5.2008

the aforesaid writ petition was dismissed as

withdrawn with permission to pursue the matter

before the High Court.

Accordingly, the petitioner organization filed WP

No. 4518 (M/B) of 2008 in the High Court, which

was listed on 23.5.2008 but the same was ordered to

be listed in July without even considering the

prayer for interim relief. Thereupon, the petitioner

organization filed a review petition for review of

the order dated 5.5.2008 but the review petition was

also dismissed. Understandably, the WP in the

High Court has remained unheard and even the

prayer for interim relief has remained undecided

despite the matter having been listed dozens of

times, thereby virtually denying the benefit of the

RTI Act in regard to High Court.

Frequent Arbitrary Transfers of IAS/IPS Officers:

The writer along with former DGP UP, Padma

Shree Prakash Singh filed in June 2009 a WP (C)

240 of 2009 against frequent, arbitrary, irrational,

malafide and politically motivated transfers of All

India Services in UP adversely affecting not only

the morale of the services but also governance and

development of the state and attracting Articles 14,

256 and 257 of the Constitution.

This writ petition was necessitated as an earlier WP

on the subject had been languishing in Lucknow

bench of Allahabad High Court for the last 6 years

and the problem of misuse of power of transfer to

15


‘discipline’ All India Services, despite

recommendation of the Sarkaria Commission to the

contrary, is there in several states in varying degree.

Judicial intervention has become necessary since

the central government as the Cadre Controlling

Authority for these services has also failed to put a

check on it.

Finding a prima facie case the vacation Bench of

the Apex Court was not only pleased to issue notice

to the Central and State Governments but also

appreciated the efforts of the petitioners. After

exchange of counter and rejoinder affidavits the

matter was listed on 15.1.2010. Upon coming to

know about it, a request for adjournment was sent,

since the writer was not able to attend the Court on

that date. This was duly circulated to Bench by the

Registry. However, even in the absence of the

writer, who was petitioner in person and not

represented by any Advocate on Record or any

other authorized representative, the junior counsel

representing the other petitioner was told to

approach the High court (which had done nothing

in the last 6 years) and the following order was

passed- “Proxy (name not given), appearing on

behalf of the petitioners seeks permission to

withdraw the writ petition with liberty to pursue

any other remedy. Permission sought is granted.

The writ petition is dismissed as withdrawn”.

(Emphasis supplied)

Thus, the writer was deprived of the right to present

his case, necessitating a Restoration application in

this matter of great public importance in which the

Court itself was pleased to issue notice in the first

instance. In fact, the concern of the petitioners was

subsequently endorsed even by the present of

Union Home Minister in his address in the

Conference of DGPs wherein he observed that the

IPS officers were being treated like football.

Faulty Implementation of the Sixth Pay

Commission Recommendations: Six associations

of retired IAS, IPS and IFS officers from UP and 3

other states filed a WP No. 326 of 2009 for

quashing the clarification/ modification issued vide

OM dated 3.10.2008 in respect of para 4.2 of the

OM dated 1.9.2008 and the OM dated 11.2.2009

rejecting the representations against the same. As

brought out in the writ petition, the impugned OMs

are not only unauthorsied and at variance with the

recommendation of the Commission as adopted by

the government, but also against the principle

adopted at the time of the Fifth Pay Commission

and the provisions of Articles 14, and 21 of the

Constitution and the All India Services

(Death-cum-Retirement Benefits) Rules 1958 as

also against the law laid down by the Apex Court in

the case of D.S. Nakara24 and recently reiterated in

Union of India and Another v. S.P.S. Vains (Retd.)

and others25.

At the time of preliminary hearing of the WP the

petitioners’ counsel was asked to approach the

High Court. It was submitted by him that since the

matter concerned 4 states the possibility of

conflicting decisions could not be ruled out, and in

any case the matter will have to come to Apex

Court only for final interpretation. Therefore, this

will be against the public policy of avoiding

multiplicity of litigation. It was also submitted that

several pensioners above the normal life

expectancy age of 65 years may be deprived of the

benefit due to delay in the ultimate decision in the

matter as a result of the petitioners being relegated

to High Courts. However, the WP was dismissed as

withdrawn, with liberty to approach the High

Court.

In this connection it is also relevant that an earlier

WP (No. 35 of 2006) by petitioner no. 3 in the

present petition about enforcement of All India

Services (Death cum Retirement) Rules 1958 was

entertained and heard by the Apex Court. It is for

consideration of the jurists as to whether the refusal

to entertain the petition by a number of

organizations from 4 different states in the instant

case was justified in the circumstances of the case.

It appears that the perceptible qualitative change in

the approach of the Apex Court in dealing with the

petitions under Article 32 is prompted by the

16


increase in its workload and desire to reduce

pendency. In Kanubhai Brabmabhatta v. State of

Gujarat26 the Court ruled that, in view of the huge

backlog of cases in the Supreme Court, the

petitioner complaining infraction of his fundament

right should approach the High Court in the first

instance. In P.N. Kumar and Another v. Municipal

Corporation of Delhi27, the WP was disposed of

with liberty to approach the High Court giving

following reasons- “(1) The scope of the powers

of the High Courts under Article 226 of the

Constitution is wider than the scope of the powers

of this Court under Article 32 of the Constitution.

The relief prayed for in the petition is one which

may be granted by the High Court and any of the

parties who are dissatisfied with the judgment of

the High Court can approach this Court by way of

an appeal. The fact that some case involving the

very same point of law is pending in this Court is no

ground to entertain a petition directly by-passing

the High Court. If the parties get relief at the High

Court, they need not come here and to that extent

the burden on this Court is reduced.

The hearing of the case at the level of the High

Court is more convenient from several angles and

will be cheaper to the parties. It saves a lot of time

too. It will be easier for the clients to give

instructions to their lawyers.

Our High Courts are High Courts. Each High Court

has its own high traditions. They have judges of

eminence who have initiative, necessary skills and

enthusiasm. Their capacity should be harnessed to

deal with every type of case arising from their

respective areas, which they are competent to

dispose of.

Every High Court bar has also high traditions.

There are eminent lawyers practicing in the High

Courts with wide experience in handling different

kinds of case, both original and appellate. They are

fully aware of the history of every legislation in

their States. Their services should be made

available to the litigants in the respective States.

This Court has no time today even to dispose of

cases which have to be decided by it alone and by

no other authority. Large numbers of cases are

pending from 10 to 15 years. Even if no new case is

filed in this Court hereafter, with the present

strength of Judges it may take more than 15 years to

dispose of all the pending cases.

If the cases which can be filed in the High Courts

are filed in the High Court and not in this Court this

Courts’ task of acting as an original court which is a

time consuming process can be avoided and this

Court will also have the benefit of the decision of

the High Court when it deals with an appeal filed

against such decision.

If cases which may be filed in the High Courts are

filed in this Court it would affect the initiative of the

High Courts. We should preserve the dignity,

majesty and efficiency of the High Courts. The

taking over by this Court of the work which the

High Courts can handle may undermine the

capacity and efficiency of the High Courts and that

should therefore be avoided.

Lastly, the time saved by this Court by not

entertaining the case which may be filed before the

High Courts can be utilized to dispose of old

matters in which parties are crying for relief.”

With great respect to the Lordships of the Bench it

is submitted that the aforesaid reasoning is not quite

correct as would appear from the following

clarifications in respect of the reasons given above-

(1) While the scope of Article 226 is wider than that

of Article 32 the powers of the Apex Court in a

matter involving violation of a fundamental right

are decidedly more effective than those of a High

Court.

(2) There is no right of appeal against the decision

of the High Court in WP under Article 226.

Actually in majority of cases the SLP is rejected in

limine. Moreover, when the Constitution itself

guarantees the right to move the Apex, the question

of by-passing the High Court does not arise.

17


(3) On the contrary, this will result in multiplicity

of proceedings as the losing party is likely to

approach the Apex Court.

(4) The petitioner, and not the Apex Court, is the

best judge of the former’s convenience etc.

(5 & 6) Likewise, the choice of the forum or the

counsel should be best left to the petitioner instead

of being imposed upon him in the face of Art. 32.

(7) The pendency in the Apex Court cannot be a

legitimate ground to deny the right guaranteed by

Article 32 if the aggrieved person chooses to

exercise it despite the long wait.

(8) This reason is not valid as there is no right of

appeal as such and the remedy of SLP under Article

136 is only discretionary and often illusory.

(9) By this logic Article 32 should not have been

there and it amounts to questioning the wisdom of

the Constitution makers.

(10) Giving preference to other old matters over

those involving violation of fundamental rights is

not in consonance with the letter and spirit of

Article 32.

Thus, the reasons enumerated for not entertaining a

petition under Article 32 even if a prima facie case

of violation of a fundamental right is made out were

not valid. The decision negates Articles 32 which

was consciously included by the Constitution

makers despite Article 226. Moreover, the order is

not only per incurium of the decisions of the

Constitution Benches in the cases of Kochunni,

Romesh Thappar and V.G. Row (supra) about the

role and responsibility of the Apex Court but runs

in the face of those decisions and therefore, cannot

be said to be good law.

