On Hinduism

Title: On Hinduism

Author: Wendy Doniger

Publisher: Aleph Book Company 2013 (First)

ISBN: 9789382277071

Pages: 660

Wendy Doniger dropped a bombshell on Indian intellectual circles with her 2009 book ‘The Hindus – An Alternative History’. Blowing up the sexuality and inconsistencies present in any ancient religious text out of all proportions, Doniger published the book as if to offer an alternative history against the established wisdom of the times. Widespread condemnation of the abominable references to Hinduism’s most revered characters ensued in India and abroad. That volume was banned in India and the publishers destroyed all copies in the country. Doniger claims that this book, which came out in 2013, is written with the Indian audience in mind, whereas the previous text was for an American scholarly readership. The writer argues that she didn’t expect Hindus would read it and thought that they wouldn’t take information on their religion from an American woman. In this regard, this book is an apology in place of the censure contained in the previous one. Whereas the earlier book was a structured one – whatever charges one may bring up against the content – this book is simply a collection of essays the author had composed over the years on Hinduism. 63 out of the 140 essays on the author’s thoughts on Hinduism are included in this book. The chapters were thus written beforehand over a span of decades and this breaks the chain of continuity running across the chapters. On the other hand, readers get a golden opportunity to sample the varied sources of stories they had only a brief exposure to, from other publications. Interested readers can find my earlier review of ‘The Hindus – an Alternative History’ here.

What differentiates Hinduism from other modern world religions is its polytheism and primacy of tolerance to differing creeds. Doniger develops both ideas in some detail. The religion’s most sacred book is the Rig Veda, which is also the oldest extant work of literature of any kind in India. The Veda is polytheistic, but with a monistic hue. Numerous gods are mentioned and praised in it, but the devotees could select among the pantheon and pray to a particular god at a time suited to his present need. Each god was considered to be supreme as far as the devotee is concerned. Even with so many gods on call, so to say, the substance that pervades the universe is thought to be divine and inherently unitary, which is called brahma (not to be confused with the creator god). This vague monism discernible in the Rig Veda was sharpened by the systematized monism of Vedanta. Doniger claims that a polytheistic religion is inherently tolerant as compared to a monistic one. At the same time, a monistic religion is more tolerant than a monotheistic one! But there is also an undeniably intolerant strain in Hinduism, which the author attributes to the intellectual and philosophical ascendancy of the monistic ideals of Vedanta. If only Hinduism, or any religion for that matter, was rather simple for such easy categorizations! The book also states that what western intellectuals have thought the Hindus have done has given rise to the idea of Hindu tolerance, without much evidence on the ground. The Hindu fundamentalists are aping Protestant evangelical strategies. In spite of all these, we see many people following the benevolent practices and rituals of other religions like Islam or Christianity, though Doniger chides them with the sarcastic remark that those syncretists keep the feasts of both religions and the fasts of neither! The Hindu pluralist world was not orthodox, but primarily orthopraxy, as it didn’t insist on doctrine (doxis) as long as ritual and social behaviour (praxis) satisfied the standards of the particular group.

The book is just a collection of essays written over a period of several years and has not much interconnection between the themes of succeeding chapters. There is an interesting observation made by Doniger in one of these articles. Any discussion on Hindu society invariably touches upon Manu Smriti, the dharmashastra attributed to a pseudonym author. This book is at the heart of the controversy between upper and lower castes in contemporary India. The lower castes put all blame for their historical backwardness at the doors of Manu on account of the repressive measures suggested in his law book against them. However, Doniger raises doubt on the primacy of Manu Smriti in Indian jurisprudence of the ancients. The goal of Manu’s laws, like Hindu culture, is not consistency, but totality. There are several instances of doctrinal inconsistency in it. There are nine commentaries on Manu, but none of them was used as a legal system. Rural panchayats decided legal disputes based on local custom and rules of precedence. The current prominence of Manu is ascribed to the British. The administrators of British India, beginning with Warren Hastings, wanted to use Manu as the basis of a legal system, though he himself doesn’t claim so, and adds that Manu lives on in the darker shadows of Hinduism. Doniger puts undue stress in developing the varied concepts of sexuality that can be expected in a book as ancient as the puranas. Some of the titles are selected with gross insensitivity to the sentiments of the targeted audience like ‘Bisexuality and trans-sexuality among the Hindu gods’. Passages from the Kama Sutra which are sexually explicit are reproduced in the book. Narrative imagination has produced many examples of gender transformation in the puranic stories that are in fact to be taken as just a myth, but the author does extensive pedantry on the stories and brings out exaggerated philosophical analyses. The coverage is also narrow and boring at times. What are we to make of titles like ‘Changing ethical implications of Hindu cosmologies’ and ‘The Scrapbook of undeserved salvation – the Kedara Khanda of Skanda Purana’?

