India doesn't want to know

This essay is a continuation of this previous essay.

“Both parties, however, agreed on the need to codify the laws of India's communities”

Ironically, Jones translated Manu Smriti into English. After this, British courts ruled Hindus according to it, and Muslims according to Sharia which he also translated. The British for the most part, did not mess around with Hindu law, on marriage (including polygamy and child marriage), caste, food habits, property rights, temple administration, festivals, rituals, etc. They siezed whole kingdoms from kings, they killed Indian shipping, they indulged in the slave trade etc, but this was par for the course. The greatest change they implemented was the abolition of sati, which was a practice limited to royalty, and a few very very rich Indians, with pretensions of royalty. 

If both the Anglicists and the Orientalists agreed on the “need to codify the laws of Indian communities,” they did very little about it. People like John Shore, the head of the East India Company, who later became Lord Teignmouth, and wrote a biography of William Jones, were passionately Christian, and wrote reams of paper hoping to turn India into a Christian country (Jones himself also wrote letters professing deep Christian belief, and wishing the benevolence of Christianity upon this poor pagan nation, once glorious, now decayed), but one wonders if they were playing to the gallery in London; especially to morally opprobious critics of the like of Edmund Burke. Jones may have been defending himself of the grave charge of turning Hindu himself, like Charles Stuart before him.

What Indians miss, especially Hindus, is how dramatically England and Europe transformed – socially, economically, politically – during this Orientalist phase. Far far far more than India. The industrial revolution, Adam Smith’s economics, the defeat of four Napoleons, the terrifying possibility of the French revolution repeating elsewhere, exposure to very different and strange countries and cultures, the astounding heritage of these cultures, rediscovered by Orientalists, increasing literacy in Europe, increasing living standards, all had a transformative effect – very much like the transformation China has undergone in the last forty years, since Deng Xiaoping’s reforms. Discoveries in biology, like fossils and dinosaurs, microbes and inoculation, drastically reduced the power of the Church, and increased the influence of intellectuals and scientists. The overthrow of the four elements theory by Lavoisier was as significant as the discoveries of Newton and Galileo, or Darwin’s theory of evolution, but it doesn’t get even a fraction of the attention. Different denominations of churches spurted out in England, especially, and a vast army of curates and vicars and bishops and clergy, deeply delved into science – remember Gregor Mendel was a monk; and Darwin almost became a priest.

Joseph Priestley, who discovered carbon dioxide, that plants and animals breathed differently, and produced “different airs”, started his own church, which was burnt down, and he escaped England into the welcoming arms of Thomas Jefferson’s America.

India did not become more English during this era. England became less English.

The single biggest legal social and political reform in India was the abolition of slavery, in 1843. They sepoy mutiny, the abolition of sati, the abolition of untouchability(yes, even that), raising the age of marriage, abolition of princely kingdoms, abolition of the devadasi system, transformation from monarchy to democracy, the unification of 540 kingdoms and zamindari territories, the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan – the two world wars, the famines(yes, even famines), the plagues – all of these pale into comparison, when you consider the abolition of slavery. It is the elephant in the room of history that nobody talks about.

Neither the Anglicists nor the Orientalists in the 1780s even imagined that particular reform. Slavery was still in vogue in Europe. They didn’t imagine the French revolution or the steam engine either. Slavery was abolished in India, not because there were raging social movements or national hunger strikes or threat of revolution by Indian soldiers in the British or other armed forces, but because, in my opinion, technology made it possible to live in a human society without slavery. This is my opinion, I may be totally wrong. Who imagined that the USA would elect a half-black President in 2008, that he would invade Libya, destroy it - and bring back slave markets?! Or that it would be completely not worthy of news or discussion, at all? Well 1843 seems to be a good precursor to this.

Are there any monuments, statues, memorial buildings, celebratory festivals, durbars, even nautch performances celebrating the abolition of slavery in India? Too inconvenient. It is simply not in the collective conscience of the country.

