Forward Press

Justice Katju's last casteist avatar

KANWAL BHARATI

In December 2012, speaking at a seminar in New Delhi, former Supreme Court judge and Press Council of India chairman Justice Markandey Katju said that 90 per cent of the Indians were fools, who could be easily misled in the name of caste and religion. Tanya Thakur, a law student in Lucknow and her brother Aditya Thakur sent a legal notice to Katju, demanding that he should either apologise for his comment or be ready to face legal proceedings. Katju did not apologise but in his reply to the notice he said that the media had misreported his statement. But he stood by his comment that 90 per cent of Indians were fools. “I did not take your name, nor did I take the name of any community, caste or group and neither did I say that you are among the 90 per cent fools, then how could my statement hurt your sentiments?” Katju asked. The question is that if, in Katju’s view, Tanya Thakur and Aditya Thakur are not among the 90 per cent fools then who are the persons that fall in the category are. Make no mistake. Katju’s calculations are precise. He includes in this “fools” category Dalits, OBCs and Muslims - the 90 per cent who vote in the name of caste and religion. It is they that can be easily misled, he says.

One should try to discern the hidden meaning of Katju’s statement - his real intent. The fact is that he is concerned about those 10 per cent who were lording over the 90 per cent for ages. But the times have changed. The 90 per cent are now aware of their strength. They have also formed their separate political outfits. The slogan of ‘Vote hamara, Raj tumhara” (Our vote, your rule) is no longer valid. It has been re-phrased as ‘Vote hamara, Raj bhee hamara’ (Our vote and our rule). Katju and others in the 10 per cent elite league are naturally concerned - and worried. He says that truth is bitter. He also says that sometimes, in the interest of the patient, bitter medicine has to be administered to him. Here, who is the patient and what is the bitter medicine? Let us try to find out.

The e-mail Katju sent to Tanya and Aditya betrays his obsession with the past. But I am not surprised. For, a judgment delivered by him in 1992, when he was a judge in the Allahabad High Court had also displayed his pride in and love for the past. In the mail he says, “There was a time when we were world leaders in the fields of science and technology and India was the most prosperous country of the world. India gave the world the concept of ‘zero’ (decimal system) and we had invented plastic surgery 2000 years before the Europeans did. But today, we are passing through the worst phase of our history. Our past was great and our future can become greater if the 90 per cent people - the majority which I call fools - chucks its backward and casteist mindset.” This is Katju’s prescription for a sick nation. This is his bitter medicine.

How patently unscientific is Katju’s argument that if India is backward today, it is because 90 per cent of her people have become casteist. The fact is that artisans and producers constitute this 90 per cent and without their contribution, India can never progress. Katju is describing this artisan and producer class as fools and considers the 10 per cent, who are exploiters, as “the wise men free from the stranglehold of casteism and religiosity”. Does he not know that it is this 10 per cent who have injected the poison of religion and caste into India’s body politic? They are the persons who have sown the seeds of communalism and casteism and harvested a crop of votes in every election. Katju belongs to the same class.

Does Katju remember his 1992 judgment against reservation for Dalits? That judgment had exposed the nauseating anti-Dalit face of Katju. I want to quote verbatim from the judgment so that you can yourself see Katju for what he is. He wrote. “The policy of reservation, as enshrined in the Constitution, is a compromise. But in my view, reservation in the fields of science and technology is unconstitutional”. That means he believes that reservation in the fields of art and literature is not unconstitutional. It also means that Dalit children should not study science and technology. He said, “Science has no caste”. Probably, it was his considered view that all other fields of human knowledge and skill belong to one or the other castes. He argued, “The objective of reservation is social welfare but reservation in the field of science will only harm society”. He even went on to say that “This is a question of life and death for us.” Mark the word “us”, which stands testimony to his brahmanical arrogance. How bitter and deep-rooted his anti-Dalit stance was is evident by the vicious arguments he put forth in his judgment. “A bungling doctor is dangerous for the health of society, just as an inefficient engineer poses a threat to the people’s security because the bridges and buildings he constructs are defective and flawed.” Thus, he presumes that the Dalits are inefficient and incompetent. In 1992, writing about the judgment, I had said that it was a direct quote from the Manusmiriti and was against the values of freedom, equality and brotherhood, which are integral to our Constitution. Katju might not remember, but after this judgment, at many places Dalit students had caught donkeys and let them off in markets and other public places after painting “Justice Katju” on their backs. I myself witnessed this in Sultanpur.