Mercifully the decisions in Kannubhai and P.N.

Kumar are not seen to have been referred to

subsequently but evidently the approach therein is

being followed by some judges of the Apex Court

as unwritten word. No doubt the work load of

the Apex Court has increased many folds since the

enactment of the Constitution, but the solution to

this lies in increasing the strength of the Apex Court

and for this reason Article 32 should not be reduced

to a virtual paper declaration. Moreover, relegating

the petitioners to the High Court in cases which

ultimately can be settled only by the Supreme Court

actually results in unnecessarily increasing the

work load of both the High Courts and the Apex

Court. It is counter productive as the party failing to

get justice from the High Court approaches the

Apex Court by way of SLP in the quest of justice.

Hence, it is also against the public policy of

avoiding multiplicity of litigation. Therefore, a

balance has to be struck so that the solemn

guarantee contained in the Article does not become

illusory.

To this end in view, the following approach is

suggested for dealing with the petitions under

Article 32 where a prima facie case of violation of

any fundamental right is made out- Petitioners

challenging constitutional validity of a Central

Act/Rule/order/decision adversely affecting

persons in more than one state may not be relegated

to the High Court. Such petitions may also not be

dismissed in limine without recording a finding as

to why no case of violation of any fundamental

right is made out on the basis of the averments in

the WP.

Petitioners challenging the constitutional validity

of a Central Act/Rule/order/decision adversely

affecting persons in one state only or of a State

Act/Rule/order/decision may be relegated to the

concerned High Court in the first instance, but in

such cases special leave petition against the

decision of the High Court may not be dismissed in

limine without holding by a speaking order as to

why no case of violation of any fundamental right is

made out after considering the points made in the

WP and the SLP.

Of course, the suggested arrangement may be

further improved and refined by their Lordships of

the Apex Court to strike a balance between need to

avoid unnecessary work load and the sense of

justice and thereby ensure that the guarantee in

Article 32 does not become meaningless and

illusory even in deserving cases like the ones

18


described above.

References:

1. Constituent Assembly Debates, Vol. VII, p. 953

2. AIR 1950 SC 124

3. AIR 1954 SC 440

4. AIR 1959 SC 725 (729)

5. AIR 1961 SC 1457 (1461)

6.Prem Chand Garg Vs. Excise Commissioner, UP

7. AIR 1963 SC 996, at 999

8. AIR 1950 SC 124

9. AIR 1952 SC 196

10. AIR 1961 SC 1457 (1461)

11. V.G. Ramchandran’s Law of Writs, 6th Edition

2006 Volume 1 @ page 131

12. AIR 2007 SC 861; (2007) 2 SCC 1

13. AIR 1959 SC 725; AIR 1961 SC 145; AIR 1963

SC 1295

14. 2006 AIR SCW 2822: 1988 (6) SCC 720

15. (2001) 7 SCC 126

16. AIR 1977 SC 1361 {subsequently followed in

(1980) 3 SCC 625 and (2001) 7 SCC 231}

17. (1974) 1 SCC 317

18. AIR 1993 SC 477: 1992 (Supp-3) SCC 217

19. (1993) 4 SCC 441: AIR 1994 SC 268

20. (1977) 3 SCC 592: AIR 1977 SC 1361

21. (2001) 7 SCC 231: AIR 2001 SC 3435

22. (1994) 3 SCC 1 : AIR 1994 SC 1918

23. (2006) 2 SCC 1 : AIR 2006 SC 980

24. (2003) 4 SCC 399 : AIR 2003 SC 2363

25. AIR 1983 SC 130: (1983) 1 SCC 305

26. 2008 (6) Supreme 582

27. AIR 1987 SC 1159: (1989) Supp-2 SCC 310

(1987) 4 SCC 609

19


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—Rekha Saraswat, (Editor & Administrator RH Website)

From the U.S.A.

[Uday Dandavate studies people, cultures and

trends worldwide and uses the understanding

gained from such studies to inspire

people-centered innovation strategies. Uday

Dandavate heads up a design research consulting

firm called SonicRim. He frequently writes and

speaks on topics related to people-centered

design and innovation in international journals

and conferences.]

Deschooling Minds

I have a keen interest in learning from

psychological profiles of creative

individuals. My curiosity has led me to read Charlie

Chaplin’s, “My Autobiography,” and “Creating

Minds: An Anatomy of Creativity Seen Through the

Lives of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot,

Graham, and Gandhi,” by Howard Gardner.

Behind my curiosity is an innate desire to know

how best I can learn from, interpret, and be inspired

by the experiences that drive creative individuals to

produce their creative works.

Over the years, while pursuing the philosophy of

participatory design and co-creation, I have,

however, begun to question the monopoly of

creative individuals over creative processes, and

have developed respect for the creativity of

everyday people. During this pursuit, I became

intrigued by a book, “Secrets of a

Buccaneer-Scholar: How Self-Education and the

Pursuit of Passion Can Lead to a Lifetime of

Success,” by James Marcus Bach. This book turned

over a new leaf in my interest in studying the

creative potential of the mind. The book contains a

personal account of a high-school dropout – of how

he discovered the rhythm of his mind and applied

that awareness to maximize his career

opportunities and to draw a sense of fulfillment

from life.

After browsing through a few pages of the book, I

was reminded of the argument I have often heard

from people who dropped out of school, “Bill

Gates, the richest man in the world, was a college

dropout, yet he was able to build Microsoft and he

became the richest man in the world.” I often

wanted to remind them that every college dropout

was not likely to follow the success story of Bill

Gates. I held a belief that the creative genius of Bill

Gates was not necessarily accessible to everyone

eager to drop out of formal education. I was wrong.

I realized that I was indoctrinated, through my

education at a design school, into believing that

creative thinking was the monopoly of a person

trained in creativity.

After becoming a design researcher and conducting

hundreds of conversations and co-creation

workshops with common folks from around the

world (which includes people in our client

companies), my interest has grown to tapping into

the creative potential of everyday people, not just in

studying the mental makeup of geniuses. This is so

because I have learned that it is only through

helping people on the street invoke the creative

potential of their minds can we solve complex

problems faced by individuals, families,

communities, organizations, and the earth’s

eco-system.

In this context, reading James Bach provided a

timely reminder to me that in order to pursue my

interest in harnessing the potential of minds, I need

not just confine my reading to the analysis of the

minds of creative individuals. James Bach has

demonstrated that there are opportunities for each

one of us to expand the innate capacity of our mind

to learn and be creative, without surrendering to the

dictates of an academic establishment.

The author has used the metaphor of buccaneers,

seventeenth century Spanish pirates, because he

20


Uday Dandavate

finds several parallels between his own learning

process and the independent spirit of the

buccaneers. He is drawn to them because, “They

were bold and aggressive, they lived free and they

lived by their wits. That is how I want to be, an

independent thinker,” he says. This is how the

buccaneering metaphor works, in the words of

James Bach,

“The original buccaneers sailed in ships on the

sea. The vehicle used by buccaneer-scholars was

their minds and they sailed in the world of ideas.

Buccaneers embarked on cruises in search of

treasures. The cruise of a buccaneer-scholar takes

the form of a self-determined curriculum. A

buccaneer-scholar embarks on a cruise in search

of knowledge. Buccaneers used the threat of

violence to achieve their ends. Buccaneer-scholars

are not physically violent; they are audacious and

intellectually passionate. They use irreverent

inquiry rather than malevolent artillery to seize the

treasure that they seek. Buccaneers quested for

material wealth, such as gold bullions, jewels, and

silver coins called “pieces of eight.” The wealth

that buccaneer-scholars seek is less tangible but no

less valuable: knowledge, skills, great secrets,

connections with other minds, and an evermore

powerful self.” (Bach)

To my mind the parallel drawn between buccaneers

and buccaneer-scholars is inspiring because,

according to the author, buccaneer-scholars are

both disruptive and also know how to prosper in

times of disruption.

James Bach has outlined the traits of a

buccaneer-scholar. Buccaneer-scholars live free.

They seek firsthand knowledge over knowledge

imparted by an authority. They follow

self-directed, heuristic learning processes;

curiosity drives them; puzzles intrigue them;

complexity drives them. They construct

themselves, as opposed to subjecting themselves,

to a culture of indoctrination. Above all, they earn

their reputation; they care more for their reputation

than for their qualifications.

Today we live at crossroads of big changes, which

are being forced by invisible or unanticipated

breakdowns of established systems (e.g., the

subprime mortgage crisis) and disruptive

technological innovations (such as the emergence

of mobile and bio technologies). Experts trained in

old ways of management will need to cultivate the

mindset of a buccaneer-scholar in order to think

beyond traditional ideologies and outmoded

economic models or methodologies, and innovate

beyond the tools and processes that have served us

well for many years.

I find eleven elements of his own method of

learning very useful for a person who wants to

approach learning buccaneer-style: 1. Scout

obsessively for information from a variety of

sources; 2. Engage your mind with authentic

problems. An authentic problem is one that

personally means something to you and motivates

you, not something that is imposed on you; 3.