Two aspects of ancient India that finds exceeding interest from Doniger are Kamasutra and (non)-vegetarianism. Truly, the author attests Kama Sutra to be the only sophisticated text produced by India. This is the only work that elicits favourable response from her, who also claims that this text embarrasses Hindus to no end. Richard Francis Burton published the first translation of it in 1883, at a time when Hindus were disheartened at the scorn of Protestant proselytizers and wanted to keep the Kama Sutra under the Upanishadic rug. What Burton did to Kama Sutra was what Max Muller earlier did to the Rig Veda and Upanishads. But here, a crucial Indian contribution goes overlooked. Burton used Forster Arbuthnot’s text, which in essence relied upon the work of Bhagavanlal Indrajit and Shivram Bhide. The attribution came out unintentionally, when Arbuthnot claimed that the text was translated by two Indians to get the censors off his back. Indians always put forward the Upanishadic speculations over any non-religious text and for them, it was the fall of Kama and the rise of Karma as noted in the Upanishads.

Though most of the Hindus eat meat except beef today, the author argues that flesh-eating was much more common in the past. People ate flesh, including that of sacrificial animals. Contrary to popular belief, it was the rise of Buddhism and Jainism that was instrumental in the slow transition to vegetarianism, at least for the upper castes. These religions promoted ahimsa (non-violence). Ashoka’s inscriptions shed some light on this, but what he did have in mind was avihimsa (absence of desire to kill). Ashoka continued the system of capital punishment and torture of criminals. Moreover, killing animals for the royal kitchen continued with reduced numbers. Manu Smriti is ambivalent on non-vegetarianism. It says that “The eater who eats creatures with the breath of life who are to be eaten does nothing bad, even if he does it day after day; for the Creator himself created creatures with the breath of life, some to be eaten and some to be eaters” (p. 421, Manu 5:28-30). His comment against meat eating is “You can never get meat without violence to creatures with the breath of life, and the killing of creatures with the breath of life does not get you to heaven; therefore you should not eat meat” (p.422, Manu 5:48-53). The references against meat-eating are more prominent in Manu’s law book that has three pro- and twenty-five anti-meat verses. There are some instances cited in the book which shows the cow was also eaten. “The Brahmanas say that a bull or cow should be killed when a guest arrives, a cow should be sacrificed to Mitra and Varuna, and a sterile cow to the Maruts, and that twenty-one sterile cows should be sacrificed in the horse sacrifice. The grammarian Panini, who may have lived as early as the fifth or sixth century BCE, glossed the word go-ghna (literally, cow killer), as one for whom a cow is killed, that is, a guest” (p. 502).

The book is a huge one, but with a fine collection of notes, bibliography and index. The narration veers totally off track at some points, particularly when the author argues that the finer details of Mahmud of Ghazni’s sacking of Somanatha and what he did to the idol kept there are just mythologizing. This tramples upon the hurt feelings of the victim rather than readjusting a medieval wrong in the glow of the enlightenment of a future era. Doniger also inadvertently promotes a commercial product manufactured by Kottakkal Arya Vaidya Sala in Kerala with her offhand comment that the organization manufactures Chyavanaprasha with scrupulous care and attention as if the other companies are not that attentive to the quality of their products.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 2 Star

