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| Tolerance unlimited | | |
by A.J. Philip
LEGAL luminary Fali S. Nariman was the chief guest at a seminar on secularism on a sultry Sunday at St. Columba’s School in New Delhi where I, too, was called upon to speak.
Most of the people who filled the auditorium had come to hear the brilliant barrister, who had just been nominated to the Rajya Sabha.
He sat through the whole programme where representatives of major religions spoke on how they viewed secularism. When his turn came to speak, Nariman clutched at a sheaf of papers he had brought in a file as he took position behind the lectern.
When many others spoke extempore and effortlessly drifted away from the subject, he read out from the prepared text. I wondered why a lawyer of such eminence, whose voice often resonates in the Supreme Court, needed a text to deliver a speech.
He dwelt on the constitutional aspect of secularism and quoted article and schedule to argue his point that secularism was one of the basic tenets of the Constitution.
It was a surprise that he found time to prepare the speech when every minute he spends on a case translates into thousands of rupees. The speech brought home the point that he was methodical and he measured every word he uttered.
After he finished each page he would put it in the open drawer under the lectern. He was so engrossed in his talk that he did not realise that a pedestal fan on the dais was blowing away the loose sheets of speech from the drawer.
Of course, for his convenience, one of the ushers on duty had sprung up to the occasion to catch the papers and put them in order to be handed over to him at the end of his speech.
There were occasions when he turned extempore to narrate an anecdote or crack a joke to keep the goings as lively as possible. One such anecdote referred to a case the Supreme Court had decided on August 11, 1986.
V.J. Emmanuel had approached the apex court against an order of the Kerala High Court upholding the expulsion of his daughters Bina Mole and Bindu from the government school where they studied.
They belonged to a Christian sect called Jehovah’s Witness, whose adherents practise political neutrality, do not join military service, refuse to sing the national anthem or salute the national flag. They do not use any images or icons, not even the cross, do not allow blood transfusions and call God by his Hebrew name.
Every day when the national anthem was sung in the school, the two teenaged girls, too, would stand up like other students. Of course, they did not sing because their religion proscribed it but they did not show any disrespect to the anthem or the flag.
The school authorities felt that the girls should fall in line or face expulsion, a view shared by the High Court. However, the Supreme Court took a liberal approach and struck down the High Court order with these ringing words, “Our tradition teaches tolerance, our philosophy teaches tolerance, our Constitution practises tolerance, let us not dilute it”.
Everyone in the auditorium was so moved by the anecdote with which he concluded his erudite address that the whole gathering gave him a long, standing ovation.
Every time I hear demands that singing Vande Mataram be made compulsory, I remember Fali S. Nariman’s rendering of the celebrated case which would do the Supreme Court proud for all time to come.
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