Almost every single Indian pretends that colonial rule itself was a form of slavery, while Indians owning, selling, buying other Indians was nothing significant or egregious. One explanation is that colonial powers merely replaced it with indentured labor, which was “practically the same as slavery”, so they should not get any credit whatsover. Indentured labour was terrible, but it wasn’t slavery. But it may easier to expain algebra to a snail, than convince anyone of this.

We seem to believe that Abraham Lincoln ended slavery in the USA, and the rest of the world magically eradicated it too. Except slavery ended in India, twenty years BEFORE Lincoln ended it in the USA.

We love to pretend that 1947 was the end of real slavery.

Also we simply don’t study the history of law in India. I think most people believe law is something the British gave us. If we don’t, we secretly believe British law was far better than Hindu law, but we don’t want to be caught praising them.

Back to the Indian Constitution.

Only in 1947 did we decide that none of our ancient Smritis is relevant. The Constituent Assembly created a Constitution, guided by those of the USA, France, USSR, Ireland etc with long history in Roman law. We chose a unitary over a federal constitution, parliamentary versus presidential form of government, universal adult franchise, abolition of untouchability.

This replaced the Hindu legal system. Notice that I say Hindu  legal system, not Hindu law. Hindu law has a long history of reform, including under British rule. We learn nothing about Hindu law in schools, in society, in art, in literature, in public entertainment, or even in social discourse.  It is all about how the Gandhi led Congress was heroically fighting the British.  One of these days, we will have a history book that tells us General Manekshaw liberated Bangladesh by going on a salt satyagraha in Dhaka and a hunger strike in Chittagong. It will be a two mark question in a history exam, and by God, two marks in a test are more important than actual history.

Manu was not the only smriti of India, it was one of eighteen, but definitely the most popular and widely used. There were several overlapping concepts among these smritis, and as inscriptions of kings through several centuries attest, a scholar need only know one of these to be a royal official, minister, judge etc. I consider these smritis as akin to the aadhara shruti of a Carnatic singer or traditional singer vs the standardized frequencies in western music, which I think are akin to the unitary Constitutions of almost every democracy. In fact, we see this dominant unitary global standard in European thought - the SI units, universal human rights, Generally Accepted Accounting Practices(GAAP), patent law, architecture standards, road standards, uniform sizes of shipping containers, banking standards, internet protocols, 110V/240V, etc.

• Different agamas for different temples
• Choice of astronomy texts - Surya Siddhanta or Pitamaha siddhanta or another, and hence the calendar, almanac or panchangam
• Choice of silpa sastras for temple, house, and town planning
• a variety of religious philosphies
• Local autonomy for administration and certain forms of taxation
• Variations in property rights, including community trusteeship, like public land, pasture land, forests, water sources
• Autonomy of merchant guilds to govern themselves, and even set tax and lending rates; and even build mercantile forts (which is why Fort St George, Fort St William etc were allowed - as mercantile forts).

 Whereas in India, in every aspect of art and technology the artist or artisan had freedom to innovate.     

I will stop here. I just think historians, especially Indian historians, do a very poor job of understanding or analysing all of this. And society, for the most part, is happy with this. The white supremacist colonial narrative drowns out the hard facts of far superior technology, military, finance/trade and administrative marvels that the English discovered or invented to transform themselves, while Indians were practically stagnating.

Related Links 

Should April 7 be India's real independence day

History essays

Is India Secular - Michel Danino lecture

Michel Danino, at CLT, IIT Madras

Michel Danino, a professor at IIT Gandhinagar delivered the second Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay Memorial lecture for the Vande Mataram group, at Central Lecture Theater, IIT Madras, on April 23, 2018. The topic of the lecture was “Is India a secular nation?”

He first showed a picture of Rani-Ka-Vav, a magnificently sculpted 11^th century stepwell built by a queen of the Solanki dynasty at Patan, Gujarat. He asked if any student could recognize it. One did.

