Is the latest CJI Chandrachud the flagbearer of Marxism?

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn once said, “Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty.” Solzhenitsyn is the Nobel prize winner who took down the intellectual credibility of Marxism. In his intellectually and emotionally gruesome analysis, he pointed out that judging people by privilege was the reason behind the killing of millions of Russians by the Soviets. A recent Judgement by CJI DY Chandrachud was penned on the similar philosophy.

People don’t have ideas. Ideas have people. Ideas keep circulating years after the person that penned them dies. If the idea is as attractive and as eye catching as Marxism, it is next to impossible to remove it from public conscience. Flagbearers of Marxism are in every nook and corner of the world.

CJI Chandrachud gives relief to Safai Karamchari

As soon as he took oath as the 50th CJI of India, Justice D Y Chandrachud’s compassion driven judgments started to make headlines. In his latest Judgement, Honourable CJI Chandrachud has dismissed a petition by stating that one party is way more powerful than others. The party in question is the Tamil Nadu government. It had appealed against a Madras High Court Judgement in favour of a Safai Karamachari.

The Chief Justice orally remarked, “A man served the school for 22 years. At the end of those 22 years, the person goes home without gratuity, pension…This is the lowest strata of our society. How can the government go against a poor sweeper? The might of the government against a Safai Karamchari? Sorry. We’re dismissing.”

The judgement is meritorious in substance. The Karamachari in question deserved everything and clearly the Tamil Nadu government was suppressing his interests. It was such a simple case that the order is summed up in only 3 lines.

Decoding the underlying philosophy of the Oral remarks

However, these remarks have bigger implications on daily lives of Indians. Honourable CJI Chandrachud in a way castigated the government for fighting a Karamachari in Court. This should not be the norm since a Court looks at the merit of the case and passes orders according to that. There is a reason why Justice is blind. It is blind because it does not look at the religion, caste, colour, creed, poor background and privilege available to the parties in question.

In this case, Justice saw the privilege available to the appellant. The underlying assumption is that just because the government has some advantage, it is being tyrannical towards the Karamchari.

Marxist undertones

This thought process is in line with basic tenets of western political philosophies. Between 1700 to 1920, European rulers were tyrannical and that forced their people to revolt against them. From then on, a general perception was born that people at the top are always the oppressors.

Then came Marxism and stamped this idea. In the final analysis, Marxist interpretation of society can be summed up as follows, “Just because someone has more than anyone else, it means that he has earned it by snatching from others.” This is the essence of it. There is no concept of merit here. By sheer coincidence, honourable CJI had also criticised the idea of merit in one of his speeches.

At this point, it is pertinent to point out that Justice Chandrachud did not write down these words in judgement. He used the phrase “might of the government” in an oral remark. That means that these words would have little to no legal compulsion for future judges to accept it. However, given the fact that every word uttered by Judges is widely reported in the social media age, it will be treated as sacrosanct on other public platforms.

That is the main concern here. Despite the judgement being perfect, the oral observation has dented it to a certain degree. It is true that our democracy runs on a principle of welfare state and people should be empowered. However, if the idea of empowerment contains the stigmatisation of the government, it is not good for the long-term health of the nation, which is what Carl Marx wanted.