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A Further Reply to Mr. Sorabjee,
Indian Attorney-General
by Basil Fernando, Executive Director, Asian
Human Rights Commission
India’s Attorney General Soli J.
Sorabjee, who earlier wrote about his interest in keeping his
toilet the way he wants has come out with some more surprises. In
a subsequent piece he says a UN Sub-Commission’s resolution
is not valid or binding since he could not attend it; “Unfortunately
during the final stage when the resolution was passed I was
absent owing to compelling professional engagements in the
Supreme Court…. I am afraid I cannot accept Ms Smita
Narula's gratuitous advice that as Attorney General of India I
should encourage the government to implement the resolution which
I did not help to create.”
This is a strange approach to resolutions,
agreements and law making in general: ‘I did not help to
create it and so I am not bound by it.’ If every one takes
that approach, there will be no binding resolutions. Take for
example Iraq. It can say it did not help to make most of these
resolutions and in fact opposed them. According to the Attorney
General’s own admission he opposed the resolution. Says he,
”At the meeting of the UN Sub-Commission on Promotion and
Protection of Human Rights held in last August in Geneva I had
during the deliberations expressed my firm view that caste based
discrimination is different from the discrimination on the basis
of race.” Having heard him, the Sub-Commission decided
otherwise. In short, the sub-commission was quite well aware of
the Attorney General’s point of view, considered it to be
wrong and decided to the contrary.
Thus, the Attorney General has reason to
advise himself that world opinion is different to his and that he
must now play the game according to the rule. There must be many
Indian cases where the courts have overruled the Attorney
General. Would it not be contempt of court to not to obey the
ruling once the matter is settled. (It is just beside the point
that if Attorney General could not be present he could have
delegated some one else to be present. Or is it that he finds it
difficult to identify anyone who agrees with him?)
As for the argument on race and caste, race
is a much older form of discrimination than race and, as it
exists in India, much more comprehensive and cruel. Caste
discrimination is the mother; racism is only the child. The
source of discrimination in both forms does not arise from colour
or blood but from the conceptions on which it is based, which are
social and political constructs. Caste discrimination in India is
a social construct in which people belonging to various castes
are segregated even more than in some instances of severe racial
discrimination. Whatever the biological foundations are, caste
discrimination in India contains all the aspects of racial
discrimination in a much more complete form. To discuss racism
and related intolerance and exclude caste is like discussing
physical hurt and excluding murder. There are multiple forms of
racial discrimination and caste is one. The two can be separated
only artificially. If the Attorney General is honest in saying of
caste discrimination: “it is undeniable that despite
constitutional and legal provisions caste based discrimination in
our country persists and is pervasive and strong effective
measures are needed to stamp out this evil”, what is his
objection to a discussion of it? Are his preoccupations
about the toilet more important than all such inhumane treatment
of at least 160 million of his compatriots? Or does he really
consider them to be his compatriots at all?
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