 

Circular segments, Rani-ki-Vav
This is my photo when I visited it
This is not the photo Danino showed

These are my notes from Michel Danino’s lecture.

A well is a secular structure, but this one is replete with Hindu sculptures. It has a central sculpture of Vishnu as Anantasayana, reclining in the ocean. Is it Secular?

The slabs of the well are segments of large circle, ten metres in diameter, sculpted on the ground, then lowered, and assembled. No craftsman in India can do this today.

Jawaharlal Nehru, the darling of the secularists today, said this in the Constituent Assembly: “I would advise those gentleman who throw about the word Secularism to consult a dictionary, before using it.”

Socialism and Secularism were not in the Constitution of India in 1950 but added in the Forty second Amendment by PM Indira Gandhi in 1976 during the Emergency

Secularism is the principle of separation of state from religion, according to the Oxford English dictionary.

It was introduced as a principle of government Established by Europeans like French philosopher Voltaire, who wanted to free  their governments from the influence of Catholic church.

In the Muslim world, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk brought about the Turkish revolution  to establish a secular republic.

Before 1947, there was no word of Secularism in any Indian language. Words coined in Indian languages like “dharma nirapeksha” in hindi and “madha chaarparra” மதச் சார்பற்ற in Tamil express indifference to religion, not so much separation of religion and government.

In ancient India there was no state religion. Medieval Europe though, suffered from religious rule. No ancient Indian ruler ever imposed his religion on his subjects. Not even Samrat Asoka the most powerful king imposed his religion. In fact, his edict declares these principles:

• All should be well learned in good doctrines of other religions
• No condemnation of any religion
• No excessive devotion or praise for one's religion

Kharavela, the Jain emperor of Kalinga around 150 BC has inscribed his own edict in Prakrit in the Udayagiri Khondagiri hills near Bhubhaneshvar, Orissa. He says, he fought to bring back Jain images, which were taken away by invaders. But he portrays himself as "worshipper of all religious orders,  the restorer of shrines of all gods."

People call this tolerance, but this is much more than mere tolerance. Tolerance is such a condescending word.

If there is no state religion, why talk of Secularism? It has no relevance in Indian context.

The only thing Indian kings were under a theoretical compulsion to follow were a code of ethics.

“India has been a nation of pilgrimage from South to North to places like Amarnath Badrinath etc and North to South to places like Kanyakumari.” This was said by Jawaharlal Nehru, at Madurai Congress session, in 1961.

Let us look at Vande Maatharam, a song composed by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee. It is now controversial because he says let's worship our nation as a mother (maatharam), a Goddess. It became a popular song against Partition of Bengal in 1905, among both Muslims and Hindus. But later on Muslim politicians said they cannot sing any song that portrays a nation as a Goddess.

The Preamble of India’s Constitution guarantees equality of status irrespective of religion caste or gender. But Articles 28, 29, 30 give religious and linguistic minorities special rights to manage their

• Places of worship
• Educational institutions

But Hindus are not given  right to administer their own temples with the argument that they are too divided. Only Muslims and Christians are discussed as minorities. Not Sikhs Jains Buddhists Parsis etc.

Muslims are 190 million in number in India. This is three times the population of Britain. Can this huge a community be considered a minority? Are they oppressed minority in any way? 

I used to live in the Nilgiris in Tamilnadu for twenty years. In Nilgiris, Christians own almost all the big bungalows, the estates, educational institutions. Is this an oppressed minority?

Is the Hindu majority monolithic? Being Bengali is very important for Bengalis, being Tamil is very important for Tamils etc. Sometimes, more so even than being Hindu.

Tajamul Hussain, a Member of the Constituent Assembly  said: “Sir I don't believe there is any minority community in this country. I don't believe I'm from a minority. We all have equal status.”

Damodar Swarup Seth, another Member of the Constituent Assembly, said: “Minorities based on religion or community should Not be recognized in a Secular Nation. If done that would be negation of Secularism.”

