Happy Easter, Justice Kurian Joseph

It is only coincidental that Justice Kurian Joseph is a Christian.

His religious affiliation has nothing to do with him being a judge.

His letter to the Prime Minister expressing his inability to attend the judges conference on Friday – which happened to be the Good Friday – and the dinner to the visiting judges on Saturday has nothing to do with the duties he discharges as a judge.

His submission in his letter – “I regret my inability to attend the event as the conference coincides with the Good Friday ceremonies” –  reflects his personal position vis-à-vis the issue at hand and is protected by the right to free speech and right to religion provisions of the Constitution.

In any case he has denied any controversy in the matter. To quote the Indian Express, Justice Joseph said: “I am deeply hurt. It is not about, and should never be about, individuals, judges or otherwise. It was not about me or the other judges. When I wrote that letter to the CJI, I raised concerns only in the interest of the secular nature of this country and its social fabric, which we all are obligated to maintain as our constitutional duties.”

Yet, there is an issue.

As a journalist, I can critically analyse a judgment of the court but without attributing motives to the judge(s) passing that judgment. In the present case, however, the issue relates to something that happened outside the hallow chambers of the court, relates to a judge’s personal submission. I am not a student of law but common sense tells me that as a journalist the judge’s letter along with the judge’s personal beliefs are open to analysis.

However, that is not my motive. For, it is a personal statement and as long as it does not fall foul of the Constitutional provisions it remains what it is: a personal statement.  I wouldn’t allow anyone to question my personal views so why should I extend the same courtesy to another person?

As I said, there is an issue.  For me, it is of  much larger significance than the holding of an event on a public holiday.

It has to do with us, as citizens of this country, and our value system.

As we force the government to let go of its hold over our institutions, to unshackle our institutions and developmental processes from the system of the “raj”, we should take a pause and ask ourselves: Should we force our way all the way so that we determine our developmental path with as much freedom as we do with our personal political, social and religious beliefs?

If yes, then we should demand of the government that while de-licensing the critical routes for growth the government also unshackle its hold over the principle of secularism.

The good judge Joseph writes to the Prime Minister: “…being the guardian of Indian secularism, I request your honour to kindly have in mind these concerns while scheduling events and benevolently show equal importance and respect to the sacred days of all religions which are also declared as national holidays.”

He goes on to pass on his advice: "Irrespective of the religion, Diwali, Holi, Dussehra, Eid, Bakrid, Christmas, Easter, etc, are great days of festival celebrations in the neighbourhood….Your good self would kindly appreciate that no important programmes are held during sacred and auspicious days of Diwali, Dussehra, Holi, Eid, Bakrid, etc, though we have holidays during that period as well." 

What flows from this quotation is that evidence of Indian secularism lies in the fact that major events of all religions are declared holidays in the country.

But evidence of Indian secularism can also be derived from the fact that no religious event is declared a holiday in this country.

Both conditions are secular in nature, without getting too argumentative, isn’t it?

If there were to be 15-20 less holidays per year, we would be that much more productive, for instance disposing off pending backlogs in government departments and, of course, the courts?

Let me address a second issue arising out of the quotation above. Justice Joseph has left the phrase “no important programmes” clouded in ambiguity. I do not recall the Indian army taking leave during any of these religious holidays during the Kargil war. In fact this Good Friday, the army jawans in Tirap district of Arunachal Pradesh spent the entire day trying to track NSCN insurgents who had killed three jawans the previous day.

Nor do I recall any surgeon refusing to do a surgery on a religious holiday, or a pilot refusing to fly on such-and-such day. The loading and unloading of ships, tankers, rakes and trucks does not stop for any day. In private enterprises, holidays are opportunities for the top bosses to meet informally to discuss business strategies.

My daughter gets additional homework from school to be done during these holidays. She hums and haws a bit, but does not refuse to finish off her homework during her religious holidays.

As a country we talk of competing with China. In reality, we are close to some despondent nations insofar as our work attitude is concerned. We are lazy. We patronize the ”jugad”. We need an excuse to sit at home. We love to talk a lot. Our logic strains to lead us into a comfort zone, not out of it. These are not qualities of a nation on the move. We are not improving the quality of secularism by not intending to work on a religious holiday. We do not have a professional attitude to growth so we do not understand what holidaying, as in a necessary break from work, is.

How many days do we Indians enjoy our official/religious/secular/whatever holidays? Close to around 50? Add to that the holidays our organizations allow us as well as the Saturdays and Sundays and compensatory offs and so on. The figure creeps up to over a 100 days in a year. For nearly a third of the year we are off work as it is. And we have justifications for each of  these days: Oh, this is my casual leave, this is my sick leave, this is my compensatory off, this is my religious holiday……

It is not that the government has been blind to this reasoning. In fact the last two central pay commissions suggested that all central government holidays on religious festivals be abolished. Instead, they recommended increasing the number of restricted holidays, depending on one’s religious persuasion, to many as eight. The government never accepted or intended to accept these recommendations.

Why? Because, politics in India is all about ensuring that the veneer of secularism is never torn to expose the real us. It is not that we tolerate one another and so we can be called secular. It is that we have to be secular so we have to tolerate one another. That is the deepest truth we carry with us. What’s worse, we never think of it as a burden on our conscience.

Take for example, the case of the United States. The federal government has a list of 10 public holidays – New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Jr Day, President’s Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labour Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day. Good Friday is not a federal holiday, though it is a state holiday in some states.

In one of the most celebrated cases on secularism in the USA, an Indiana state employee sued the state’s Governor in 1993 for giving employees a holiday on Good Friday. I quote from a website the questions the suit raised: “Can the government take a religious holiday and make an official state holiday out of it? Is it an establishment of religion when a religious holy day becomes an official state holiday? Good Friday is a Christian Holy Day which many Christians would surely like to have off, but does that mean that governments should grant it official recognition over and above the holy days of other religions?”

(http://atheism.about.com/library/decisions/holydays/bldec_BridenbaughOBannon.htm)

A US circuit court of appeals ruled in 1999 in the Governor’s favour, but pointed out that a paid off day can be given on a religious holiday as long as the state can provide a “valid secular purpose that coincides with the obvious, religious purpose of the holiday”.

In what came to be known as the Bridenbaugh v. O'Bannon case, the court observed the state did have secular purposes: “Indiana has officially stated that it continues to recognize Good Friday as a legal holiday in order to provide a spring holiday to state employees during a time period in which there would be over four months without a holiday. Indiana also presented evidence that it believes that it serves its interests as an employer to give generous holidays - including the Good Friday holiday - because holidays bolster employees' efficiency and morale. Additionally, Indiana submitted evidence that Good Friday is a good Friday for a long weekend, not only because it falls during a vacation-vacant period, but also because over thirty percent of the schools in Indiana are closed on Good Friday, and because forty-four percent of employers in a nine-state region, including Indiana, allow their employees to take Good Friday as a holiday.”

In India, we circumvented such public debates, even litigations, on the issue of religious holidays by simply declaring all major religious days as public holidays. That’s our brand of secularism.