There are moments when a democracy must pause to ask: who protects its moral compass when politics falters, when expediency overwhelms principle, and when power forgets accountability? Chief Justice of India B.R. Gavai’s reflections in Kathmandu offer one such pause. He reminded us that the Supreme Court of India has not only safeguarded the bedrock of the Constitution but has also embraced the responsibility of adapting to new challenges—whether in the realm of privacy, gender justice, or environmental rights. His words carried the quiet authority of a judge, but their resonance was unmistakably political: courts are not mere dispute-settlers, they are the guardians of national values. In India, this is hardly a new realisation. Our judiciary has long walked the tightrope between restraint and activism, sometimes faltering, but often rising to occasions where legislatures and executives failed. The expansion of Article 21, which transformed the “right to life” into a fountain of liberties—health, education, dignity—was no accident of drafting; it was a conscious embrace of a living Constitution. Similarly, judgments on sexual orientation, women’s rights, and environmental safeguards demonstrate how the judiciary has repeatedly looked beyond the letter to the spirit of the law. These interventions have not merely corrected injustices; they have shaped how society imagines itself.
Yet the Chief Justice’s remarks were also timely warnings. A court too timid risks irrelevance; a court too ambitious risks overreach. Around the world, the struggle to maintain this balance is plain. In the United States, the Supreme Court’s deeply polarising rulings on abortion and affirmative action have reignited questions about judicial legitimacy and whether judges interpret or impose values. In Israel, mass protests against judicial reforms show how central the courts have become to the very identity of a democracy. Even in the United Kingdom, Brexit battles reminded citizens that courts can suddenly stand at the vortex of political storms. India is not insulated from these currents. It shares the same dilemma: how to ensure the judiciary is independent enough to check power, yet humble enough not to claim it. What makes the Indian story distinct is the judiciary’s willingness, over decades, to read the Constitution as an integrated whole rather than a set of clauses frozen in time. This “purposive, context-sensitive approach,” as Justice Gavai called it, is what has allowed courts to recognise emergent rights in a digital era or to hold the state accountable for climate inaction. The judiciary, in this telling, is not a passive guardian of yesterday’s principles but an active architect of tomorrow’s justice. It is a bridge between aspiration and reality, a voice that echoes the demands of citizens often unheard in political corridors. But this role comes with weighty responsibilities. The moral authority of the courts depends less on their power of contempt than on their power of persuasion. Reasoned judgments, transparent processes, and intellectual humility are the currency of judicial trust. The danger lies in courts appearing partisan or cloaked in opacity—risks that could corrode the very legitimacy that empowers them. A proactive judiciary must always ask itself: are we enlarging liberty, or are we substituting our preferences for those of the people? That self-doubt, paradoxically, is the surest mark of strength.
Chief Justice Gavai’s acknowledgment of Nepal’s judicial strides—its rulings on gender justice, privacy, and indigenous rights—also hints at a deeper truth: constitutional courts in young democracies share a common project. They are not simply national institutions; they are nodes in a global struggle to align law with humanity’s evolving conscience. India’s Supreme Court, with its scale and legacy, can play a leadership role here, showing that fidelity to constitutional spirit can coexist with boldness in interpretation. As India braces for the next wave of challenges—artificial intelligence disrupting privacy, climate change reshaping livelihoods, social polarisation testing cohesion—the judiciary’s task will only grow harder. It will be called upon to speak when legislatures hesitate, to protect when executives overreach, and to remind all of us that democracy’s true measure is not the might of governments but the dignity of its weakest citizens. That is not activism; it is the very essence of constitutionalism. In the end, Justice Gavai’s words remind us that the judiciary is not a distant temple of law but a living conscience of democracy. Courts may not command armies or write budgets, but they hold something far greater—the authority to interpret the values by which a nation chooses to live. To be guardian and catalyst at once is a difficult burden, but it is the burden that keeps democracy honest.