How Secularism sometimes became allergic to Hinduism became apparent in the episodes relating to reconstruction of Somnath temple.

By the prevailing standards, Hindu community should be declared a minority in Kashmir. But the Supreme Court asks Parliament whether it should be so declared and Parliament asks the Supreme Court to decide on this. It's just a political football with no conclusion.

Even teaching Sanskrit was considered against Secularism, until the Supreme Court declared that you could teach Sanskrit without violating the Constitution.

I teach at IIT Gandhinagar and I'm afraid most Indians are terribly unaware of their own civilization and culture. Unlike say Egypt whose modern citizens have no continuity with their past civilization  of pyramids and pharaohs, India has a continuous living tradition.

Not everything about India was the best, there were dark spots, but the best of India is amazing. 

My words are not a final answer, but just a contribution.

Danino concluded with this statement made by Aurobindo Ghosh in 1908-09.

“In India we have been cut off by a mercenary and soulless education from all our ancient roots of culture and tradition… National education… [is] the education which starting with the pastandmaking full use of the present builds up a great nation. Whoever wishes to cut off the nation from its past is no friend of national growth. Whoever fails to take advantage of the present is losing the battle of life. We must therefore save for India all that she has stored up of knowledge, character and noble thought in her immemorial past. We must acquire for her the best knowledge that Europe can give her and assimilate it to her own peculiar type of national temperament. We must introduce the best methods of teaching humanity has developed, whether modern or ancient. And all these mwe must harmonize into a system which will be impregnated with the spirit of self reliance so as to build up men and not machines”

In response to a student’s question where “dharma nirapeksha” is a suitable Hindi word for secularism, and wouldn’t madham rather dharma be the word for religion, Danino replied, “Dharma is a Sanskrit word that is quite different from religion. But it is used to mean religion in Hindi. It's a great injustice to the word and concept.

Dharma doesn't even require a belief in God or belief in particular Gods, which religions do.”

Another questioner asked if secularism is not important given the "current government which is inspired by Nazism". Danino retorted that this is the kind of uncivil language used by most advocates of secularism, that discourages honest debate. If this government is inspired by Nazism, where are the concentration camps, he asked.

Danino has written a book about the lost Sarasvati river and delivered a lecture about it for Tamil Heritage Trust. He was bestowed the Padma Shri by the government of India in 2017.

Links to related topics

Video - An explanation of the Kharavela inscription

My other lecture notes

Politics

Gurumurthy on Demonetization

Political Situation in Nepal - Kanakmani Dixit

Science

1493 – The Columbian Exchange - Charles Mann

Art and the Brain - Vilayanur S Ramachandran

Sanskritam and Mathematics - Manjul Bharagava 

Faraday and GN Lewis - CNR Rao 

Clouds - Rama Govindarajan

Economics

Renminbi as international currency - Jacob Kurien

Literature

Subramanya Bharathi’s Essays - KRA Narasiah

Rajaji the writer - Va Ve Subramaniam

Vai Mu Kothainayaki - Va Ve Subramaniam

Siddharthan book on Samrat Asoka

Sociology

Marriages and Divorces – some statistics - K Srinivasan
Parsis of Chennai - Tehnaz Bahadurji

Law

Experiences of a lawyer and judge

On Slavery - Lincoln and Ellenborough

Most of us can recognize only one of the three people in the photo above – Abraham Lincoln, called the Great Emancipator by Americans, because he ended slavery in the United States – and gave freedom to black people (there were no white or Red Indian (Native American) slaves in the US). He was so staunchly against slavery, he launched a Civil War against the Confederacy, the group of Southern States which seceded from the USA, because they wanted to continue slavery. Lincoln was appalled at the brutality and inhumanity of Slavery, and his fellow abolitionists were inspired by the book “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” written by a brave compassionate woman, Harriet Beecher Stowe.

