Hope Justice Gowri never hears my case

Justice L C Victoria Gowri (second from right) has stated that Christian and Muslim groups are “equally dangerous in the context of conversion”. Pic/Twitter

I have been wondering how I would feel if I were to get entangled in a case that is assigned to Justice L C Victoria Gowri for hearing. Doubts would gnaw me about getting justice. I would spend sleepless nights recalling the comments she made against Christians and Muslims before she was appointed as an Additional Judge in the Madras High Court.

I would prepare a list of those who swept aside their political beliefs to become ideologically neutral. At the ballooning of my hope, a voice inside me would ask: Is hate an ideology? Can the hatred a person feels for a community turn into love for its members as soon as he or she is appointed to a judicial post?

Instead of accusing me of harbouring prejudices, recall the statements Gowri made. She said both Christian and Muslim groups "are equally dangerous in the context of conversion, especially Love Jihad". She said she had no problems with a Hindu girl marrying a Muslim boy, but added a caveat: "But…if I find my girl in the Syrian terrorist camp, I have objection (sic) and that is what I define as Love Jihad."

Gowri's "Syrian terrorist camp" is a reference to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which triggered a bloody civil war in Syria. How many Indian girls found their way to the ISIS camp, I wonder. Less than a dozen, I conclude after an Internet search. But this figure still had Gowri justify the theory of Love Jihad!
Milords, please never assign my case to Gowri.

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Yet, at the same time, I would rejoice I was not born a Christian, for her animus against this community runs alarmingly deep. I would remember how after watching a Bharatnatyam performance, Gowri said, "I was so shocked… we found it very awkward and ugly especially when the children danced the poses of Lord Nataraja to mean Jesus Christ." Accusing Christians of having a "meticulous, well-planned, educated way of alluring people" to convert to Christianity, she said, "Where there is a temple, there must be many Churches (sic) is their aggressive motto."

Oh Jesus!

Gowri's venomous remarks prompted 21 lawyers of the Madras High Court to petition the Supreme Court against her appointment. But Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice B R Gavai dismissed the petition, saying "it was accepted that a number of persons, who have had political backgrounds, have been elevated as judges of the high court and the Supreme Court…"

Gavai referred to his own political background - his father had founded the Republican Party of India (Gavai), a breakaway faction of the Republican Party of India (RPI), which came into existence in 1957, around 10 months after the death of Dr B R Ambedkar, who had publicly announced his intention to form such a party.

On one of those sleepless nights, a consequence of Gowri hearing my case, I would try to analyse Gavai Senior's ideology. All RPI factions are ideologically opposed to discriminatory Brahminical practices, and strive to achieve the equality of all humans. Those with such "political backgrounds" do not demonise communities. Rather, they challenge segments of social groups politically more powerful than them.

I would remember Gavai mentioning late Justice V R Krishna Iyer, who was a minister in Kerala's first Communist government, while hearing the lawyers' petition. Was the iconic judge a diehard Communist? Remembering his years as a successful lawyer, Krishna Iyer said, "Gently I became a public figure of sorts without party affiliation. Communists like P Krishna Pillai were often visiting me. Gandhians and bitter type of Congressmen who were not for power or office used to visit me frequently."

They visited him because they knew Krishna Iyer would represent gratis the "oppressed and the suppressed," including the Communists who had revolted against the ruler of Travancore's dilly-dallying over acceding to India. In 1948, Iyer was arrested on the charge of using the courts for political propaganda. A laughable proposition, indeed. He was let off a month later.

I would also recall other judges with political backgrounds - V M Tarkunde, Rajinder Sachar, P B Sawant, etc. Yet their politics, like Iyer's, was never directed against religious communities. Vigorous upholders of human rights, they sided with the marginalised.

There were members of mainstream parties who, too, were appointed as judges - Aftab Alam (CPI), Bahrul Islam and K N Singh (Congress), M Rama Jois and G M Lodha (BJP), S Ratnavel Pandian (DMK)...

Maybe I am wrong to suspect Gowri of being biased against Muslims and Christians. That she was once the national secretary of the BJP's women's wing does not worry me. I worry because of that question: Can hate be an ideology?

In an interview to Al Jazeera, Niza Yanay, author of The Ideology of Hatred: The Psychic Power of Discourse, points out, "Why do so many Jewish citizens of Israel, who have never been hurt by Palestinians, openly admit to intense hatred?" Hatred, Yanay says, has become a "political apparatus that creates a community through the horror of the strange and the different." Precisely what the BJP has been doing in India, exactly what Gowri did. That is why I hope my case never goes to Gowri.

The writer is a senior journalist

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