The Assassination of Rajiv Gandhi

Title: The Assassination of Rajiv Gandhi

Author: Neena Gopal

Publisher: Penguin Viking, 2016 (First)

ISBN: 9780670088706

Pages: 273

Rajiv Gandhi’s swearing in as the prime minister of India after his mother’s assassination by her own bodyguards was a paradigm shift in the orientation of Indian politics. He brought in a refreshing wind of a short-lived optimism that wafted gently across the political and economic domains of the country. He brokered peace deals with the Mizos, Sikhs and Sri Lankan Tamils. Even in the face of this impressive record, there were forces inimical to him lurking at every corner of the disputed areas in which his peace came into being. In a carefully orchestrated suicide attack, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and its leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran assassinated the icon of the new face of Indian politicians in 1991. This incident, its antecedents and its aftermath that finally led to the tigers being vanquished by the Sri Lanka army in 2009 are covered in this book. The author is a journalist and what makes this book unique is that she was the person who did the very last interview with Rajiv, just moments before the fateful blast on that night at Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu. The author describes the gory scene which she witnessed after the blast. A great attribute of this work is that it followed up on events after the assassination too. The survey in fact extends to the year 2015 in which she visited Jaffna again to take stock of the ground reality six years after the tigers were wiped off. It is disconcerting to note that the frustration and anger among ordinary Tamils is building up on account of the Sinhala majority not yet fully taking them into confidence. A repeat of the three decades of civil war and indescribable strife would only spell the doom of the island nation. This book calls on all interested parties – both local and international – to take stock of the present situation to bring about a lasting peace.

Gopal puts up a clear picture of the chain of events that led to the brutal murder of the young leader. The illustrated scenario is that of naiveté and lack of experience in doing realpolitik on the part of Gandhi. This is quite excusable as he was reluctant even to enter politics after the accidental death of his younger brother, Sanjay. Indira Gandhi shrewdly followed the policy of keeping the Sri Lankans on tenterhooks with liberal assistance in resources to Tamil separatists. When Rajiv rose to power, this situation put him in a dilemma. The logistical support India was extending to Lankan Tamils was similar to what Pakistan showered on Kashmiri separatists. Being a gentleman as a person, though inexperienced in politics, this upset Rajiv Gandhi. He tried hard to reach a political settlement of the vexed issue. He managed to reach a hodgepodge deal with both sides in 1987 which was bound to crumble even before the ink dried on the signatures. Sri Lanka wanted Indian army to keep peace as specified in the accord that is to be a precondition to provincial autonomy. LTTE took exception to this move which would have forced them to disarm. Skirmishes between LTTE and the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) soon turned into a battle in which heavy damages were inflicted on both sides. It slowly dawned on Indian leaders that this would be a Vietnam for the Indian army. Around this time, Rajiv’s name was tarnished by the Bofors gun scam beyond redemption. His government fell in the 1989 election and V P Singh came to power. The new government was beset with slowing down of the economy and was in no mood to continue with the Sri Lankan misadventure. It recalled the forces in 1990. But the fratricidal strife in the ruling coalition was getting ugly and unmanageable. Events moved swiftly with V P Singh stepping down and Chandrasekhar assuming premiership with Congress support. It was apparent to anybody, including the prime minister, that his seat was secure only till the Congress was fully prepared for fresh polls. Just five months later, the moment arrived. On a flimsy excuse of snooping by the government, Rajiv withdrew his support to the government which fell soon after. Elections were called for the month of May 1991. Rajiv Gandhi was touted to win the election and come back as premier.

LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran was disturbed at Chandrasekhar coming to power with Rajiv Gandhi’s support. With the elections announced and Congress’ return on the cards, he was terrified at the prospect of Rajiv back in power and sending Indian troops again to Lanka. He wanted to put an end to Rajiv’s life in his first political assassination of a foreign leader. He was helped by the scant security provided to Rajiv. The author is quite vocal on this point and she puts the blame squarely on V P Singh’s door. It was he who decided to scrap the security by special commandos provided for former prime ministers. She claims that Rajiv Gandhi was too proud to ask for Z-category security and his political opponents lacked the generosity of spirit to give it to him especially when Kashmiri and Khalistani rebels were baying for his blood. Rajiv didn’t trust Prabhakaran and his LTTE. His idea was to devolve self-rule to more moderate Tamil outfits like TULF and EPRLF. This was greatly resented by the LTTE supremo who harboured ambitions of ruling over a greater Eelam by setting up the new regime annexing India’s Tamil Nadu state as well.

