The “Fashion” Path to Reach the Mind of God for Legal Solutions

Modi Chandrachud1

Amit Shah’s recent sarcastic remark on Ambedkar has caused a stir and reflects his state of mind. These are the words by which he mocked at Ambedkar:

Abhi ek fashion ho gaya haiAmbedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar. Itna naam agar  bhagwan ka lete to saat janmon tak swarg mil jata [It has become a fashion now to say ‘Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar’. Had you taken god’s name so many times, you would have got a place in heaven]”.

He, in short, is saying sarcastically to stop glorifying Ambedkar and suggesting that one invoke the name of god and repeat it as they do in bhajans. Bhajans (congregative singing and eulogizing the divine qualities and glory of god) could have led one to heaven. Venerating Ambedkar was a fashion for Amit Shah. Is not venerating god a fashion nowadays?

Well, I for one would say, that it has now become not only a fashion but also a clever ploy, to take the name of god or invoke divinity, even where it is not required (in the way Shah has done) as it affords an easy shield to protect oneself from any criticisms. In fact, the singing of bhajans can also be said to be a fashion. It gives the congregators a protective cover from criticisms of all their unethical and immoral acts that these persons may be indulging in. Behind this fashion, perhaps, lies a sordid mindset.

This mindset is best captured in the lyrics of the Kishore Kumar’s song from the Amitabh  Bachchan starrer movie Namak Halal. It runs as follows

“Aap ka to lagta bas yahi sapna,

Ram-Ram japna paraya maal apna”

(Looks like that you are always thinking, that repeating the name of  Ram Ram you can steal others’ wealth).

Earlier, the former Chief Justice of India, D Y Chandrachud was also treading this fashion path and seeking the divine for solution. He stated in a public event about his praying before god. The solution for writing the judgment on Ayodhya case was revealed to him in this prayer. Writing on this matter, this article titles its piece and says “Justice Chandrachud Should Not Blame God for His Own Awful Ayodhya Judgment”.

Perhaps, he was not blaming god. Instead, he was treading this fashion path to stall any criticism of this awful judgment. To criticize such a judgment amounts to a profane act as the godly element has played a significant part in it. 

Well, whether the ex-CJI was treading this fashion path or was seeking the divine, with all earnestness, to gain pellucidity, in terms of historical evidence, arguments and its ramifications, in the whole Ayodhya affair is anybody’s guess. But to serve the cause of a liberal sense of justice one would expect of Justice Chandrachud that it is the latter.

Harish Khare, a senior journalist and public commentator, says that a “Judge who does not have a sense of history makes a poor servant of justice”. Pondering on this matter of the ex-Chief Justice invoking the divine, I was wondering whether along with history one needs to add philosophy also, because jurisprudence demands analysis and arguments.  

Sometime back I wrote on the issue of doctor’s praying to god and its philosophical implications. I would like recast the argument within a rational frame of thought in the matter of Justice Chandrachud praying to god. In this process one can rightfully question his linear narrative with civility. These are some of questions that can be raised about his prayer meeting with god. 

In the first place he has to make clear what was so difficult about the case that he had to seek the help of the lord. What was the judicial hurdle? Were the arguments of both the sides of the dispute lacking in clarity that he could not find a solution? Did Justice Chandrachud’s prayer meeting with god bring forth any analysis and persuasive arguments? What are the questions that one would expect Justice Chandrachud, well-versed in jurisprudence, to ask god in his prayers? Did god answer his prayers by revealing evidences?

Were the evidences a problem? – Evidence whether it was Ram’s birth place; evidence of whether a Ram temple was there; evidence whether the Mughal emperor Babar destroyed a pre-existing Ram temple. Whether the present day Ayodhya was the same city as depicted in the Ramayana of Valmiki? (This issue has been raised in the pamphlet published by some members of the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) titled “The Political Abuse of History” and in K N Pannikar’s essay titled “A Historical Overview” in Sarvepalli Gopal’s edited book Anatomy of Confrontation: The Babri Masjid Ram Janmabhumi Issue).