Cultivate cognitive savvy by discovering the

rhythm of your mind. Let your mind wonder

around, let it work while you sleep, and

breakthrough ideas will come to you; 4. As you

plunder knowledge, knowledge will attract

knowledge. Build a mental schema (map) of the

knowledge territory you want to explore – it’s like

building an inner map of knowledge – and you will

discover new pathways to explore the knowledge

territory; 5. Experiment relentlessly by getting

close to a problem, questioning it, playing with it,

poking at it, and learning from what happens next;

6. Seek and relish disposable time – the time you

can afford to waste – and the ideas will come to

you; 7. Advance your understanding of the world

and share it with others more effectively through

the medium of stories; 8. Search for innovative

solutions by comparing, contrasting, and

synthesizing contrasting ideas. This process is

called dialectical learning; 9. Reinvent yourself by

subjecting yourself to other people’s ideas; 10.

Combine words, pictures, and symbols to

understand and communicate meanings; and

finally 11. Embrace systems thinking by

21


developing the ability to develop tolerance for

complexity and the ability to discover simple

patterns underneath. As I completed reading the

personal struggles of James Bach in, “Secrets of a

Buccaneer-Scholar,” I was reminded of Ivan

Illich’s book, “Deschooling Society,” in which he

suggested creation of “educational webs which

heighten the opportunity for each one to transform

each moment of his living into one of learning,

sharing, and caring.” (lllich, 71).

Today, with access to methods for self-initiated and

self-directed learning becoming available through

the worldwide Web, it is not difficult for people to

pursue lifelong learning opportunities as

envisioned by Illich. Even without the worldwide

Web, James Bach followed his heart, discovered

the abundance of learning opportunities available

in his environment, challenged the outmoded

educational establishment, dropped out of school in

the eighth grade, and ended up building a career for

himself on his own terms. His impeccable

credentials include employment at Apple

Computer as one of the group managers in the

Product Quality Department, authoring numerous

books on software development and product

quality and testing, delivering keynote

presentations at software testing conferences

around the world, and writing papers that are often

referred by universities, such as the Massachusetts

Institute of Technology (MIT) and Stanford

University.

It is obvious to me that our options for learning

increase by following the methods suggested by the

buccaneer-scholar James Bach. I realize that a mind

free from the tyranny of an authoritative education

system is what I seek, because as Jean Paul Sartre

once wrote, “We are condemned to be free,”

(Sartre quoted by Bach in his book).

22


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In Defense Of A CommittedJudiciary

The idea of a committed judiciary may yet

be relevant today despite the frontal, if

not brutal, attack launched on this concept by the

legal establishment not too long ago.

In fact, committed judges are only too relevant in

the present globalized, but chaotic, national

scenario characterized by vested interests and

power blocs playing havoc with the long-term

survival and welfare of the Indian masses.

Indeed, if the idea and substance of a committed

judiciary is not revived soon, the Indian republic,

beset as it is by pressures from within and without,

may not see the turn of the next decade.

Ivory tower judges: In essence, all judges are

committed because they hold values such as the

proper and adequate dispensation of justice, fair

play and the maintenance of an orderly and

law-abiding society. Judges cannot aspire or

pretend to live in an ivory tower away from the

hurly burly crowds and noisy din of Indian society

and the shifting realities of daily life.

Cloistered judges may have high ideals and

impeccable credentials but they cannot perfect or

master their vocation until they are brought into

contact with the vagaries of the day and the

conditions present in the environment at large.

A sheltered judiciary risks becoming profound but

inept, learned yet impractical, philosophically

detached, but materially irrelevant.

Notwithstanding its vast erudition, it may well

become a pariah in a society that so badly needs its

knowledge and expertise to free it from the

tentacles of creeping capitalism and the excesses

committed by the industro-legal complex.

Activist judiciary: Fundamentally, a committed

judiciary is an activist judiciary that is closely and

continually involved in the solution of social and

economic problems of society. It does not wait or

sit back till litigants approach it for redress, but

seeks out litigation that has practical relevance for

uplifting or improving the lot of the masses.

Only a committed judiciary can bring a sense of

purpose and authority to encourage public interest

litigation that is not frivolous but provides genuine

benefits to the deprived and denied sections of

Indian society.

A committed judiciary partakes of civil and social

life but it is not a leisured institution. It does not

attend public functions in order to be felicitated but

to do the practical work of identifying the high and

mighty people of society those that could pose a

threat to Law and legal institutions. Committed

judges are not mute witnesses to the ongoing drama

of social and economic change but active

23


Kamal Wadhwa

participants with a big stake in the outcome.

Committed judges are not idle or wealthy so as to

be cut off from the pulse of the people. They are

hardy individuals who spend equal time within and

without the courts.

Respect for judges: Committed judges are

respected and held in awe by the people not because

of their personalities but because of the high office

they occupy. They are small men in the service of a

big cause; hence they too grow big.

Committed judges must project an aura of firmness

and decisiveness so that litigation does not drag on

and on. They must be brave enough to withstand

criticism by the Press and the attacks mounted

against them by yellow journalists.

A committed judiciary is secure and principled. It

must not retract verdicts in the face of fire and fury

from obscurantist and fundamentalist groups. It

must be guided not just by forms and procedures

but must adjudicate substantive legal issues.

Whenever possible, judicial officers must exercise

influence outside the courts to right social and civil

wrongs.

Quality of judges: A committed judiciary does not

run the courts like a business enterprise but as a

socially minded institution that serves and protects

the public interest. It sides with great causes and

great movements of the day. It is not necessary for

judges to wax eloquently in fancy foreign

languages; they should know the lingo of the street

people too. Committed judges should be sharp of

mind, alert to detail and mindful of the duties of

their office. They interpret the Law so as to make it

a living organism that grows with time.

A committed judiciary respects the needs and

aspirations of the downtrodden. It does not respect

blind authority. If a committed judiciary is put in

office, the people will eagerly approach it for

redress of their grievances because it is not a

reactionary institution.

Committed judges are not individuals from the past

but men who live in the present and look forward to

the future. Committed judges lead and follow social

causes. They are servants of the people first and

foremost and then officers of the Law.

Moreover, judges should not be judged on personal

qualities but rather by the qualities they bring to the

office they occupy. They must be selected on merit

not seniority.

Concept of justice: Justice is a relative and

changing concept and Law evolves in the light of

new knowledge. There are no absolute and eternal

canons of justice except those that draw sustenance

and inspiration from the society at large. Similarly,

law and order are not abstract and immutable ideas

but concepts that come alive in the context of the

people who benefit from them.

Indeed, law and order serve the ends of the people

not the State. Moreover, the Law is a cooperative

enterprise not a disciplinary tool. The ends of Law

are achieved when the people are served by its

enforcement.

Nehru’s view: Jawaharlal Nehru sensed the futility

of having a fixed and unalterable constitution in

perpetuity and rightfully believed in the

Legislature’s power to amend it. Those members of

the legal profession (and there are many eminent

ones) who quarrel with Nehru’s view have a vested

interest in promoting litigation and the power of the

Indian Bar.

Immutable constitutions offer, what in their eyes,

are permanent truths about the Law as it relates to

the human condition. Unfortunately, there are no

permanent legal verities except those put forth by

the legal profession. A committed judiciary does

not work at cross-purposes with the Executive or

the Legislature in a bid to maintain a balance of

power, but actively cooperates with these branches

of government to promote the well being of the

people.

While the Legislature has the right and duty to pass

laws it deems necessary, a committed judiciary

must not flinch from questioning the merits of a

new law if it does not pass the test of relevance and

applicability.

Constitution & change: Constitutions are

24


expensive and cumbersome documents. They yield

a vast terrain for quibbling and the semantic battles

from which the legal profession, particularly in

India, draws its sustenance and welfare. Hence

arises the resistance to all change in the legal

system.

Laws can be adapted and discarded according to the

conventions, social climate and mores of the day.

Therefore, constitutions are not defaced or defiled

by new amendments; rather, it is the quality of the

amendments that undermine or sustain the national

charter. Moreover, the quibbling and semantic

battles waged over the interpretation and wording

of the Constitution could pose a great threat to the

legal system. In the final analysis, the will of the

people must prevail, not the Law.

British rules: The attack against the concept of a

committed judicial system ironically was mounted

by invoking Anglo-Saxon canons of jurisprudence.

However, in British conflict of law rules (prior to

unified EU rules) courts in the UK did not enforce

foreign judgments that offended British morality or

went against UK public policy. Clearly, then,

judges too are bound by the popular will.

In Pakistan Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto

excluded the Ahmeddiyas from the pale of

Pakistani Muslim society because most Pakistanis

believed this community to be non-Muslim.

Similarly, prior to the unification of British laws

with the EU legal system, jurisprudence in the UK

was not based on any immutable canons of law and

justice, but on the Common Law of the British

people.

Public interest: Practically, too, it makes little

sense to talk of immutable principles of law and

justice. Suppose the proposed construction of an

interstate highway is blocked by a widow’s house

in its path. Invoking absolute standards of justice

would inevitably lead to the scrapping of the

highway project because the right to property may

be a fundamental right in that country.