Prabhakaran might have relished the moment when the news of Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination reached him. But little did he realize that he had met his nemesis. Killing Rajiv was the biggest blunder the Tamil tigers had committed which eventually led to the organization’s humiliating defeat at the hands of Sri Lanka army in 2009. The book dedicates a chapter on the unraveling of the Tamil cause in Sri Lanka. India provided all the resources in men, material, finance and weapons during the growth phase of LTTE. All that stopped completely after Rajiv Gandhi’s murder. Indian secret services switched sides and collaborated with the Sri Lankans to cut down the Tamil menace. It even tried to cause dissent among the tigers and enrolled the support of Mahattaya, the second in the organization. The idea was that Mahattaya should depose Prabhakaran and take the reins of the force. However the plot was somehow revealed and Prabhakaran lost no time in eliminating his second-in-command after weeks of torture. The tigers signed a deal with the Lankan government in 2002 mainly to buy time since they had no intention at all of reaching a peaceful settlement. After supposedly recouping losses, Prabhakaran began a series of suicide bombings against Sri Lankan top brass including the army chief and defence secretary in 2006. But this time, Prabhakaran’s luck had run out. The world had changed after 9/11 and was not at all prepared to acquiesce in to the tactics of a terrorist organization like LTTE. Indian and international aid flowed to Sri Lanka, whose army began a determined last war against it. The LTTE soon lost its strongholds in the North and East of the country. They made a last-ditch attempt to escape keeping the civilians as human shields. This only made the plight of civilians pathetic. As estimated by the UN, 40,000 of them were killed in the death trap at Vaduvakkal, laid by the army. Hundreds of women were raped and the tigers watched helplessly. Finally, the moment came when the war ended, with Prabhakaran’s mutilated body found by Sri Lankan troops at Nandikkadal. Both of his sons were also killed by the army.

Being a journalist and on quite expected lines, the book includes sensational claims without much supporting evidence. During the anti-American ‘socialist’ phase of Indian politics, the relationship between the two largest democracies in the world had reached its lowest ebb following the populist but short-sighted measures of Indira Gandhi and the country’s strategic dependence on the Soviet Union. Naturally, the US wanted to establish its bases encircling India. But even with this background, the author’s claim that the proposed radio transmitter of the Voice of America at Trincomalee in Sri Lanka was a bid to snoop on India is a little too far-fetched. She assumes a condescending attitude to anything Indian in the first few chapters of the book, with references to peeling paint of the airport building and potholes on the roads. These peeling paint and potholes are the fetishes of some foreign authors on India, which is faithfully copied by Gopal. A curious fact to note about the book is that it doesn’t ruffle any feathers. There are no new revelations upsetting anybody. A good index is attached, but a few photographic plates would have added much interest. The book is good to read, but M R Narayan Swamy’s ‘Tiger Vanquished’, which is reviewed earlier in this blog, is much better.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 3 Star

The Water Book

Title: The Water Book – The Extraordinary Story of Our Most Ordinary Substance

Author: Alok Jha

Publisher: Headline, 2015 (First)

ISBN: 9781472209559

Pages: 376

Water is so essential to human existence that we usually take it for granted. Not only man, all life forms are inalienably linked to it by the thread of absolute necessity. We can abstain from food for several days without much ill effects, but a few hours away from water will upset the neurological balance of the body. Life as we know it is a gift of water. All the metabolic processes in the cells of living beings take place in the medium of water. Presence of it on other planets is considered as a telltale sign of life itself. However, water is a highly reactive and corrosive substance chemically. How this peculiar chemical turned out to be the nectar of life? How water originated in the universe and on earth? What are the forms in which it is available on the face of the planet? These and other valid questions are answered in this book penned by Alok Jha. The author is of Indian origin and is settled in London. He is a science journalist and broadcaster working for Guardian and ITN. He was named European Science Writer of the Year in 2008 and has authored several books on popular science.