These were questions that one comes across in the normal legal proceedings. However, at a more philosophical level one would also like to know what exactly would be Justice Chandrachud’s idea of god. Being a jurisprudence scholar one would expect him to have an “intellectual bandwidth”, as Khare phrases- a bandwidth that includes his ability to think about the philosophical concept of god.  

Generally, god is held to be an omniscient, omnipotent and benign being. Assuming that he would go by this standard conception of god another question that comes to mind (and one that he should have raised) is: In the first place why did god allow such a disaster in Ayodhya to happen leading to the dispute?

Should Justice Chandrachud then not have sought answers for the following series of questions in his prayer meeting?

 “Oh, Rama (presuming that he prayed before this deity), can you please tell me whether this present Ayodhya is your birthplace as the historians of JNU are expressing doubt on this. Also tell me whether the temple of yours existed before it was demolished to construct the mosque. If yes, then why did you allow Babar’s commander Mir Baqi to destroy your temple? Given that you are omniscient and all powerful, you should have had the power to stop Mir Baqi from committing this act. Why did you not give power to your bhakts during that time (assuming that your temple was demolished under Babar’s instruction)?”

It is not clear whether his prayer had a place for such a reasoned exchange of thoughts. His purpose was to get enlightenment on how to proceed on the judgment on Ayodhya dispute. It appears that the solution to this disputed case, made complex and intricate by communal colour, was delivered in an “epiphanous flash”, as this article wittily describes. Whether it was the epiphanous solution that Justice Chandrachud was suggesting is anybody’s guess (that’s the best we can imagine from “a vivid and moving description” provided by him). 

The article then proceeds on a more serious note to analyse why the statement of Justice Chandrachud were “alarming for five reasons”. But the voice of reason operates more on the material-phenomenal level. This voice of reason gets muffled because what Justice Chandrachud was seeking, perhaps, was a solution from beyond this voice at a transcendental level.

It is important for us to know whether his prayer meeting with god yielded any clarification or a clincher of historical evidence. Or did god ask him to sidestep the issue of evidence and fall back on myths and advise him to interweave myths, beliefs and history? The eminent historian Neeladri Bhattacharya notes how Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) draws upon myths and “seeks to authenticate its account by presenting it as ‘history’”. This interweaving very clearly comes out in the 116-page addenda to the Ayodhya judgment, authored by one of the judges The addenda begins with the question ‘Whether disputed structure is the holy birthplace of Lord Ram as per the faith, belief and trust of the Hindus’ (Page 930 here, emphasis mine). 

So, in the epiphanous solution, did god ask Justice Chandrachud to subscribe to the popular notion of Ayodhya’s past and go by the popular belief of the majority community, particularly the ardent supporters of the VHP? As pointed out in this article it appears that it is myth rather than historical facts that drove the Ayodhya judgment. Recently, Justice Rohinton Fariman speaking at the Justice A M Ahmadi Memorial inaugural lecture also said that the Supreme Court found no Ram temple under Babri Masjid structure.

One would be curious to know whether it was the same god who suggested to Justice Chandrachud to cleverly dodge the spirit of the Places Worship Act, 1991. He had made an oral observation during the hearing on the Gyanvapi mosque case that the act does not bar inquiries into the status of a place of worship as on August 15, 1947.


If that is how he interprets the act, no doubt, it was a clever mode of argument by hairsplitting the sections of the act. But what did this mode of narrative reveal? Is not one here defending the indefensible by means of a devious argument? Thus a thought terminating counter narrative is constructed and presented as a mode of argument. Such a narrative suffers from a poverty of ideas- a poverty that derives from a tawdry mindset with only nefarious intentions. 

S K Arun Murthi is Ex Faculty of Philosophy in IISER, Mohali (retired), Department of Humanities and Social Sciences

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