Good debate over Good Friday

The perennial conflict between the individual and the institution came into sharp focus; when the Supreme Court organised the conference of judges and chief ministers in New Delhi during the Easter weekend. Justice Kurian Joseph objected to the event being held on a Christian holiday. The Chief Justice of India (CJI) wrote back saying “institutional interest should be given preference to individual interest” and highlighted the need to strike a balance between needs of the institution and family commitments.

The CJI had a point. Two Christian chief justices of High Courts – N Paul Vasanthakumar and K M Joseph attended the conference. Former justices K T Thomas and R C Lahoti found nothing objectionable in holding the conference during Easter holidays. Evidently Justice Kurian was alone and did not like the “tenor” of the response from India’s Chief Justice. In his dissenting voice the judge ended up bringing to the fore the conflict between individual faith and institutional integrity.

Outside the realm of the judiciary, Justice Kurian received some support as can be viewed from the “tenor” of media reports. Apparently most of the media did not see the conflict that the CJI had mentioned. For them it was a good story that illustrated the non-secular bias of the present government. Little did they care about the fact that such an event had earlier taken place five years ago. It was not mandatory for the protesting justice to attend the conference, since he was not senior enough. It is important to mention that the calendar for the event was drawn up long ago, in November 2014; and the justice objected to the event only in March 2015. Was the objection from Justice Kurian an afterthought?

If one looks at the arguments raised by the media objectively one cannot miss the conclusion that the media, too, winked at objectivity, for the sake of a well crafted report. Clearly the “tenor” of media reports illustrates the conflict between institutional responsibility and individual choice. The media had a responsibility to ask counter-questions to the dissenting judge, which it did not. In the end, the image of judiciary, one of India’s pillars of democracy, got unnecessarily sullied. Unfortunately the event is not an aberration but a norm in our country now. Take minister Giriraj Singh and how he commented on Congress president Sonia Gandhi. Singh did not observe the rules of civilized behavior, while talking to  his cronies. Clearly he had no idea what image he was inadvertently painting of his party and government. His is a glaring case of a lack of understanding of ‘institutional responsibility.’

This inability to draw a line plagues any civilized debate in our country. A former apex court judge wrote that Mahatma Gandhi was a British agent. “By constantly injecting religion into politics continuously for several decades, Gandhi furthered the British policy of divide and rule,” he wrote in his blog. He went on to say that by diverting the freedom struggle from revolutionary movements to a nonsensical channel called satyagraha; the Mahatma effectively helped the British. The blogger is neither a historian nor known for his incisive record as a judge. Clearly this was another effort to promote himself by castigating the nation’s well-acknowledged history of freedom struggle. In the guise of free speech a former judge broke the civilized rules of debate.

Etiquette may go to the dogs; or so feel those who bask in the false sense of pride by breaking the ‘Laxman-Rekha’ of civility and honour. Thus the civil aviation minister’s ‘proud’ claim that  he carries a matchbox in aircrafts, since he is not frisked by our security men. Another minister, attacked wrongly by some in media, used unsavory language to describe the media. The other side of the same coin is when the affected media person takes it up as an offer to counter-abuse. All these are instances of people having a false sense of aura and believing that they are greater than the institutions that created a role for them in the first place. The problem arises because of said individual’s reluctance to accept the opponent’s point of view. In a democracy the accepted norm is that the majority prevails. In the democratic form of government; the majority is decided at an interval of every five years in India, when elections take place. While those having the mandate will have the final say in any public policy debate, those in the opposition have the responsibility to acknowledge the right of those having the mandate. To cite an example: The Non Governmental Organisations protesting mining in Mahaan must know when to stop. Many cross that line with wanton support from sectarian interests. The Greenpeace effort to take the mining debate over Essar’s coal block to some British lawmakers is a case in point. Does Greenpeace have the right to hurt the sovereign right of India? This is case of a group of activists assuming a ‘holier than thou’ stance in a civilized debate. This is a case of the puffed up egos of some individuals using their institutions to serve their own vested interests; thus impacting the sovereign’s right to decide on the greater good. 

Technology has become useful as an instrument of dissent in this conflict between individuals and institutions. In a competitive world, dissent sells. On many occasions in hindsight it has been seen that such dissenting movements were ill conceived. The Arab Spring is a case in point. The entire Arab world is still suffering the consequences of the uprising; with the great ideas of freedom getting subsumed in the greater force of dictatorial ambition of many.  On a smaller scale the armed rebels in certain tribal areas are caught in a similar trap. The extreme administrative corruption has mutated into the other extreme of use of force by armed brigades. Interestingly in all such conflicts the spark comes from a near universally acceptable grievance. But the participants and subsequent developments cause a greater harm to the cause of that very issue. The question is who can act as the referee and steer the move for the greater good. Luckily for us we had Mahatma Gandhi to steer India through. In Pakistan Quaid-i-Azam Jinnah, despite being a dynamic modern personality, failed. 

Those of us who are in the profession of commenting on modern Indian history-media for example-will do well to remember history before jumping to one side or the other. Only then can we have good, enriching debates.