Water exhibits some very peculiar properties, which are nicely summarized in the book. There are a few effects such as Mpemba Effect, which is difficult to explain why. This effect is the property of hot water that freezes faster than cold water when both are placed in the same freezer at sub-zero temperatures. The molecular weight of water is very low, as it is a compound of one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms. This is lighter than even air, which is mostly a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen molecules, in both of which the molecule consists of two atoms. Now, the strange part! Even though water is thus lighter than air, it is a liquid at room temperature whereas the heavier air is a gas! Hydrogen Sulfide (H₂S), which is nearly twice the molecular weight of water, is also a gas! Similar is the case with ammonia. This was a paradox to the scientific world until the concept of hydrogen bonding was developed. Water is a polar liquid, with the two hydrogen atoms connected to the lone oxygen atom at an angle of 104 degrees with each other. These hydrogen atoms possess positive charge which induces attraction with nearby oxygen atoms that are negatively charged. This affinity is not as strong as the conventional covalent or ionic bonds, but sufficient enough to change its physical properties. This weak interaction with fellow molecules causes water to remain a liquid at normal temperatures. As we know, water is essential to life in the liquid form. If not for this quirk of water, life would not have existed on earth – at least, not in the way we are so familiar with. However, not all the water on earth is available for life. As per scientific estimates, only 1% of the terrestrial water is accessible to the flora and fauna as a liquid.

The book delves into the role of water in human societies. Man’s ability to form urban civilizations is crucially dependent on his capacity to exploit and control the sources of water. All civilizations and major towns took root on the shores of a large water body such as a river, lake or sea. The ancient Greek geographer Pausanius remarked that no city can call itself by that name if it can’t hoist an ornamental fountain in the centre of the city as a potent indicator of man’s control over water. This precious liquid was available in plenty for most of human history. However, with rapid urbanization and scarcity of supplies, water has assumed the role of a commodity that is no longer cheap. It is almost certain that most of the people living now would witness an eventuality in their lives in which water will be difficult to come by. This imperative calls for conservation of water. The book introduces the concept of water footprint for the material we consume in our daily lives. Originally formulated by Arjen Hoekstra, this idea links human consumption to the amount of water extracted from earth to produce that material. For example, the beef burger you eat was produced at the cost of about 1000 liters of water. The section on biosphere presents a gloomy picture of excessive water use without practical alleviation measures immediately at hand. 70% of the extracted water is utilized for agriculture and 20% for industry. With no path-breaking technology round the corner, consumption is sure to surge higher as the developing world gets industrialized fast. This prophecy of doom, however, is helpful only to create an image of pessimism. U.S. power plants are said to use 500 billion cubic meters of water for cooling alone in a year. Most of the power plants recycle cooling water for its processes and only a small amount of fresh water is required to be introduced into the closed system as makeup water. A lot of UN’s predictions about water scarcity in the coming decades are included, which are pessimistic as usual. Jha has included all issues of concern in the world in this discussion on water. Global warming and water conservation are only two among them. Here again, the observations proposed in favour of global warming may cause a smile on climate-skeptics’ faces. Traces of warming are undoubtedly seen in the Arctic and West Antarctic Peninsula, whereas ice cover has increased on other locations and the atmosphere in fact cooled a bit over the decades.

