For Advocates of consociotionalism and multi-culturalism, this judgement may be
acceptable, but to me, it is disturbing. This is in regards to case involving
the alleged persecution of a tribal woman. My sympathies are with the woman if
such an incident indeed happened, but when I tried to learn more about the
case,
I was a bit disturbed by what I found. The draft of the judgement is on the
website and is easy enough to find (please see information below). The
concluding words of the judgement were the following:
37. The well known example of the injustice to the tribals is the story of
Eklavya in the Adiparva of the Mahabharat. Eklavya wanted to learn
archery, but Dronacharya refused to teach him, regarding him as low born.
Eklavya then built a statue of Dronacharya and practiced archery before the
statue. He would have perhaps become a better archer than Arjun, but since
Arjun was Dronacharya's favourite pupil Dronacharya told Eklavya to cut
off his right thumb and give it to him as `guru dakshina' (gift to the teacher
given traditionally by the student after his study is complete). In his
simplicity Eklavya did what he was told.
1
38. This was a shameful act on the part of Dronacharya. He had not even
taught Eklavya, so what right had he to demand `guru dakshina', and that too
of the right thumb of Eklavya so that the latter may not become a better
archer than his favourite pupil Arjun?
39. Despite this horrible oppression on them, the tribals of India have
generally (though not invariably) retained a higher level of ethics than the
non-tribals in our country. They normally do not cheat, tell lies, and do
other misdeeds which many non-tribals do. They are generally superior in
character to the non-tribals. It is time now to undo the historical injustice to
them.
40. Instances like the one with which we are concerned in this case
deserve total condemnation and harsh punishment.
41. With these observations the appeal stands dismissed.
I would like to note that it is completely inappropriate for a judge in the
Supreme Court to cite instances of doubtful historical accuracy to support
rulings pertaining to the present day. In particular, it is unclear that the
incident involving Ekalavya and Dronacharya ever even actually happened as
described in the Mahabharata. If such sort of citations were allowed as a
matter
of course, what is to prevent someone else from using another fictional account
(say, the treatment of flying animals in "Avatar") to support whatever
conclusions they want to arrive (say, better treatment of jet fighters
maintained by the military).
Furthermore, the contention that "[tribals] are generally superior in character
to the non-tribals." is completely unsupported by data. Judging by what I read
in the American press, people do not consider themselves any less in character
simply because they are not tribals.
The judgement shows poor judgement on the part of the judge.
Anand
[From the Indo-Eurasian Mailing list]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Indo-Eurasian_research/message/14770
Salil Sayed wrote :
<stuff deleted>
The Economic Times reports of a judgement by Supreme Court, India on a case of
persecution of a tribal woman.
http://m.economictimes.com/PDAET/articleshow/7226433.cms
The judges make detailed comments on history of ancient immigration in India
quoting from various sources like The Cambridge History of India and google. The
draft of the judgment can be found at the website of Supreme Court by searching
by one of the Judge's name Justice Gyan Sudha Misra and date 5th Jan 2011.
http://judis.nic.in/supremecourt/chejudis.asp
The items 16 onwards are of interest to scholars on the list.
salil