This is a popular narrative. But some questions are rarely asked. Why doesn’t the United States celebrate Independence Day to commemorate the end of slavery, rather than the end of colonialism and British Rule? And why didn’t Lincoln grant women, even white women, the right to vote? And why didn’t Stowe ask for this right (Was it more controversial than slavery? Would it have also led to secession by the Confederacy? Women in the USA got the right to vote in the 1920s. Is that date not more suitably American Independence day?)

But what fascinates me equally is that such questions never arise among Indians about Indian history. Or about the abolition of slavery ANYWHERE else! Colonialism and slavery were both rampant in the nineteenth century. Why do we never hear about any other Emancipator or about any other nation that abolished slavery? How many did so before Lincoln?

Is it only historical if a war is waged?

Hence the photo above. Indian history after 1947, focuses on how Gandhi led the Congress in a freedom struggle against British Rule. The rhetoric often used is that Gandhi and other freedom fighters ended the “Slave mentality” of the Indians. Such fierce rhetoric shines in the poetry of Subramanya Bharathi, the speeches of Bala Gangadhara Tilak, the sermons of Vivekananda, and books and essays innumerable. But the British ended slavery throughout the British Empire in 1833 except in territory held by the East India Company. In 1843, slavery was abolished in the Company’s territory. Hence the Earl of Ellenborough, the Englishman in the picture above. He was Governor General in 1843. Indians know August 15, 1947 – the day British colonialism officially ended. But shouldn’t we celebrate April 7, 1843 when the British Parliament passed The Indian Slavery Act and abolished the terrible practice, not with a war, but with the stroke of a pen? Notice that this was only in the East India Company’s territories – the Presidencies of Madras, Bombay and Bengal. The Mughals still ruled in Delhi and there were other kingdoms throughout India, where slavery continued. There were some Company officers who opposed the abolition of slavery, because among powerful Hindus and Muslims, abolition “would be seen as interference in traditional structures ”!!!

I never read about this in school, in history books, in a newspaper, in magazines, or any other forum. “The British enslaved us” is the popular rhetoric. Not one word in gratitude or even acknowledgement by Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Rajaji, Vivekananda, Bharati, Tagore or any historian that I know of. One would think there had never been any slavery in India. The Wikipedia web page for the Earl of Ellenborough, in its current form and content, doesn’t mention that the abolition of Slavery. The Wikipedia web page for the Indian Slavery Act mentions neither Ellenborough nor Sir Robert Peel, who was Prime Minister of England when this Act was passed. How much credit do they deserve?

Most countries abolished slavery without a civil war in the 19^th century. Most countries fought against colonialism and acquired some sort of freedom – often they were ruled by much worse, more brutal, more incompetent dictators than the European colonists. The end of colonialism usually replaced the earlier white European aristocracy (only some were aristocrats in Europe) with brown, black or yellow aristocrats (more commonly, kleptocrats). I don’t know if a single Asian African or Latin American colony acquired freedom by a revolutionary war. Almost all were accidents of history. After 1776, I think the only two colonialisms that truly ended because of war, were Napoleon’s and Hitler’s colonizations of Europe.

The third person in the picture above explains this silence. This was Sultan Saud bin Abdulaziz al Saud, of the royal family whose name adorns Saudi Arabia. He abolished Slavery in his Sultanate in 1962. They were the last major nation to end slavery. His Wikipedia page doesn’t mention it either. I had to check the Abolition of Slavery wikipedia page to check the year. You would think he would be at least half as famous as Lincoln and that it was an accomplishment. Perhaps his mistake was not waging a war to end slavery. As was Ellenborough’s or Peel’s. India was outraged that the Republic of South Africa enforced apartheid in 1961 – so much that we cut off diplomatic relations and refused to play cricket with them). But the nation that burnt and boycotted mill clothes from Manchester never refused a drop of Arab oil.

One would think Ellenborough would at least appeal to ardent Hindus as the first English Hindutva Governor General – for bringing the gates of the Somnath temple from Ghazni.

