Feb 2011 - RH

Vol. 74 No 11

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THE RADICAL HUMANIST (Since April 1949)

FEBRUARY 2011 Formerly : Independent India (April 1937- March 1949)

Founder Editor: M.N. Roy 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

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The Radical Humanist

Download and read the journal at www.theradicalhumanist.com

Vol. 74 Number 11 February 2011

- Contents -

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: rheditor@gmail.com 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 n.vyas@snr.net.in 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

1. From the Editor’s Desk:

Youth synergy at work —Rekha Saraswat 1 2. Contributory Editors’ Section: Death Sentence–Some observations 2 —R.A. Jahagirdar 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: Lessons of Talengana —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

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From the Editor’s Desk: Youth synergy at work! calling for justice in Kashmir. We see him

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 Rekha Saraswat 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

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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!!

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Contributory Editor’s Column:

R.A. Jahagirdar

[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–Some observations written on death sentence.

IMyhavesaidalready 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).

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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

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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.

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 3

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From The Writings of Laxmanshastri Joshi: worldly values have been developed and they have

Spiritual Materialism – A case for 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

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

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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 5

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

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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

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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

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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...

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.

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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 Amitabha Chakrabarti 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 Homo sapiens, Capuchin Monkeys and The Idea of Justice as fairness”, “Rational decisions “Justice 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

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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.

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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,

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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

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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 10month 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

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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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).

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Guests’ Section:

S.N. Shukla [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 or Mirage?

Contd. from the last issue...................... without voting rights becoming Prisoners ‘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

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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 nonjusticiability 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.

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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

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‘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

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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.

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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.

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(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

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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

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From the U.S.A.

Uday Dandavate [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 have a keen interest in learning from Ipsychological 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

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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.

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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

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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).

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Kamal Wadhwa

[Mr. Kamal Wadhwa is the proprietor of K.

Wadhwa & Associates, Mumbai, who assist in giving solutions in Life Insurance, Banking, Editorial & Translation work. He has studied Economic & Social Development as well as Public Administration at the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He has worked in an editorial capacity at various places such as Chief Sub-editor with Fortune India magazine; Sub-editor with Complete Cinema; Consulting Editor of Auto Galaxy magazine; Assistant Editor of Electronic Products Finder; Writer and Advisor to the Urban Development Institute in Mumbai; Sub-editor with Business Express in Mumbai and Nagpur and Assistant Editor of Lex et Juris – The Law Magazine.He can be reached at wadhwa.kamal@ymail.com]

In Defense Of A Committed Judiciary of a committed judiciary may yet Thebe idea 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,

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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

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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

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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.

Letter to the Editor: The Twins of Irrationalism: The first decade of the 21st Century is closing showing the fascist face of Communism once again. In 1934 Karl von Ossietzky was debarred from leaving Nazi concentration camp to receive that year’s Nobel Peace award. None of his relatives also were allowed. Now Communist China has done the same thing with Liu Xiaobo the more unreservedly irrational cult of fascism did not arise, as told by M.N. Roy, as a reaction to Communism. The root of both can be traced in the earlier movement of ideas. Marx’s noble passion for an early attainment of the humanist ideal of social justice generated impatience giving birth to fanatic dreamers to whom the short cut of violence is the 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, bhattacharyyaajit@yahoo.com

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Current Affairs Section:

Rajindar Sachar

[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 On Public in the media, the constant Thetalkheadlines 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

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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.

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

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N.K. Acharya

[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

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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 II that she may press them into service whenever a China Game: India has several problems with suitable occasion arises.

III China. That country often raises pin pricks to remind India about them. China claims certain Sedition: Sedition was originally an offence areas of north eastern India (Arunachal Pradesh, against monarchy. That was the reason why the formerly NEFA) to be her own territory and that expression bringing into contempt and hatred was boundary between India and China (Mc Mohan used in the defination which runs as follows. line) accepted during the British period is not Section 124 of the Indian penal code reads binding upon her. That apart China is in open “whoever by written or spoken words or by signs or occupation (as aggressor) of certain Indian visible representations attempts or brings into territories in northern Kashmir in addition to the hatred or contempt or attempts to excite areas in Kashmir, allegedly gifted (ceded) to her by dissatisfaction towards the government established Pakistan. In addition, China is now planning to by law shall be punishable with life imprisonment”. build a land link to Arabian sea in collusion with The object of sedition then was replacing Pakistan, a strategic route designed to encircle monarchy. The change may be brought by violence India as a northern arc. Even though India does not or through some other methods such as intrigue or raise the Tibetan issue any more, China often conspiracy. The same offence is carried over in accuses India of hosting Dalai Lama. In recent democracy as explained by the court if it is times China seems to question Kashmir as being an followed by violence. integral part of India, by issuing to the applicants of In democracy it is the right of the people to express Kashmir a separate visa called stappled visa. Over themselves on the performance of the executive and above, China has commenced now a and change it as often as it warrants by a process of clandestine construction of dams over the election. That is why unless the right of free Brahmaputra river stating that the projects are expression is accompanied by violence it cannot be intended for generating electricity and not for treated as an offence in a democracy. That is the impounding or diverting water for irrigation. In reason why all the political organizations which the concept of its quasi-totalitarian political system believe in violence and organize for over throwing China is often recording faster economic the executive through means which are violent are development at a higher annual rate. As a matter of only prohibited as seditious organizations and fact India is exporting iron ore and importing those who support those organizations are also manufactured goods from China and that is why liable to be prosecuted for the offence of sedition. It there is greater appreciation all the world over is not open to the offender charged with sedition to about China’s development. contend that he is only a mere supporter but not a All the above disputes are being swept under the member of banned organization mat whenever the leaders of both countries meet There is however a fault in the definition of the and one such high level meeting was held in New offence of sedition. It does not include the plea of any state to separate itself form the union. While 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.

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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.

Letter to the Editor: Jan. 2011 editorial is amazing!

—Sanjay Shanbhag 30

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IRI/IRHA Members’ Section:

Balraj Puri

[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]

Lessons of Talengana report has received very hostile Srikrishna 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.

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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

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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

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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.

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, gthaker1946@gmail.com, 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 (shroffbipin@gmail.com)

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Techers’ & Research Scholrs’ Section:

Tarun Patnaik

Desire, Will And Happiness people want or desire a lot of Many 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

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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.

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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

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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

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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 arla 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

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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

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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

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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

39

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

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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.

Letter to the Editor: Dear Rekha Saraswat, I am a regular reader and a life member of RH....I enjoy your thought provoking editorials.......I wish the financial difficulties are overcome and you are able to continue good work. —Gopal M. Shroff

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All this effort is being made to form an encyclopedia of the Radical Humanists right from the days of the beginning of M.N. Roy’s social and political activities in India and abroad. All this information will be uploaded and permanently stored on the RH Website in the Profile section for everyone to read and come in contact with one another. This will be a historical check-list to connect with all the crusaders who worked or are still working for the human cause on the humanist lines.

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