Accordingly, the widow’s right to property must be

protected and the highway project scrapped if this

reasoning is applied. However, the public good or

public interest may require the widow to relocate

elsewhere. To compensate her, a lump sum would

be paid to her for the relocation and for the

psychological trauma suffered in shifting to new

and unfamiliar surroundings.

This is the rational and proper course of action, not

scrapping the highway project. Here too, the public

interest is held to be superior to the fundamental

right to own property.

Even in countries where ownership of property is a

fundamental right, the concept of the public good

or public interest has generally overtaken the

individual and fundamental right. A committed

judiciary, therefore, must deviate from the

so-called ‘immutable’ and ‘absolute’ principles of

law if the public good is of greater importance and

significance.

25


Letter to the Editor:The Twins of Irrationalism: The first decade of the 21st Century is closing showing the fascist face ofCommunism once again. In 1934 Karl von Ossietzky was debarred from leaving Nazi concentrationcamp to receive that year’s Nobel Peace award. None of his relatives also were allowed. NowCommunist China has done the same thing with Liu Xiaobo the more unreservedly irrational cult offascism did not arise, as told by M.N. Roy, as a reaction to Communism. The root of both can be tracedin the earlier movement of ideas. Marx’s noble passion for an early attainment of the humanist ideal ofsocial justice generated impatience giving birth to fanatic dreamers to whom the short cut of violence isthe only means to reform society. It is high time to return to the humanist ideas of social justice.

A Very Happy New Year 2011 to all the readers of The Radical Humanist.Ajit Bhattacharyya,

[email protected]

Current Affairs Section:

[Justice Rajindar Sachar is Retd. Chief Justice of

High Court of Delhi, New Delhi. He is UN Special

Rapportuer on Housing, Ex. Member, U.N.

Sub-Commission on Prevention of

Discrimination and Protection of Minorities and

Ex-President, Peoples Union for Civil Liberties

(PUCL) India. This article was earlier published

in the Tribune on 17/09/2010]

Lokpal Bill 2010 – A Farce OnPublic

The headlines in the media, the constant

talk in the market of how deep the

corruption has sunk in our body politic and how

nefarious role is played by the ill gotten money

contribution to all political parties is a specter

which is haunting the public all the time. Why

inspite of CBI investigation in 2G Scam under

Supreme Court monitoring or by J.P.C. or P.A.C.

probe still not persuade the government to consider

seriously to enact a effectively genuine Lokpal

legislation to deal with this menace of corruption –

if the draft of Lokpal Bill 2010 is any indication it

would appear that realization of grave urgency is

still missing – with the government.

No one of course suggests that evil like corruption

in public life can be eliminated merely by

legislation. The clean public life, the standards and

character of political parties has to be built on

grounds of moral conscience and public pressure.

Of course the ultimate remedy to the various evils

like corruption in public life can only be

eliminated,, in the words of Mahatma Gandhi when

he said; “A small body of determined spirits fired

by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter

the course of history”.

We must however face reality. Such spirits are rare

to find and we ordinary mortals must make effort to

find some mechanism which may hopefully be able

to keep in check the demoralization and corruption

in our public life. One such mechanism that almost

all governments since 1996 have been promising

but done nothing about it is the institution of

LokPal, an independent body to enquire into the

lapses and complaint against legislators, members

of Parliaments, both at the centre and the States.

That corruption in various segments of our public

life is eating into the vitals of our nation is freely

admitted. Global corruption perception Index of

India is 87th out of 178 countries, slipping from 84th

in 2009. The result is that while on one hand India

has 100,000 billionaires 8.7 crore families

(minimum of 40 crores) are living below poverty

line.

The Central Government has at last proposed Lok

Pal Bill 2010, but unfortunately fails even to be a

cosmetic exercise to fight corruption. It is

shamefully tooth less and meant just to give a false

reassurance to the people that government is

serious in its fight against corruption.

The Lokpal is a 3-member body consisting of

Chairperson who is or former Chief Justice of judge

Supreme Court and two members who are have

been judges of Supreme Court or Chief Justice s of

High Court. I feel restricting it to judges is too

narrow. I feel outstanding social scientists or

academicians should also be eligible and it should

be a five member body.

The jurisdiction of LokPal under Section 10

apparently covers Prime Minister, Ministers

Members Parliament. But the hypocrisy is exposed

when at the same time it nullifies the same by

26


Rajindar Sachar

providing that Lokpal shall not enquire into any

allegations of corruption against any member of

either House of Parliament unless the

recommendation of Speaker or Chairman of

Council of States as the case may be is received by

it. One is amazed at the effrontery of such a

provision namely that Lokpal consisting of the

Status of highest judiciary is powerless to act on its

own even when it prima facie finds a strong case for

enquiry. Not only that but insultingly after the

enquiry and even when Lokpal finds that any of the

charges have been proved, against the members of

Parliament, all he can do is to send a report of his

finding to the Speaker and Chairman, of the council

of States, and they alone will determine what action

to be taken – obviously it may include rejecting the

report of Lokpal. Of course the presiding officers

have to place the report before both the houses of

parliament. A formal courtesy is to be done by

informing the Lokpal as to what action is taken or

proposed to be taken which includes the rejection

of findings of guilt by Lokpal. What sardonic joke

is being played on the public. The government is

treating the members of Parliament like sacred

idols in a temple who can not be touched by Lokpal,

but only by the Brahmanic priesthood of co

legislators will decide finally. This reduces the

authority of Lokpal to worse than lower magistrate

whose order the highest in the land including the

President has to comply with. The sheer effrontery

of law Ministry in proposing such an insulting

provision is a direct negation of the institution of

Lokpal, and make it toothless. Rather what should

have been done was to provide that the – finding of

guilt by Lokpal would be treated in the same

manner, as Section 8 of Representation of the

Peoples Act1951 as a disqualification from

contesting the election for a period of 6 years.

Further the Lokpal should have been authorized to

impose a penalty for recovery of any amount found

to have been lost by the action of legislators or

Ministers.

Not only this but Lokpal under Section 11 is

forbidden to enquire into any memo of complaint if

it is made after the expiry of 5 years from the date

when the offence is alleged to have been

committed. Has the government realized the

absurdity of providing a limitation period in such

complaints, which if they were to be tried under

Prevention of Corruption Act., would have no

limitation bar, because there is no limitation for

initiating proceedings under the criminal law where

punishment provided is more than three years?

What kind of skewed provision is this which

instead of making legislators liability stricter

instead gives them immunity?

Also has the UPA government considered that if 5

year period were to be provided then by same

logic or equity would they not be barred from

holding an enquiry in 2SG scam of 2001-02 during

B.J.P. Government (which by all standards should

be held along with the enquiry into 2SG scam

against Raja)? Are not people entitled to demand an

explanation as by what perverse logic this high

sounding body of Lokpal headed by the Chief

Justice of India is being reduced to the position of a

domestic pet? I am certain that no Judge with even a

modicum of self respect will accept such a

demeaning, low grade rate post - the inevitable

result would be that Lokpal Bill will collapse – an

event that legislators have always evidently

desired. So good bye to cleaning the political dirt,

notwithstanding the high sounding calls by all the

governments. Regrettably cynics may be right

when they say “who cares - if in the process some

dedicated Gandhians fighting for integrity in public

life fast unto death at this unforgivable lapse by the

Government.


27

A new blog has been set up to upload all articles, books and pictures of the great humanist Mr. Avula Gopalakrishna

Murthy. Articles on him will also be posted. Readers may also post their opinions. This will be mostly in Telugu

language, but few English articles and matter will also be there.Messages can be posted both in English and Telugu.

Dr. Innaiah and Mr. Bhaskararao have jointly created this new blog: http://agk-rationalist.blogspot.com

[Sri N.K. Acharya is an advocate, columnist and

author of several books on law. He was formerly

Secretary of Indian Rationalist Association and

had edited the Indian Rationalist, then published

from Hyderabad on behalf of the Association

prior to its transfer to Madras.]

I

Public Accounts Committee And Joint

Parliamentary Committee: These are committees

constituted by the speaker of the parliament. The

membership of the committees shall consist of

members of both the houses. It will be in

accordance with the accordance with the

proportion in which the parties in parliament are

representing. While the chairmanship of the Public

Accounts Committee is normally shared by the

opposition, the chairmanship of the Joint

Parliamentary Committee is normally held by the

representative of the party in power. The subject

with which the Public Accounts Committee is

concerned is the financial aspect dealt with by the

parliament. All the reports submitted by the

Auditor General and Accountant General are

scrutinized by the Public Accounts Committee. If

any other committee is setup by the parliament to

go into any aspects relating to finance submits a

report, the same will also be examined by the

Public Accounts Committee. The committee also

examines the action taken reports of the

government and will see to it that proper action is

taken on the recommendations of the Public

Accounts Committee. This committee will also see

that recommendations however old may be duly

attended to by the government.

Joint Parliamentary Committee is a political

body. It attends to, in addition, the legislative work,

corruption in public offices. That is why the

Bharatiya Janata Party is insisting on referring the

2G spectrum scam to the Joint Parliamentary

Committee. But, it is the contention of the

government that since it is a matter arising out of

the report of the Auditor General, the appropriate

forum is the Public Accounts Committee only.