The fact of the matter is that Katju’s anti-Dalit attitude is born out of his anxiety over the downfall of Brahmanism. Like some “nationalist Brahmins”, he has somehow acquired the abjectly false notion that India was once the world-leader in the field of knowledge and science and that the British imperialists, by aiding and abetting the rise of communalism and casteism in India, had brought about its downfall. He has shared his concern with the Tanya and Aditya Thakur too. His mail says, “Before the Britishers arrived at our shores, India was a prosperous country. In 1700, its share in the world trade was 30 per cent, which fell to 2 per cent by the time the British quit India and at present, it is around 3 per cent”. He writes that it was because of this that “today, India is a poor country and 80 per cent of her people are reeling under poverty and unemployment”. What he is saying may be factually correct but his reasoning is flawed. We will have to place his statements in their proper perspective. Two things are important here. One, the India of 1700 was not a Brahmin Bharat but it was a ‘Muslim Bharat’. If India’s share in the world trade was 30 per cent then the credit for it must go to the Muslim rulers. Second, a bigger share in the world trade does not necessarily mean that the India of circa 1700 was a prosperous country. And even it was, it does not automatically follow that her people were happy. Hence, the key issue is whether the prosperity that, according to Markandey Katju, informed India 300 years ago, was shared by the Dalits, the farmers and the labourers? Will he condescend to spare a look at the literature of that era, which gives a heart-rending description of the miseries of the Dalits, labourers and farmers? These accounts would definitely enlighten the “nationalists”, who believe that the pre-British India was a prosperous country. Still, if Katju would like to believe that present-day India has more unemployment and poverty, he is free to do so. But if he blames casteiem for it, he is wide off the mark. The reason for the dismal state of affairs is the anti-people political and economic policies. Due to these policies, capital is getting concentrated into private hands and is not serving to enhance employment opportunities. Capital is being put to unproductive uses. But it is also true that the Dalit renaissance that came about in the 19th century has given the Dalits a sense of self-confidence and dignity. They are quitting unhygienic jobs in large numbers but the government is doing precious little for their rehabilitation with the result that unemployment is on the rise among them. Katju should know that poverty and unemployment in the country are the handiwork of the 10 per cent populace whom Katju believes to be the epitome of wisdom.

In his e-mail, Katju has flayed honour killings, dowry deaths, atrocities on Dalits and gender discrimination - something that every liberal Brahmin does. But he did not even show the minimal magnanimity of giving the credit to the British for bringing democracy to the country. He writes, “There was no communalism in India till 1857. There was no animosity between the Hindus and Muslims. Both had joined forces to wage the battle against the British in the revolt of 1857. After crushing the revolt, the British adopted the policy of ‘Divide and Rule’ to perpetuate their control over India. A policy decision was taken in London to sow the seeds of hatred between Hindus and Muslims”. For the sake of argument, we can concede that something like this might have happened. But this is not the whole truth. Katju is completely ignoring the bloody battles fought between Hindu and Muslim kings in the Mughal era. These battles were no different than the revolt of 1857. If the Hindu kings fought against the Muslim rulers to save their kingdoms, the same happened in 1857. Since the East India Company had decided to liquidate all the indigenous states, the Hindu and Muslims Rajas and Nawabs forged a joint front against the company government. It was this ruling class which incited the revolt in the name of freedom. Katju says that Hindus and Muslims had unitedly fought against the British but those were exactly the persons who could easily get misled in the name of religion and caste. This revolt was mounted by kings and landlords but those who actually waged the battle were those who could be easily misled in the name of caste and religion. Those who do not believe this may do well to go and read the manifesto of Bahadurshah Zafar which said that the scriptures of the Hindus and the Shariat of the Muslims - both were in danger and that the British government had given the right to file cases against the landlords even to the members of the lowly castes, which was an insult to the landlords. Needless to say, these types of Hindus and Muslims had joined hands to fight against the British in 1857 and their battle was not only against the British - it was also against social reform. This was a Crusade of sorts and an attempt to protect the estates of the landlords and the territory of the kings. Had the revolt succeeded, God only knows how many centuries would have gone by before India became a united and democratic entity.

Katju contends that communal riots took place only after 1857’. He is right. That is because prior to 1857, the Muslims were ruling the country and and a confrontation with the ruler is called revolt not riot. In the British rule, both the Hindus and Muslims were the ruled and it was pretty obvious that there would be struggle for dominance and representation between them. Just as the revolt of 1857 was not a riot, so the Hindu-Muslim post-1857 struggle was not a revolt. A revolt is against a ruler; riots are between the ruled.

At the end of his mail, Katju says that if India wants to become the world-leader in the field of science andtechnology once again, science (or the study of it) would have to be brought within the reach of every person. If that is the case, then, why had he tried to stop Dalits from studying science in his 1992 judgment?

(Published in  Forward Press,  May, 2013 Issue)