More accurately, this says something to me about the human thought process. Neither Elleborough nor Abdulaziz bin Saud have  a constituency. No Hindu or Muslim in India wants to look  back at slavery, or abolition. No Gandhian, Congressman or Indian politician benefits from acknowledging it. No historian could sell a book about it. Anyone who speaks well of anything England did has a “slave mentality.” We’d rather salute Lincoln and Gandhi get on with it.

Here are links to Wikipedia pages mentioned above

A Timeline of the Abolition of Slavery

Indian Slavery Act, 1843

Uncle Tom's Cabin

The Earl of Ellenborough

Saud bin Abdulaziz al Saud

If this essay appalled you for its ridiculous admiration of one aspect of British rule, these essays may outrage you even more

1. An Englishman's Tamil inscription

2. Trautmann on Francis Whyte Ellis (Chennai pattanathu Elleesan)

3. Madras - India's first modern city

4. The Thames and the Cooum

5. Margaret Thatcher

6. Macaulay, Sanskrit and English

7. அடையாறு போர்

Interesting Experiences of a Lawyer and a Judge

Caution I’ve used quotes in places for narrative style. These are my phrasing of what I remember the speaker saying, not verbatim reports.There was a video recording of the  program, for those who want more accuracy.

---

The Hindustan Chamber of Commerce hosted a program titled Interesting Experiences of a Lawyer and a Judge yesterday, August 31, 2016 at Greams Dugar building on Greams Road, Chennai.

The speakers were retired Justice AR Lakshmanan, who served on the Supreme Court of India (also former Chairman, Law Commission of India) and Mr R Gandhi, Senior Advocate, Madras High Court (also former President, Bar Federation of Tamilnadu and Pondicheri).

They were welcomed by Mr V Murali, President of HCC.

Justice Lakshmanan spoke about allowing a student to write an exam, whom his university said had insufficient attendance. But the student asked that additional classes be counted, which the judge accepted, and ordered the university to allow him to write the exams, to avoid suffering a year's loss. Since a normal judicial order would take ten days to be delivered, the judge ordered the Registrar to read out the order to the Vice Chancellor and Controller of Examinations of the University (by telephone, I presume). This was in the Madras High Court.

He was then transferred to Kerala High Court. Inone case there, he ordered compulsory helmets for two wheelers in Kerala. Similarly, he ordered a ban on the sale of gutka in Andhra Pradesh, as a matter of public health. No court can order that manufacture of gutka be stopped, he said.  When the Mullaiperiyar case came up, I ruled that the dam is structurally, hydrologically and seismologically safe. The Supreme Court in a later hearing used this very phrase.

He was asked to move to Delhi High Court, but he refused as it was a smaller court than Kerala, though it had visibility as the national capital, as it would effectively imply a de-promotion (sic). But later he was appointed Chief Justice of the Rajasthan high court. There, several charges of corrupt subordinate judges were brought to his attendtion. There was a judicial investigation team, but it was headed by a subordinate judge, so he had private investigators look into the matter and ordered disimissal of several judges. The Chief Minister and Governor, accepted his actions, he said and did not raise political issue with them. No such thing happens in the southern states, he quips. And the helmet bans are merrily ignored too, he laments. We only pass these laws for public benefit, should not the public follow them?

He also said a case came up where the Income Tax department owed someone Rs 44 lakhs which had not been paid for about 17 years. There was a provision to order the IT department to refund not just the amount but also pay interest at a rate of 15%. “Being from the Nagarathar community,  I know how quickly interest can accumulate he said. The interest amount in this case exceeded due refund, it was around Rs.72 lakh. Now if I order that, I knew that accusations would fly that perhaps the judge also got a cut. So I chose a more appropriate interest rate, around 9%, and ordered payment. I asked the department to deposit the money right away, with a court pending an appeal. Concerned that interest payments could skyrocket on refunds that the department had been sitting on for years, they moved quickly and refund several tax payers in the next few months. At that time, the Finance Minister was P Chidambaram, who is also from the Nagarathar community, and he made an announcement that such refunds would be expedited, and it was prominently reported in the press. But after a few months, I think the situation went back to what it used to be,”  he said. There was both amused and resigned laughter from the businessmen in the audience.