There is no objection for the appointment of both

the committees one after other. Therefore, if the

Public Accounts Committee shows the grounds

necessary for the appointment of a Joint

Parliamentary Committee, the same may be

appointed subsequently. Similarly the Joint

Parliamentary Committee shows the grounds

necessary for the appointment of Public Accounts

Committee, the same may be appointed

subsequently. It is open to the parliament to

consider the reports together or separately as the

situation warrants. It is not as though one

Committee is appointed the other shall not be

constituted . It is not advisable to constitute both the

committees at the same time. While carrying on the

functions the committee has all the powers to

summon any person as a witness to depose before

the committee. They have also the power to call for

any document from any source, they can call for the

appearance of the Attorney General to address the

committee or submit his advise. The report of the

committee may be unanimous and the members are

permitted to submit their own opinions assenting or

dissenting with the majority. They can submit their

own independent opinions. The reports of the

committees are placed before the parliament and

discussed. Their recommendations are not put to

vote. It is open to the parliament to propose any

action or enact a law on the basis of the

recommendations made by the committee or

propose a resolution directing the government to

implement the recommendations. The insistence of

the opposition only to appoint the Joint

Parliamentary Committee is premature. It can be

appointed if the Public Accounts Committee calls

for an enquiry by the Joint Parliamentary

28


N.K. Acharya

Committee to probe into the corruption aspects of

the 2G spectrum scandal. If the Public Accounts

Committee reports that the loss to the exchequer is

nearly speculative and no corruption is involved,

there may not be any need for the appointment of

the Joint Parliamentary Committee.

II

China Game: India has several problems with

China. That country often raises pin pricks to

remind India about them. China claims certain

areas of north eastern India (Arunachal Pradesh,

formerly NEFA) to be her own territory and that

boundary between India and China (Mc Mohan

line) accepted during the British period is not

binding upon her. That apart China is in open

occupation (as aggressor) of certain Indian

territories in northern Kashmir in addition to the

areas in Kashmir, allegedly gifted (ceded) to her by

Pakistan. In addition, China is now planning to

build a land link to Arabian sea in collusion with

Pakistan, a strategic route designed to encircle

India as a northern arc. Even though India does not

raise the Tibetan issue any more, China often

accuses India of hosting Dalai Lama. In recent

times China seems to question Kashmir as being an

integral part of India, by issuing to the applicants of

Kashmir a separate visa called stappled visa. Over

and above, China has commenced now a

clandestine construction of dams over the

Brahmaputra river stating that the projects are

intended for generating electricity and not for

impounding or diverting water for irrigation. In

the concept of its quasi-totalitarian political system

China is often recording faster economic

development at a higher annual rate. As a matter of

fact India is exporting iron ore and importing

manufactured goods from China and that is why

there is greater appreciation all the world over

about China’s development.

All the above disputes are being swept under the

mat whenever the leaders of both countries meet

and one such high level meeting was held in New

Delhi between prime minister of China and India in

December 2010.

India’s concerns are real and substantial. They are

all matters causing considerable worry. China

seems to believe that it is better for her own interest

to keep the problems lay over as long as possible so

that she may press them into service whenever a

suitable occasion arises.

III

Sedition: Sedition was originally an offence

against monarchy. That was the reason why the

expression bringing into contempt and hatred was

used in the defination which runs as follows.

Section 124 of the Indian penal code reads

“whoever by written or spoken words or by signs or

visible representations attempts or brings into

hatred or contempt or attempts to excite

dissatisfaction towards the government established

by law shall be punishable with life imprisonment”.

The object of sedition then was replacing

monarchy. The change may be brought by violence

or through some other methods such as intrigue or

conspiracy. The same offence is carried over in

democracy as explained by the court if it is

followed by violence.

In democracy it is the right of the people to express

themselves on the performance of the executive

and change it as often as it warrants by a process of

election. That is why unless the right of free

expression is accompanied by violence it cannot be

treated as an offence in a democracy. That is the

reason why all the political organizations which

believe in violence and organize for over throwing

the executive through means which are violent are

only prohibited as seditious organizations and

those who support those organizations are also

liable to be prosecuted for the offence of sedition. It

is not open to the offender charged with sedition to

contend that he is only a mere supporter but not a

member of banned organization

There is however a fault in the definition of the

offence of sedition. It does not include the plea of

any state to separate itself form the union. While

29


the campaign for greater autonomy is within the

constitutional right of free expression, the

campaign to go out of the union is unconstitutional.

That being so it is better if the definition of sedition

is suitably amended firstly to include violence as an

essential ingredient and secondly to include a plea

for separation of state from the union as a

dimension which comes within the scope of

sedition.

It may be of interest to recall a few examples. Tilak

and Mahatma Gandhi were prosecuted and

sentenced for sedition even though their agitations

were peaceful. The claim for a right to take up arms

for fighting for national freedom was negatived in

the trial of INA hero’s. Both were cases under

sedition. Now Dr. Binayak Sen was convicted and

sentenced for life on the charge of being associated

with the banned organizations of naxals. Arundathi

Roy and S.A.P. Gilani are charged for advocating

azadi for Kashmir.

IV

Withdrawal of criminal cases: Withdrawal of

criminal cases is not an easy matter. In Andhra

Pradesh the cases registered against several persons

particularly the youth and students involved in the

agitation for Telangana are sought to be withdrawn

on account of serious political pressure. Some of

the cases are simple involving minor offences like

violating prohibitory orders. Some involved

serious offences like arson causing damage to the

public and private properties and physical injuries

to private persons and police personnel. The

government of Andhra Pradesh has decided to

withdraw all of them as a policy since they are

classified under acts done in relation to a public

political agitation for bifurcation of the state into

Andhra and Telangana and not with any motive to

commit any offence. Citing the example of Andhra

Pradesh, the gujjars of Rajasthan are also

demanding the withdrawal of all criminal cases

against their rank and file involved, in the agitation

for reservation of posts in government services and

seats in educational institutions. Their demand is to

classify them as backward class and grant the

community a special reservation of 5% over the

other backward classes in the state of Rajasthan.

Even though the state is in favor of the demand of

the gujjars, the High Court of Rajasthan struck it

down on the grounds namely, that there is no proof

that gujjars are a backward community and if

gujjars are given extra 5% reservation it would

exceed the 50 % rule laid down by the Supreme

Court, that in no circumstances the total seats to be

reserved for reserved classes including SC’s and

ST’s should exceed 50% of the total seats available.

Withdrawal of criminal cases registered and taken

cognizance by the a criminal court involves a long

process. The court must be satisfied with the

government’s policy. Then there shall be a

reasoned recommendation by the public prosecutor

in each case for its withdrawal. The court also must

record after due consideration of the government

policy and the recommendation of the public

prosecutor, a reasoned order permitting the

withdrawal. If the matter is carried to the higher

court, that court will scrupulously examine the

fulfillment of the above conditions. In the case of

forest brigand Veerappan of Karnataka, the high

court refused to permit withdrawal of cases

registered against him.

Presently, the High Court of Andhra Pradesh and

Supreme court have taken a serious view of the

matters relating to violence in political

demonstrations and directed sou moto action for

appointment of commission for the purposes of

imposing penalties and damages on all those who

were held responsible for such violence including

political parties who organize the demonstrations.

30


Letter to the Editor:

Jan. 2011 editorial is amazing!

—Sanjay Shanbhag

IRI/IRHA Members’ Section:

[Mr. Balraj Puri is an authority on Jammu and

Kashmir Affairs. He is Director, Institute of

Jammu and Kashmir Affairs, Karan Nagar,

Jammu-180005;Phone

numbers:01912542687,09419102055

www.humanrightsjournal.com]


Srikrishna report has received very hostile

reaction in Talengana. There are violent

protests against it in Hyderabad. For out of six

recommendations of the Commission five outright

reject the demand for Talengana State. The fifth

recommendation concedes it as the second best

option “only if unavoidable and if decision is

amicable to all. But it will throw up several

problems.” Talengana’s reaction should have been

anticipated. For at mid night of December 9, 2009,

when condition of the fasting leader of Talengana

Praja Samiti Chandershakher Rao became critical,

the Union Home Minister P Chindambaran gave a

categorical assurance that Talengana State will be

formed. Expectedly it generated heat in the rest of

Andhra, Raylseema and coastal Andhra were

completely shut down for many days and almost

half of members of the assembly resigned. Demand

for statehood was revived elsewhere in the country.

Now it does not seem possible to arrive at a

consensus on Sri Krishna report as the government

is trying.

In 2004 assembly election, the Congress had

supported the demand of separate Talengana. In

2009 election when all major parties, including the

Congress, TDP and BJP supported the same

demand, it was generally believed that Talengana

Rashtriya Samiti had become irrelevant and hence

almost marginalized. The Congress, too,

interpreted it as loss of popular support to the

demand of the Samiti and back tracked from its

earlier support.

