Equality & Justice and What Kind of A Motherland We Want?

In everyday life we keep facing setbacks, disappointments, frustrations. What we need, and generally have, to overcome these mini-major crises are whole lot of support systems- set of persons, ideas, things we draw sustenance from. Family and friends and role models; Music, poetry, religion, politics.

When in doubt or challenged or just screwed up, they bring balance and sanity back to our life, get us some perspective: sometimes by consoling, sometimes by confronting and sometimes by just a graceful and kind acceptance of who we are. This process makes us wholesome and life worth living.

AIR once used to host various lecture series regularly on myriad of socio-political issues. Don’t know if they do that now. Publication Division used to publish these lectures and sell in the booklet format. One of my prized possessions that has travelled far and wide with me in the last 25 years (and survived) is one such booklet, the Sardar Patel Memorial Lecture 1987, delivered by Y V Chandrachud and titled, "The Basics of Indian Constitution: Its Search for Social Justice and the Role of Judges".

It's not just the role of judges that Chandrachud discusses in his speech. It's a complete critique of the functioning of the Supreme Court and tries to explain judiciary’s role in an ever changing socio-political landscape in a young aspirational nation.

As the topic is about social justice, the concept of equality, in its various shades, is the main theme. So much so that delivery of equality becomes synonymous with delivery of justice. Equality is not merely a legal or judicial concept; its much beyond that. Equality is the essence of all fundamental rights that the constitution grants us and soul of the directive principles.

I keep going back to this booklet just to keep myself reminded what justice is all about and why there can be no compromise on equality or any limitation allowed to be placed on the concept that is equality.

Chandrachud finishes his lecture quoting Camus from his "Letters to a German Friend":

"I should like to be able to love my country and still love justice. I don't want just any greatness for it, particularly a greatness born of blood and falsehood. I want to keep it alive, by keeping justice alive.”