 Jha is a superb narrator of his experiences onboard the ship which took him to Antarctica. The discourse is witty and nicely recollects the bumpy sailing to the southernmost continent. The experiences midway and on reaching the destination is pleasant to read, but faithfully reproduce the deceptive perils that dot the path of Antarctic explorers. The book is divided into four sections on biosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere and space, with the travel to Antarctica forming an interesting backdrop to the story of water on these spheres of its existence. Unfortunately for the readers who expect a discussion more on the mundane and earthly aspects of the subject, the author reserves more than a third of the book to explore the possibility of locating water in other planets and even outside the solar system. Even though interesting owing to the exotic nature of the material, it seems irrelevant and a letdown for the more ordinary pursuits of water enthusiasts. Our probes have found definite presence of water in the Moon and Mars as ice, and we strongly suspect the occurrence of it on Titan and Enceladus – the natural satellites of Saturn. A brief introduction to the existence of water on exoplanets – planets that circle other stars outside the solar system – is given, but which is full of conjecture rather than fact. This is no doubt caused by the scarcity of reliable observation data. The temperature on these planets is no doubt much different than that of our pleasant terrestrial atmosphere. However, life can thrive on such places as well. Jha also presents such life-forms called extremophiles such as lichens, cyanobacteria and green algae. They thrive on geothermal vents under water at extreme temperatures and also in lakes beneath ice shelves in Antarctica. These forms are significant when we compare their habitat to the very difficult conditions available on other planets.

Though the book is generally pleasing to read, it wavers sometimes from the target and covers topics that are not strictly relevant to the main thread of the argument. The phase diagram of the transformation of water to ice at various pressures and temperatures provided on page 170 is a complicated one and most of the readers will fail to appreciate its significance. The book is endowed with a very comprehensive index and a good section of Notes and further references. Unfortunately, it doesn’t include an introduction to the author. Without the knowledge of his background and experience in the field, many readers would be confused whether to fully accept the arguments or to subject it to further review. A brief search on the internet will establish the credentials of the author.

The book is recommended. The book 'H₂O - A Biography of Water' by Philip Ball reviewed earlier in this blog is also a nice book for interested readers.

Rating: 3 Star

Story of a Chief Justice

Title: Story of a Chief Justice

Author: Justice U. L. Bhat

Publisher: Universal Law Publishing, 2013 (First)

ISBN: 9789350353653

Pages: 457

Judiciary is one of the three pillars of any democracy. Its absolute independence is a prerequisite to personal freedom and liberty of the people. It is the watchdog which protects the society from the depredations of the executive. At least, this is the premise of civics textbooks. But in India, the judiciary had been on the path of heightened activism ever since elected governments failed to command an absolute majority on its own in Parliament for the major party. Courts began to usurp more and more privileges from the executive. Going by some of the recent decisions of courts, it may be surmised that they have reached the stage of policy making as well. This state of affairs is not desirable as the judges are not ultimately responsible to the people for the power and privileges they handle. People can’t oust them and the appointment of judges has also been taken over by the courts. A great tug of war is taking place between the Union Government and the Supreme Court of India on the appointment of judges. It is in this backdrop that we read the memoirs of Shri. Ullal Lakshminarayana Bhat, who practiced in local courts of Kasaragod, Kerala, then elevated as a district judge, and then as a judge of Kerala High Court. He was promoted and posted as Chief Justice of Gauhati and Madhya Pradesh High Courts. Finally, after retirement, he was deputed as the President of Central Excise and Gold (control) Appellate Tribunal for three years. He is living in Bengaluru after retirement and occasionally practices as a senior advocate in Karnataka Bar.

Bhat is always partial to what interests him or in which he has a professional interest. The tradition of high courts is that a portion of its judges will be selected from the Bar. Such practicing lawyers thus have access to a course in which some form of direct recruitment is available. The other stream enters the court by granting promotions to service judges officiating in district courts. From numerous references in this book, it seems to an impartial observer that these service judges harbour some kind of inferiority complex vis-à-vis their counterparts directly selected from the Bar. As can be seen in several places in the book, the service judges tend to form a clique and help their fellows. We read about Bhat enhancing the reservation of service judges from 33% to 40% at the first instance when it was in his power to do so. Another notable thing is that the author mentions some of the other judges and lawyers along with the community to which they belong. Such petty community-consciousness is odious in a learned judge. This brings in sharp focus the plight of judiciary which is filled to the brim with upper castes. Another character trait seen in the book is the constant uneasiness against being victimized in some form or the other. Even a transfer to a distant place or a first posting in an inconvenient town is construed as someone playing tricks against him. When he was promoted as district judge, he had to travel to Thiruvananthapuram from his native Kasaragod, which are at the extreme southern and northern points of a geographically north-south elongated Kerala state. What infuriates him is not his place of posting, but the OBC candidate promoted along with him got a seat at Kottayam from his native Irinjalakuda, both in the middle of the state. After he was promoted and posted as the chief justice of Gauhati High Court, his bone of contention was that there were no connecting flights from Kochi to Guwahati and he could reach there only on the third day, while other promoted judges could reach their destinations within hours. And this – can you believe this? – is cited as discrimination.