Even I had trouble getting a tax refund and wanted to file a writ petition, Justice Lakshmanan continues, but several people felt it would cause a media sensation. The Commissioner of Tax ordered an immediate settlement, he says. {This reminded me of early 1900s and Madras Governor Lawley losing his money in the Arbuthnotbank failure...}

He regrets that there is no Supreme Court bench in South India. What expense, what difficulty and what high lawyer fees, citizens suffer, because of the distance of Delhi, he laments.

Referring to the Collegium appointing judges, he said, that there is no such word as Collegium in the dictionary. Justice Bhagawati coined the word.

(Gopu’s Note: Collegium is a Latin word, not English in origin. One got the feeling that Justice Lakshmanan was against the Judiciary appointing its own members. Markandeya Kadju, another retired judge of the Supreme Court, has written more critically about this judicial power grab. But, I think even the gutka sale ban, helmet rule judgment are judicial power grabs. Legislatures and executives are happy to let the judiciary make such laws and regulations, because they are protected from popular resentment.)

Rajasthan is extremely beautiful and I urge all of you to visit, he says. I enjoyed my stay in all the places I stayed. I've passed judgment of 1,37,000 cases.

Then advocate Gandhi spoke: “I have terrible handwriting but I answered exams voluminously in college. I can barely read my own handwriting, it is a miracle anyone else can read it. Others wrote five or six pages for their law exams but I wrote eighty pages, most of it illegible. But when I had a good point I would write it in bold letters and quote some Professor Iyer or Iyengar because the north Indian examiners had never heard of Gounders...

“I came second in the University. My brother said it can't be a very good University if you came second.

“Justice Lakshmanan has very beautiful handwriting, unlike me. He is very funny, if we travel together he'd joke and then at the end of the trip he'd say we laughed for 12km today or 18km today.

“I was member of the Syndicate. The syndicate wanted to punish students who copied or cheated in exams. One student who was caught came to me. I used to copy in exams and I knew some judges also copied. Copying is hard, only those who have copied know how hard it is. Syndicate wanted to pass a law barring students for three years for copying, I demanded that it should be reduced to one year. I copied and I'm now a Syndicate member, have I become a bad person? This was my argument. In the spirit of youth, copying is a form of adventure and rebellion, like smoking.” 

The crowd roared with appreciation at this candor and earthiness.

He narrated a case where an innocent man was framed by police for murdering four people. The investigating officer begged me to get the accused off the hook, because he framed the person because he couldn't find the murderer and there was pressure from superiors. The man was hanged. He wrote a book in Tamil, where he decried “The Law is an ass’. This of course, is a famous expression, from the legal community in England. “If I called a judge an ass, it would be contempt of court, but calling the Law is an ass is acceptable form of condemnation,” he quipped.

Gandhi narrated the incident when the DMK government renamed Thilakar Thidal, a segment of the Madras Marina beach, as Seerani Arangam. This was just a ploy to remove Balagangadhar Tilak's name, he averred. Tilak was the first patriotic voice that roared, “Independence is my birthright.” Outraged, that a place where Gandhi and Nehru and Subramanya Bharathi and such great freedom fighters delivered public speeches for India’s indpendence movement should be so contemptuously renamed, he fought in court for the name to be restored. A few years back, when the statue of actor Sivaji Ganeshan was installed on the beach, near Queen Mary’s college, “even though Sivaji was a good friend of mine, and distantly related, I couldn't stand that his statue would show its back to Mahathma Gandhi statue, and I filed a case to change that. How could they try to humiliate the memory of Gandhiji like that?”