The demand for Talengana state is as old as that for

the Vishalandhra. Soon after independence,

Talengana, which was a part of Hyderabad, had

started a powerful movement under the leadership

of the Communist Party for statehood and against

the Nizam. At that time, communist all over India

were fighting for separate identities of all

nationalities. The demand for Andhra State was

conceded when its leader Sri Ramulu died after fast

into death in 1953. To avoid similar experience, the

demand of K. Chandershakhar Rao was conceded

when his condition became critical who had

resorted to similar fast for separate Talengana

State.

Both times the Union Government set a wrong

precedent by acting under pressure after losing

opportunities for a settlement through a process of

consensus of all concerned. In 1953 the State

Reorganization Commission while accepting the

demand for Vishalandhra also recommended a

separate Talengana, and allowed them ten years to

experiment with separate identities after which

they could merge if two third of majority of both

state legislators supported the decision.

The Congress, ruling party at the centre, rejected

the proposal for Talengana at that time and has been

experimenting with various alternatives from time

to time. A gentlemen’s formula between Congress

leaders of both regions in 1956 provided for

safeguards of and for development of Talengana to

be monitored by the Regional Planning and

Development Committees answerable to members

of the legislature. According to it a deputy chief

31


Balraj Puri

minister was to be made from the Talengana region

and quota was fixed for it in government jobs. But

these safeguards were not implemented. In 1973

these Regional Committees were made not

answerable to the legislatives.

The Congress also adopted the tactics of copting

Talengana leaders and manipulating caste politics.

In 1978 the Talengana Praja Samiti merged with

the Congress after its prime moving force Chenna

Reddy was made chief minister of Andhra. When

Narsima Rao became the Prime Minister of India, it

also satisfied Talengana pride as he belonged to the

region.

Meanwhile Telugu Desam Party forged an alliance

of Naidu and Kapu castes against Reddys and

Kammas, the landowning castes, and opposed

Reddy leadership of the separate Telangana

demand. To combat it, Chandershakher Rao, who

belongs to Valama caste, formed an alliance of

Dalits and OBC, under the Talengana Rashtriya

Samiti in 2003 after resigning from the post of

deputy Speaker in Andhra assembly. As more than

70% population of Talengana belongs to schedule

castes, schedule tribes and OBC, it became a

formidable alliance. Moreover its leaders argued

that Andhra gets large allocation of central funds on

account of composition of population of Talengana

and not in the rest of Andhra. For devolution of

funds by the Finance Commission, was based on

25% for population and 75% for backwardness.

Thus Talengana, if made a separate state, will be

financial viable.

The brief survey of various experiments made to

tackle the Talengana problem showed that they

were on ad hoc basis and on short term palliatives.

Instead of quick fix solutions under duress, action

should be taken anticipating problem in a

comparatively normal atmosphere.

I had an opportunity of visiting Talengana and

meeting its leaders, rank and file and common

people in various parts of the region in 1998. I also

discussed various proposals with the champions of

united Andhra. I tried to evolve an agreement

between the leaders of the two groups on all

contentious issues, including relative level of

development, share in government services and

basis of allocation of funds and future of

Hyderabad which has a unique cultural identity and

centre of modern technology.

Broadly I mooted the idea of a sub-state for

Talengana. The idea sub-state was first mooted by

Prof D R Gadgil, first deputy chairman of the

Planning Commission. Under it each region in

every state was to have a sub legislate with political

authority to legislature on the subjects allocated to

the regions and to administer the departments

dealing with these subjects, including recruitment

to these departments. Thus economic, political and

cultural urges of each region would be satisfied.

Srikrishna report’s “most workable” option

provides for Regional Councils but without

political powers and without being elected.

Mr. Krishna Kant, who was then the Governor of

Andhra and whose guest I was, told me that he

would propose to the chief minister to appoint me

with some authority to pursue my ideas. As Mr.

Krishna Kant moved to the centre as Vice President

of India, he could not follow up his proposal.

Now my formula may be appear to Talengana a

case of too little too late. However, interests of

Raylseema and coastal region can be

accommodated in Hyderabad which has been

jointly built in its present form by not only whole of

Andhra but outsiders also. Moreover, with 41%

Muslim population, who inherit unique cultural

heritage also entitle it to a special status as a part of

Talengana and its capital by giving it an elected

authority of deal with its civic problems, cultural

matters and demands of its growing technology.

Above all most relevant lesson of Talengana

experience is that regional and sub-regional

sentiments can more easily be satisfied if tackled at

right time. The fear that submission to them would

weaken national unity is misplaced. Similar fear

was expressed when linguistic states were formed.

In fact that strengthened national unity. If for

32


instance, formation of Punjabi Suba was not

delayed for ten years after the whole country was

reorganized on linguistic basis, later troubles in the

state could have bee avoided. In fact Hindus of

Punjab damaged their own interest by disowning

their own mother tongue and opposing Punjabi

Suba. When it was formed, some Punjabi speaking

Hindus like Chandigarh, and part of Harayana and

Himachal declared their mother tongue to be Hindi

and were responsible for the exclusion of these

areas from the new Punjab state which reduced its

Hindu majority to a minority.

Now the urges of Gorkhaland, in West Bengal,

Vidharba in Maharashtra, Saurashtra in Gujarat,

Poorvanchal , Budhelkhand, Harit Pradesh in the

UP. Mithula Pradesh in Bihar and some tribes in

North east, are instances which need to be satisfied,

either through separate statehood or status of sub

states. Jammu and Kashmir state is most diverse

state of the country. There are special reasons, on

account of which it should not be divided. Instead

its three main regions deserve to be given regional

autonomy which would ensure its emotional and

political unity and satisfy regional aspirations as

was agreed by Pandit Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah

as part of the Delhi Agreement in 1952.

33


Humanist News:

Workshop on Humanist Values in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India, on 29th & 30th Jan. 2011

A workshop is being organized for two days under the joint auspicious of Gujarat Mumbai Rationalist

Association & the Humanist monthly namely Vaishvik Manavvad in Ahmedabad- Gujarat State, India

on 29th & 30th January, 2011 in the premises of Naya Marg fortnightly, at Khet Bhavan, Near Gandhi

Ashram, Ashram Road, Ahmedabad, 380 027. Topics for the two days workshop are as follows:

(1) Freedom as the prime value amongst all other values.

Speakers: Bipin Shroff & Manishi Jani.

(2) Rationalism as the second Humanist Value

Speakers: Ashwin Karia & Uarvish Kothari

(3) Secular Morality as the third Humanist Value

Speaker: Dinesh Shukla.

(4) Materalism

Speaker: Dhawal Mehta.

After each speaker’s paper a question-answer session will follow. Around 100 participants have

pre-confirmed their presence in the workshop; and motivated by this response they have planned to

conduct such Humanist Workshops in different districts of Gujarat State in the coming year 2011 under

the banner of Gujarat Radical Humanist Association.

Gautam Thaker, Secretary, IRHA, Gujarat unit, has taken the charge of preparing print copies of all

papers which are to be read by various speakers in sufficient numbers to be distributed among the

delegates of Workshop.

Special efforts are being made by Gautam Thakar, Secretary, IRHA, Gujarat,

[email protected], Bipin Shroff, Editor, Vaishvik Manavvad, and Kiran Trivedi, Secretary,

Gujarat Mumbai Rationalist Association, in organizing this workshop.

Complete details of the technical sessions will follow in March 2011 issue of the RH.

News sent by BipinShroff ([email protected])

Techers’ & Research Scholrs’ Section:

Desire, Will And Happiness

Many people want or desire a lot of

things. But they should have the Will to

pursue their happiness (also reason and conscience

must give consent to) the Will to progress in such a

pursuit. Stronger the will stronger the character.

Will power is said to have magical strengths. It can

move mountains. Through his Will man can change

more than anything else, his own self. A strong

willed person is more likely to win in a running

race. Will has strong powers over the body. It also

has strong powers over the mind. An introvert

through Will and conscious effort can become an

extrovert. Will can change habits. An alcoholic

may abstain from drinking if he finds sufficient

motivation and applies his Will.

While desire provides willingness to undertake an

activity, it is the strength of Will which provides the

impetus for action it moves the man to put effort

and acquire the desired.

We come to the question, what produces Will? Is it

developed in childhood and is a part of personality?

A passive man when finds a purpose in life,

becomes strong willed to obtain it. Even there are

instances when Will moved a man to give away his

life for a cause in which he found a worthy ideal. A

strong desire supports Will. When man wants

something desperately, he is willing to go to any

extent to acquire his desired objective.

Man can even come out of physical diseases

through Will. A depressed man if motivated to find

interest in life can apply his Will and can come out

of depression.

Will while can mobilize the body, it also can

restrain the body. It can lead to strong actions when

activity is desired; it can also make a man abstain

from pleasures, if that is desired. Desire and Will

are mutual supporters and strong companions.

Will improves concentration and concentration

removes distraction and confusion and thus

clarifies the intellect which, in turn, strengthens the

Will.

A bad desire can be avoided through concentration

on good thoughts. Though for this conscious effort

to contemplate the positive, good thought must be

made. Of course in the first place, Will or

willingness to avoid a bad desire must have been

there. It is the Will that orders the intellect to act.

And this Will is because of a realization of the

virtue in the morality.