Even though Justice Bhat had experience only on the civil side of jurisprudence, he was appointed as district judge who tried criminal cases and rose to prominence with logical judgments and decisions. Political background of judges is now a serious point of concern. How can we expect them to be impartial at the higher echelons of judiciary, even though it can be argued that they are bound by the oath at the time of swearing in the office? Bhat worked for the undivided communist party while being a lawyer and was the leader of several trade unions. He even contested elections to local bodies on the party ticket. Other prominent judges who also dabbled in politics are Justices V R Krishna Iyer and P Subramanian Potti. The author was in close friendship with both.

The book is too personal in some parts and too complicated with legal jargon at other places. Bhat proceeds with giving unjustifiably lengthy details of his extended family in a chapter in which the whereabouts of thirteen of his sister’s children are disclosed. His family members are well placed and the author is not unduly concerned about flaunting it. On the other hand, the language is too terse with legal terms abundantly used. Without a glossary, readers find it difficult to make out terms like ‘puisne judges’. Trumpeting one’s own accolades is a genuine charge to which the learned justice should plead guilty. He reproduces verbatim the felicitations made by other judges and lawyers on the occasion of his joining or leaving the services of a court. Bhat claims himself to be a person who exclaims what feels right to him to anybody. Uncharacteristically for such a person, the book is silent about the period of Emergency, when Bhat was silently working as a district judge. This strange silence on the period is punctuated only by the incident of missing his school-going daughter for two hours. Looking at the style of writing and general décor, it seems that the author didn’t enjoy reading books from outside the legal profession. This is only a guess, but quite likely, considering the hectic schedule and homework required for a serving judge.

The book introduces some shocking revelations against the judiciary. The author asserts that even in higher judiciary, a godfather is necessary. Earlier, this was so in government, but later, this extended to judiciary as well (p. 259). He is referring to his sidelining in selection to the post of Supreme Court Judge in favour of K S Paripoornan who was junior to him in service. In these days of Collegium which selects judges, contacts in the right places are good for everyone. Cultivation of the collegium members has become a normal feature in the judiciary (p. 399). V R Krishna Iyer, in the foreword, mentions the dangers of the collegium system. Iyer claims that the system possesses no transparency and steeped in sycophancy. The Parliament doesn’t dare to scrap the system. However, the present government did bring in the National Judicial Appointments Commission to select judges to higher courts that envisaged consultations in a transparent manner. However, the Supreme Court scrapped the commission as unconstitutional. The nation at present witnesses a cold war between the Supreme Court and the Union Government regarding the appointment of 43 judges proposed by the collegium. The result has not been out, and Bhat’s and Krishna Iyer’s remarks assume great relevance in this connection to contemporary events.

The author was a hardworking judge who tried to make genuine positive changes in the functioning of courts. Two of his strongest points are his insistence on clearing the backlog of pending cases and the need for imparting training to judicial officers. He strived for setting targets on the number of pending suits in courts under his jurisdiction and linked the performance assessment of his subordinates to the speedy clearance of long-delayed cases. Wherever he went, he put into being or resurrected judicial academies for the training of judges. What can be said against him and the book is his undue persistence on service matters such as seniority. He is also upset over the practice of assigning lower seniority to service candidates as opposed to practicing lawyers from the Bar during induction to judicial service. A lot of research has gone into making of the book, but the proof reading is pathetic. A lot of unpardonable mistakes have crept in, which looks like errors in dictation. The book is gifted with a name-index as well as a subject-index. A lot of colour photographs add interest to the narrative.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 2 Star