The Conscience Of Indian Justice System
The Creed of Indian Nationalism
Socialism derives from the same impulse as Capitalism, and they are both an expression of a self-serving collective ego-principle, though they seem to be different in their essential outward manifestations and practical utilities. Socialism has provided the world with its irrefutable proof of socialist society founded on the idea of equal rights and means for all, while Capitalism, in sharp contrast, moves away from these trenchant formulae of the Communist ideologies towards individual freedom and growth as the very basis of its practical philosophy. While socialist societies are only a few, we have been witnessing a growing domination of them in the emerging world order, in its fragile economic structure, in the high seas for domination and desire for more territorial control, and capitalist economies respond to them by way of trade war and economic sanctions and by occasionally sending a fleet of nuclear-capable aircraft carriers as a measured response to their aggression. India, on the other hand, is neither of these two, but only a pale and confused shadow of the present world order, — or more properly, disorder — trying to negotiate her way through the standards set by these two larger powers of the world and thereby, trying to create a niche for her own survival. A free democratic society founded on these immediate and existing compulsions of the world, whether economic or military, cannot hope to grow into a true principle of self-governance, aided only by its own strength and vision in the act and purpose of becoming a great Nation. A sense of jurisprudence arising out of her present mentality, out of her vast systems of governance, determines the conscience of effective administering of justice and therefore, our focus here must be to determine if it is free from domestic as well as external compulsions and free of interference of all sorts. A society or Nation in the twilight of an age of intellectual decadence seeks often to define itself by external standards and extraneous influences, for it is already a prisoner of the decaying world order, and any attempt to extricate itself from the confusion brings about a greater opposition to its survival. As a Nation, she is also bound to domestic compulsions and vagaries of political stupidities and machinations, often ratified by Parliament into laws foist on her peoples much against their dismay and disbelief, and her democratic institutions and systems suffer as a result of these self-centred misadventures of the political class.
The constitutional laws of India are already rendered impotent and ineffective by an equal number of constitutional amendments to please and placate, rendering the justice system equally impotent and ineffective in administering justice, often protracted in legal battle, and in outcome unsatisfactory or utterly contradictory to natural justice. This is a bane of the Indian criminal justice system particularly, for justice denied or delayed or reversed under political pressure or otherwise is a great injustice perpetrated on the innocent and the gullible. That the State is impervious to peoples’ suffering, compounded by an indifferent justice system is a sad reminder of a Nation still in her slavery and that she is not yet entirely free from her moorings. The Spirit Of India is symbolic of and in practical implication a wide, all-embracing love for her peoples and for the peoples of the world, who are open to her spiritual influence and purity of sacrifice, to her high morals and infallible conduct of life, to her sempiternal wisdom and ever-youthful knowledge; she is not a mere landscape, amputated and constricted on all sides by hostile neighbours, she is a Shakti by whom all her subjects are sustained, and she will regain in the advent of her becoming even a greater Force of the Supreme all that she had lost. A constitutional or judicial law which does not derive from the high principle of her larger Spirit, from the basis of her inherent unity, from the depths of her profound love and sympathy, cannot hope to last long or bring about a positive change either in the psyche of men or the society. Jurisprudential ignorance is one of the worst forms of a self-appointed ego-principle, which largely lives in the limelight of its own glory and is impervious to the dictates of a self-affirmative light of the divine Spirit, which, on the contrary, lives in its native truth and wisdom, and it is from the latter that an all-comprehensive, integral sense of jurisprudential knowledge, free from mental bias and vital acrimony, can successfully emerge and govern the core conscience of Indian justice system.
A hierarchy of systems, each overlapping and in conflict with the other, often develops into an incorrigible form of apathy, a cold indifference of the dominant State, marked by shades of dubious and deceitful compassion in the external facade, but unprogressive or even rotten within beyond the scope of redemption. An independent Judiciary, free of state control or influence, is only the first of many steps in the right direction, not yet a culmination of a healthy and progressive order of society, founded on the innate principle of the higher divine Knowledge. The sign of a vibrant democracy, if it were ideally possible at all, is to be found in the efficacy of its numerous systems, in the progressive perfection of its working apparatuses and in the empathy of their outreaching towards people, not in its external make-up, for it often hides behind it an incurable disease of weakness and retardation both in its executive and administrative apparatuses, and a Judiciary functioning within or mounted on an executive support-structure fails to deliver justice and becomes a mere mouthpiece of the executive. There is also the problem of judicial overreach — which is a rare and infrequent, but it is becoming common and frequent these days — in which the executive falls prey to the stubborn intentions of the judiciary and is weakened further by its lack of vision of what constitutes an effective adjudication through the processes of a higher Law beyond the domains of human knowledge.
Human law and justice are a natural derivation of a mind in Ignorance; they arise out of a compulsion and insecurity in its essential character, for in the true order of the Spirit, these things will be replaced by a spontaneous love and divine empathy, from which will flow a higher law and justice of the Spirit, not Manusmriti, — for it is still a half-illumined mental derivation — , but a sacred scripture of a greater Knowledge, infallible, indisputable, infinitely compassionate but armed with the full prowess of Kali to smite whenever necessary, otherwise full of immeasurable love. It may seem far-fetched or even impractical to postulate a synthetic understanding of the higher Law and Justice to be possible in the working apparatus of the judicial system, in the minds and hearts of revered Judges, who have a very important role in shaping the destiny of a Nation still in her agony and pain and self-denial, in her visible poverty of ideas and lack of valiant temper, but she hides behind these weaknesses and deformities a self-exceeding puissance which defies her own gravity and is always on the ascending curve towards an illimitable knowledge of the Divine. Therefore, it is in the Spirit divine lies the reconciliation which we are seeking; it is out of its remarkable synthesis comes an utter sense of a higher divine law and justice. To administer justice is to turn to a higher light of reason backed by an impartial Consciousness, which seeks out of its inherent knowledge the infallible sense of a higher jurisprudence, which renders justice — and thereby hope — to a humanity in its progressive curve towards something greater and more self-illumined than the present forms of law and justice in their sanctuary of self-ignorance.
The idea of a spiritual Consciousness leading humanity is ingrained in the Indian psyche, for this trust is a natural expression of a certain collective inner certitude, though the forms through which it manifests may be coarse or incomplete in self-expression, but nonetheless an expression it is of a secret Wisdom within the individual. We seek succour and hope in God before we turn to law and justice, and this attitude is not a moonshine or an impractical stupidity or an expression of an unhealthy superstition, but a sign of an inherent trust in the Divine within and a symbol of our eternal bondage to God. Any system which belittles the natural faith of the individual as well as humanity is likely to leave behind nothing more than a memory of its own ruin and shall perish when the great and imperial tide of God breaches through its fragile mud-houses and decimate its vast structure into smithereens. The hour of God is nearer than we think. The justice system of India must become an expression of a higher will and truth and derive its sense and succour solely from a greater wisdom of the Spirit. To serve God, and through Him, His humanity is the purpose for which these systems have come into existence, and not for the sake of a self-centred and narrow aim bereft of a wider spiritual compassion.
The Creed of Indian Nationalism — Introduction
The Creed of Indian Nationalism — The Constitution Of A Nation
The Creed of Indian Nationalism — The Skill And Art of Administration