Strong Will energizes the body and aggression

becomes natural to man. But if intellect through its

realization creates desire for non-aggression, then

“Will” will cause the intellect to focus on passivity

and the body can be brought to restraint.

So we have seen that intellect shapes desire and

desire takes Will along with it. Intellect has

capacity through its conscious knowledge, to

interact with the sub-conscious instinct and

produce desire. And desire creates tendencies

which are magnified by Will or strength of Will to

direct man for passion. Passion can also be for

passivity. This way knowledge is influential to

regulate the Will.

Happiness through Will: In the pursuit of

happiness, Will uses its powers to apply the man to

acquire his desired objective. But Will is also

blunted by circumstances. A poor man if has high

Will power but either no ability or opportunity will

face failure in his life.

To some extent man can try to overcome

circumstantial disadvantage but may or may not

succeed. Man acquires part of himself from birth,

partly from family situation and some part is

34


Tarun Patnaik

shaped by consciousness. A child by the time of

acquiring sufficient Will is quite a bit

manufactured. His personality and character are

already formed to a great extent. Will has to make

use of what is available in its task.

But life events come as discontinuities to change

the course of life. Meeting with a great person /

finding love in life / marriage / getting a good job

opportunity / death of a dear one are some of life

events that change man’s circumstance. And in the

changed circumstance, “Will” will find a different

playground. These events may have come by

chance or through deliberate effort, but that is

immaterial.

It is supposed that 50% of man’s happiness is

because of biology and only 50% depend on him.

Success of Will or acquiring the desired may or

may not result in lasting happiness. In the days of

consumerism, the desire keeps on shifting and is

never satiated, so Will even if strong can not result

in lasting happiness. Will knows only to acquire, it

has no control on the emotion that follows the

acquisition.

Man consciously does not seek happiness, he seeks

what he believes will result in happiness. His this

belief may be true or may be wrong.

A lover weds his beloved with the intention of

leading a happy life but it may just happen that the

marriage becomes an utter disaster, for love was

blind and there is not much wisdom backing love.

So Will and wisdom are both necessary for a good

life.

Will is extinguished once it acquires the desired.

Man becomes content and satisfied. And a

contented man soon finds boredom and no lasting

happiness. So, happiness is there in struggle, in

pursuit, in action. And not in consummation.

Intellect and instinct shape desire, desire shows the

goal to Will, Will provides the energy to put effort

and effort tries to acquire.

But still the acquisition may not result in happiness.

Usually acquisition does result in temporary relish

but it may not last long.

Will is always the cause of action, Will provides the

impetus to undertake activity but we may or may

not be satisfied through action. One should find

happiness in the path, in the pursuit, even if it does

not result in acquisition. Thus, an ordinary man

may have extraordinary dreams.

In our world Will has no morals. If desire is not

virtuous, the man is sure to become unethical and

an extreme anti-social. The terrorists and criminals

have very strong Will. So while Will is virtue,

wisdom is virtue, the ethical pursuance is also a

major virtue.

Will is the cause of strong emotions. Anger,

Anguish and Frustration are products of Will.

When strong Will is obstructed, it may result in

Anger or Anguish or Frustration depending on the

temperament and attitude of the person. Also when

the action runs against the Will, Will is suppressed,

it finds expression in Anger.

Kindness and compassion are deep emotions.

While Will has height and intensity, kindness and

compassion have a tendency to slower the heart

beat as they have depth and passivity. When Will

supports kindness, generous actions follow.

When a person is dominated and oppressed usually

anger is induced, but anger can be avoided through

understanding and the experience of sorrow.

Non-violence can be cultured and anger subdued

even on the face of oppression through the

application of Will to control the self. Self control

is also the product of Will but only when an attitude

is created towards non-fulfillment of the raw desire.

In us there may be an aversion or dislike for a

person and strong Will should produce hate and

hatred but hatred can be averted by intellect

through understanding which creates tolerance.

Emotions are the result of Will and attitude.

Attitude is created by understanding and intellect.

Thus if we want to culture positive emotions, we

should work on attitude.

The enmity of Islamic extremists towards those

who they think are enemies of Islam nurtures hatred

and anger, and Will and Anger mutually amplify

35


each other to produce strong actions. We can

extinguish their anger only by changing their

attitude. And attitude can be learned. Extremists

can not be taught to like the targets of their hatred

through teaching the virtue of personal happiness,

because they do not seek personal happiness, they

need to be convinced that there is no reason or

rationale for enmity. We need to appeal to their

emotion which will be caused by rationality once

our image in their mind is changed.

So Will does not want to feel happy it merely wants

to accomplish the desired. Criminals have strong

Will but usually they are not happy. But simple

criminals do not have any ideology or a cause for

which they want to fight; they merely pursue their

criminal activity thinking it might give them

happiness. In such case, just the education that what

they think will give them happiness in reality will

not, can lead to reduce their criminal tendencies.

Punishment or threat of punishment tries to

introduce fear and fear tries to change the Will by

obstructing it but this may result in anger or

frustration and a person can still succumb to his

criminal or extremist tendency by loosing control

over the self.

Very strong Will may result in anger and frustration

and weak Will may result in confusion; and both

lead to loss of self control. So, moderate Will is

good for self control. Moderate Will is most likely

to result in happiness in life.

Medication can also be made to work on the brain

to control Will. There are medicines just to make a

man feel happy. So, medical intervention to control

mind is a contribution of modern science to control

feelings.

Mr. Tarun Patnaik, an engineer from IIT

Kharagpur, resigned from the corporate sector, to

study social sciences, philosophy, psychology,

economics and management. Currently at

residence in Rayagada, Orissa and engaged in free

lance research. He may be contacted at Hatipathar

Road, Raniguda Farm, Rayagada, Orissa, 765001.

Mob. 91-8093867395

36


Book Review Section:

[BOOK: An Essay on Upanishads (A Critical

Study): V.R. Narla (1989) [87P] Published by

Narla Institute of New Thought]

Reviewed by Kavneet Singh

Narla Venkateswara Rao (1908-1989) a

critical thinker and humanist, by far a

giant among men of Andhra Pradesh who has over

30 books to his credit on various subjects of human

interest, including religion and history. The editor

of the Andhra Prabha and the Andhra Jyothi dailies,

he wielded the pen with the deftness of an Olympic

fencer. Narla has written a scathing critique of the

Upanishads and its deadly influence over society.

Chapter 1. Grass Farmers: W.B. Yeats, despite his

limited acquaintance with the Upanishads, could

discern that the authors were “grass farmers”. It is

an apt description of the Upanishadic sages,

rishis…they liked good food and drink and lived

full lives. When their income as officiating priests

at bloody sacrifices fell steeply owing to growing

hostility towards those sacrifices, they started to

move out of the villages [Page 238]. The

collaboration of the king and the priest brought

about the Upanishads, but with the priest being the

final maker, ending up as its master, its lord and its

very god as Narla puts it aptly. Herding cattle and

agriculture was everything 2,000 years ago and

dairy farming loomed large among the primitive

Hindus too! Encroachment of the forests by fire or

clear-cutting was the only way to expand village

economies.

Chapter 2. Students as Herdsmen: Max Muller

did see, along with the much that is bad, some good.

We want to know, not their wisdom only, but their

folly also [Page 240]. Revered by today’s Hindus,

Max Mueller the guru of modern translations of

most of the Hindu scriptures did not mince words

when he clearly enunciated that there is abundance

of very contradictory information in the holy texts.

Chapter 3. Priestly Philosophers: Slyvan Levi,

one of the greatest of French Indologists deposes

thus: It is difficult to imagine anything more brutal

and more material than the theology of

Brahmanism. Notions which usage afterwards

gradually reined, and clothed with the garb of

morality, take us aback by their savage realism.

Morality finds no place in this system [Page 243].

A very slick (business) system contrived to really

make money, create blind faith and finally shackle

the commoners in perpetuity to be robbed of pretty

much everything including their self respect. E.W.

Hopkins, states; as to the fee, the rules are precise

and their propounders are unblushing. The priest

performs the sacrifice for the fee alone, and it must

consist of valuable garments, wine, horses, or gold

[Page 243]. Nothing has changed today, except

being paid with valuables such as gold, diamonds

but mostly unaccounted, untaxed hard cash.

According to Max Weber the German sociologist

of international repute, the Brahman accepted only

gifts (dakhshina), not pay. The giving of gifts for

the use of their services was, of course, a ritualistic

duty….Righteous vengeance was actually

developed into a methodical procedure, “true

orgies of covetousness”…..[Page 244]. A self

created magical incantations supposedly to connect

with the Almighty by deluding the common

worshipper who cannot understand an iota of the

entire ritualistic procedures except the satisfaction

of paying a ransom to appease the angry gods.

Arthur Berriedale Keith, Regius Professor of

Sanskrit at the university of Edinburgh states: “A

final proof of the brutal morality of the priest can be

adduced in the position assigned to women: women

in India have always suffered much from all

religions but by none has she been so thoroughly

despised as the Brahmans…The wife is half of a

man…she is ritually impure, and must be covered

with a girdle, even if many women are together and

there is a small boy, he takes precedence of them

all. They are inferior even to a bad man [Page 245].