He recollected when advocate VL Ethiraj, who founded Ethiraj college in Egmore, asked for a murder case to be dismissed five minutes before a guilty sentence was to about be passed on a person, because he realized that the FIR of the murder had been filed an hour before the actual murder was committed. Ethiraj was the Public Prosector at that time, and even the Defence Counsel had missed this detail, for which he apologized in Court and thanked Ethiraj for his uprightness.

Someone asked about entrance with veshti / dhoti at the Tamilnadu cricket club, which Gandhi fought for. The Club rules only say that members and guest must be decently dressed, Gandhi retorted. Do the clubs argue that dhothis are indecent dress? Tamilnadu legislative assembly passed a law that dhotis must be allowed in club and any club refusing will be fined and its license revoked. This was the only law passed by the TN Assembly, where all political parties were united, he said. 

Similar essays

1. Henry Ford's trial
2. On Macaulay  
3. A poem about the Madras High Court (Tamil)
4. Lady and Gentlemen

"Indians are such wonderful drivers"

As the taxi entered Mount Road from GN Chetty road, Mr  Khalil said, “Indians are such wonderful drivers. The traffic is so disciplined.” You can imagine my reaction. I was just happy the taxi-driver was not listening. “Especially the auto rickshaws, those drivers have their vehicles under such control.” Actually he used word tuk-tuk, which is how most foreigners refer to autos. Extremely fortunate, because while I had a spasm run through my spinal cord, the taxi-driver did not understand tuk-tuk : if he had, his full body spasm would have resulted in our taxi crashing.

“They know every route, they never have any accidents, they drive in such thick traffic with such remarkable control,” he continued.

No this conversation is not a figment of my imagination –it happened in April 2012. Mr Khalil is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering from Cairo University, an air-conditioning expert – he is the man who cools the pyramids of Luxor. On my friend Balaji Dhandapani’s request, I was on the way to show Prof Khalil the monuments of Mamallapuram.

“Nobody in India thinks we drive well, least of all the auto drivers,” I suggested. “Indian traffic is chaotic.”

“Well, relative to the US or western countries, perhaps. But compared to Egypt this is excellent,” he continued, as several autos avoided us by inches. “You rarely see any accidents in India, do you? With this many vehicles there should normally be several more crashes. But people are careful, they may drive close but they drive carefully.”

“What kind of tuk-tuk drivers do you have in Egypt?” I asked. “Oh, it is terrible,” he said. “Mostly, 12 year old boys. They drive illegally with no driving licenses and they have no control; at that age, they will not have much control anyway; and they have all kinds of accidents; they mostly drive in poor parts of Cairo, where there is no other transport.”

Our taxi merged into the Brownian motion of buses, two wheelers near the Teynampet suggestion. A traffic light glowed red, suggestively, and after some consideration, some vehicles stopped.

“And the people of India are so hard-working and punctual,” he continued, continuing his psychological warfare, unaware of the grotesque contrast between expression and reality. “Which people?” I said – maybe he meant the staff at his five star hotel. “Your government employees, for example,” he continued in deadly earnest. “Is this also a case of Indo-Egyptian relativity,” I mused. “In Egypt they come to work between 9 and 10, work for an hour, have a cup of tea. Around 11.30, they prepare for the 12 o clock prayer, at the mosque. Then after the prayer, they have lunch, maybe until 2. Then they come back, and around 3, they are somewhat tired, and head back home.”

I recently visited Gujarat. In Ahmedabad, I saw several collisions at traffic intersections, mostly between autos and motorbikes : in just the two actual days I was spent travelling in the city. Statistically that may not be a valid sample size, but it occurred to me that Madras auto drivers are far better. This experience prompted this blog. Also, an article in Times of India, that some auto drivers conduct charity events, but it gains them no respect or recognition. It occurs to me, that in India, we drive by manodharma, not by law. That is not necessarily a bad thing. It is the law that has to adapt.