Justice Shekhar Kumar Yadav, ‘Hindu’ judges and Ambedkar’s prophecy

THE highly venomous contents of the speech of Justice Shekhar Kumar Yadav of Allahabad High Court, delivered at a programme organised by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad in the court premises, were marked, among others, by his open condemnation of Muslims and Islam and his blind appreciation of Hindu scriptures and denigration of Koran.

In a calculated manner, he employed communal binaries of ‘us’ and ‘them’, denoting Hindus and Muslims respectively to flag the immediate religious identities of people to treat them unequally, in complete disregard of the constitutional vision of equality and equal opportunity for all regardless of the faith they pursue.

His usage of phrases “hamaari Gita” (our Gita) and “aapki Koran” (Your Koran) flagged his prejudiced mindset against Islam and it was all the more intensely reflected in his speech when he said, “You can’t disrespect a woman who has been recognised as a goddess in our Shastras and Vedas. You can’t claim the right to have four wives, perform halala, or practice triple talaq. You say, we have the right to say ‘triple talaq’, and not give maintenance to women.”

Ambedkar's prophetic remarks

In displaying his brazen contempt for the Constitution he said, “I have no hesitation in saying that this is Hindustan, this country would function as per the wishes of the bahusankhyak (majority) living in Hindustan.”

He employed a highly derogatory term “kathmulla” to refer to Muslims and claimed that Hindus are reformed, tolerant and generous in contrast to Muslims who he said are reared from their childhood days with “hinsa ki pravritti” (violent tendencies).

Such toxic remarks of Justice Yadav, who occupies the exalted position of a high court judge and wears on his sleeves his Hindu identity to uncritically uphold scriptures and spew venom against Muslims remind us of B.R. Ambedkar's prophetic remarks in the preface of his book, Who Were the Shudras, published in 1946, about some Hindu judges.

In it, he observed how, what he called, “the mad dogs of orthodoxy” were let loose against him when he displayed courage in raising his voice against the so-called sacred books of the Hindus. Then he remarked that “Hindu judges of high courts and Hindu Prime Ministers of Indian States do not hesitate to join their kind”.

He charged, “They not only lead the howl against him but even join in the hunt.” “What is outrageous,” remarked Ambedkar, “is that they do so because they believe that their high stations in life would invest their words with an amount of terror which would be sufficient enough to cow down any and every opponent of orthodoxy”.

Justice Yadav's attack on the Constitution

Those anguished utterances of Ambedkar concerning Hindu high court judges brought out their defence of orthodoxy while opposing Ambedkar, an individual, for his interrogation of the sacred texts to explain the position of Shudras in a hierarchical caste system anchored in what he called “graded social inequality”.