It is incredibly demeaning to half the population, in

fact, without whom there would be no men.

Richard Garbe states; “Priest-craft has attained to a

power in India unparalleled in the history of other

nations, and its no exaggeration to say that

37


priest-rule was the ruin of the country. Even in the

earliest periods of Indian antiquity, as revealed to

us in the songs of the Rig-Veda, we meet priests in a

manner peculiarly agreeable to the gods, we can

follow the beginnings of the Indian caste system

which at the bottom is a product of priestly

selfishness and weighs upon the Indian people like

a nightmare even to the present day [Page 245].

Today, in 2010 the same Brahmins still wield

unbridled clout to the levers of power on the very

top echelons of the country’s political system while

continuing to maintain the old status quo, except

for putting on the façade of non-violence through

M.K. Gandhi and allowing very slow subtle

changes albeit strengthening their own positions

meanwhile. Anyone trying to get out of the

vice-like hold of the Brahmins is put down through

state sponsored pogroms and genocides, of which

there have been countless since India’s

independence under the garb of ethnic or religious

“riots”!

Chapter 4. The Persisting Genes: R.D. Ranade

said “that of blood sucking activity of the ghoulish

demon which saps the fountain of both devotion

and reason and leaves us in the arid wastes of

witcheries and incantations.” [Page 247]. Even

great scholar such as Ranade denounces the

Brahmins of the Upanishads. The word Vidya,

“knowledge,” means in classical Sanskrit also

“magic,” [Page 249]. All the Hindu holy texts

primarily consist of magic incantations and not

much else of real substance. “By the skilful use of

those shams, he maintains his primacy in society

and rivets the shackles of fear, ignorance,

superstition, dogma and servility on the mind of his

fellowmen all the more tightly.” [Page 251] That is

precisely the scam that the priestly class continues

to use till today with ever more refinements.

Chapter 5. A Forest, Rank and Dank: I came

across a little book in English named

Khistopanishad (Christ Upanishad). The

production of the Upanishads is a non-stop process.

One of the latest authors of an Upanishad is Purohit

Swami, and the name of his concoction is Sadguru

Upanishad. As Madhavanada Swami observed

correctly: “The Sanskrit of the Upanishads is so

archaic, and the grammar is so flexible, that a clever

imitator can easily compose a work that will look

like a genuine Upanishad. [Page 252] This clearly

goes to the fact that Brahmins, have continuously

created and concocted the Upanishads and still do,

so that all the magical mumbo-jumbo in the texts

continue to allure and transfix the victims into

emptying their pockets in perpetuity. The

Upanishads are uneven in length; some are

inordinately long and boring while some others are

all too brief. [Page 254] Some are in prose, some in

verse and the rest are a mish mash of both.

Chapter 6. Pick and Choose: D.D. Kosambi had

chosen to call it, “a senseless, inconsistent, chaotic

mass.” Kosambi a Hindu and one of the foremost

researchers of Hindu texts has used very strong

language to make his point but as Narla points out

that is more of an understatement. And yet, it was

passing muster for a fully developed Buddhistic

philosophy. To counter it, Adi Sankaracharya

wanted to bring up a Hindu philosophy. For this

purpose, he utilized the Upanishads, the Brahma

Sutra and the Bhagvad Gita. He grafted on them

some concepts of Mahayan Buddhism such as the

theory of illusion…….it was from Sankara’s time

that the Upanishads, the Brahma Sutra and the

Bhagvad Gita have come to be accepted as the

“Prasthanatrayi”, the triad of the Hindu canon.

[Page 255] The chief architect of Hinduism was

Adi Sankarcharya of modern Kerala who used

concepts from Jainism and Buddhism and placed

them onto all those previously written literature to

further tighten the noose around all the

non-Brahmins who were literally more than 95% of

the population. Sankara, was a master of

‘suppression veri suggestion falsi’….The logic

advanced by Brahmins took care to avoid all

reality. The end result is seen in the philosophy of

the great Sankara……lip service to Vedic yajna

blood sacrifices accompanied by ahimsa

(non-killing) that the…..smriti scriptures also

contain a table of various types of meat that was fed

38


to Brahmin guests at a feast for the souls of

departed ancestors. The ability to swallow logical

contradictions wholesale also left its stamp upon

the Indian national character. [Page 256] If there is

any spirituality within the confines of the

Upanishads it has been injected by the

Sankarachyras to give the texts a facade of

religiosity but in reality all the texts reek of a

sinister agenda to control the helpless victims.

Chapter 7. Dark Room, Black Cat: Rande: “They

[the Upanishads] are the work of a rude age, a

deteriorated race and a barbarous and

unprogressive community.”Albert Scheweitzer

writes: is not homogenous, but lacks unity and

completeness. Maurice Bloomfield thinks: “Like

all Vedic thought, the thought of Upanishads is not

systematic but tentative, fanciful and even

romantic…wavering and conflicting. [Page 258]

There is no single unified systematic system by

which any logical person can understand the entire

structure and make any sense of it. Primarily

multiple authors have inconsistent doctrines and

dogmas all mish mashed together.

Chapter 8. Enters the Brahman: The fundamental

thought of all the Upanishads by the simple

equation: Brahman = Atman…..It is the same story

with Atman, too. About its nature, contradictory

assertions are made. Again, yes and no…It is all

exasperatingly indefinite, sickeningly evasive. And

so Deussens equation should be amended thus:

Brahman = Atman = 0. [Page 263] Most of the

Upanishads are not rational and do not make much

sense, therefore what is irrational should be ignored

or discarded, which is most of it.

Chapter 9. Exits the Man: As Arun Shourie

explains with keen and bold insight, “The mundane

is not being raised; the Divine is being brought

down. Ultimately the profane is pursued in the

pretext of pursuing the Divine. The pursuit of the

Divine gets bogged down in mere externalism –

images and amulets and pilgrimages and rituals. It

drives hypocrisy into our very being. [Page 265]

All women are simply treated as objects and vessels

to merge with Brahman. Nature is not savored;

instead the real world is being shunned as it is an

illusion. No wonder the followers of these

antiquated texts are world class hypocrites.

Chapter 10. Two Demon Children: They pertain

to the dogmas of karma and rebirth (punarjanma).

They are the demon-children of the Upanishadic

Age…While Yajnavalkya was the father of the

dogma karma, Pravahana Jaivali was the foster

father of the dogma of punarjanma……Taken

together, the two diabolical dogmas of karma and

punarjanma, justify every social inequality or

inequity. Why is one a “god on earth” another an

untouchable? [Pages 266-267] Karma and rebirth

has been used as the two ‘black magic’ words

against most of humanity to suppress and oppress

them. Kudos, to them who concocted such a

devious scheme under the veil of religion to

subsume and have pretty much the entire

population submit to the yoke of the two magic

words!

Chapter 11. Bluff as Chief Ally: Bluff is the

natural ally of dogma. Unless backed by bluff, and

backed strongly, dogma cannot win the day. In

many ways, Yajnavalkya was typical of the

Upnaishadic Age. Its spokesmen were dogmatic,

they pretended to know a lot, and they bluffed a lot

we were asked to revere them as the greatest

thinkers as men who had a hot line to God… [Pages

268-270] All fluff and very little substance is

something which is not quite palatable easily,

hence the bombastic writings which are mostly

irrational and ill-conceived cannot pass muster of

any kind of ethical and rationally organized

philosophy.

Chapter 12. Salvation for Sale: Priests do

everything for a fee. They officiate for you at a

sacrifice for a fee, they perform pooja on your

behalf for a fee, they invoke the blessings of gods

for a fee, and they teach you for a fee. [Page 270]

No one seems to question the validity of an

intermediary performing magic incantations or

mantras (praying) on your behalf to invoke the

39


blessings of the 33 million gods. How can mantras

help one to reach ‘heaven’ or guarantee salvation is

the ultimate question? Yajnavalkya uniformly

collected a fee, and a fat one that. He was a rishi

with no inhibitions. [Page 271] All rishis were

living normally till typically at the tail end of their

lives when they went into the forests to become

ascetics. They spent a great deal of time amassing

all kinds of wealth and property. The Brahmin

rishi’s chief weapon was education, knowing the

archaic Sanskrit language, which everyone of them

used, to create magic mantras while firmly

disallowing anyone else from educating

themselves; incase a non-Brahmin learns the tricks

of their ultra lucrative-slimy trade.

Chapter 13. “Iti Rahasyam”: The biggest bluff of

insofar as the Upanishads and their authors are

concerned is to pretend that they have something

secret to teach. The literal meaning of Upanishad is,

no doubt, “to seat oneself before someone (for the

purpose of instruction).” But it has also the

extended meaning of “secret learning.” [Page 273]

The greatest secret of all of the Upanishads and all

the other Hindu texts is that there is no secret

because the Brahmins want to lead everyone into

‘Om’ the void of nothingness!

............................Contd. in the March 2011 issue

Mr Kavaneet hails from India and is now settled in

USA. He is a voratious reader and regularly writes

reviews of books in various journals. He is a

rationalist and secular thinker.


40

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