Personality par excellence

Everyone's words may not be the best argument. M. C. Chagla, in this, is a secular phenomenon. V. R. KRISHNA IYER writes on a judicial statesman, whose centenary falls this year, in the hope of reviving the country from its cultural collapse.

INDIA currently faces a moral miasma, an ethical retreat, a spiritual decline. To salvage the nation from this cultural collapse, commemorating the lives of paradigmatic personalities may be useful. Politicians are often enemies within, legislators are pachydermic vis vis the masses and their suffering and even the judiciary is, comparatively rarely, corruption-friendly and nepotistic. In this context, the plural ruling classes are infected by an escalating appetite for five-star life, communal power and politics. The simian imitation of this global value baseness is polluting the ethos of middle class Indians who run after expensive vices and promote the country's recolonisation.

M. C. Chagla's centennial year is a timely reminder of how we must change course and vitalise the higher heritage of India. So I write on the late M. C. Chagla.

Roses in December is an autobiography of a judicial statesman and secular phenomenon. Why an autobiography, Chagla asks, and candidly admits that vanity and love of immortality are factors among others. Nehru begins his Autobiography with a quote from Abraham Cowley:

It is a hard and nice subject for a man to write of himself: it grases his own heart to say anything of dispargement, and the reader's ears to hear anything of praise for him.

M. C. Stealwad (My Life) is blunt:

I am naturally proud of what I have been able to achieve in the profession and of the service I have tried to render to the public and the country in different fields. I have attempted in this book to set down an account of my life "first of all for my own satisfaction and because it might be an encouragement to others".

When persons, whose life is morally inspirational or reflects the struggle of a people for value-based liberation or bears testimony to the odyssey of humanity during an explosive revolution, come alive through veracious biographies, later generations will benefit or be better informed from authentic versions. Of course, Mein Kempf of Hitler is sinister, while the Autobiography of a Yogi is sublime. But none to compare with Gandhiji's transparent My Experiments with Truth. Heaps of self- flattery and exaggerated university, fobbed off as autobiography, are often unlovely literature of untruth tainted by terminological inexactitudes.

M. C. Chagla was more than a great jurist, brilliant judge, impressive ambassador or successful minister. A versatile personality, uniquely secular, talented in many dimensions, a patriotic statesman and compassionate human, among the rarest of the rare we come across in our sordid planet. As a judge he illumined justice and humanised the law. His burning passion or perenial empathy was inimitable on the bench and outside in public life. Chagla, with an Oxford background and Majlis nationalism, possessing a sharp intellect and sterling character, chose to practise at Mumbai under the then great leader of the Bar, M. A. Jinnah. A few fascinating pages in Chagla's Roses are devoted to lovely pen portraits of the leading lights of the Mumbai Bar. Read him on his senior:

What attracted me to Jinnah was the force of his personality and more than that, his sterling nationalism and patriotism. If at that time anyone had told me that Jinnah would one day be responsible for the partition of our country, I would have thought him mad. I joined his chamber and remained with him for about six years. I read his briefs, went with him to court, and listened to his arguments. What impressed me most was the lucidity of his thought and expression. There were no obscure spots or ambiguities about what Jinnah had to tell the court. He was straight and forthright, and always left a strong impression whether his case was intrinsically good or bad. I remember sometimes at a conference he would tell the solicitor that his case was hopeless, but when he went to court he fought like a tiger, and almost made me believe that he had changed his opinion. Whenever I talked to him afterwards about it, he would say that it was the duty of an advocate, however bad the case might be, to do his best for his client. I have never come across any man who had less humanity in his character than Jinnah. He was cold and unemotional, and apart from law and politics he had no other interests. I do not think he ever read a serious book in all his life. His staple food was newspapers, briefs and law books. He did not even once raise his little finger to assist me at the Bar. But I owe a great deal to him because I learned in his chamber not only the art of advocacy, but how to maintain the highest traditions of the legal profession. Jinnah was absolutely impeccable in his professional etiquette.

Compare what Chagla says about Bhulabhai Desai:

"He was the most eloquent among the advocates I have seen in the Mumbai High Court. His English was perfect, and it is difficult to imagine a more subtle mind than the one he possessed."

K. M. Munshi, a man of great charm, was a sound lawyer and informed politician, but Chagla pays tribute to him more as an excellent literary figure and cultural ambassador. This founder of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan has been immortalised by that ever expanding institution which today is a messenger of the universal vision and "composite cultural heritage of India". What is striking about this great man (Chagla) is his political conviction. A man who worked with Jinnah writes.

As far as I am concerned there are three things to which I have always adhered. They have represented my working faith and my abiding belief. These principles are unity, secularism and democracy. I know all the divisive factors but to my mind they are superficial. I have always thought that it was India's destiny to remain one country and one nation. One has only to look at a map of Asia to be convinced of this fact. With the Himalayas in the north and the sea in the west, south and east, India stands out as something distinct and apart from other countries that separate it. The Gods in their wisdom wanted India to remain one and undivided. Further, there is an Indianness and an Indian ethos, which has been brought about by the commission and intercourse between the many races and the many communities that have lived in this land for centuries. There is a heritage which has devolved on us from our Aryan forefathers. There is an Indian tradition which overrides all the minor differences which may superficially seem to contradict the unity. Even the large Muslim community, which numbers about 60 million, inherits the same tradition and legacy, because more than 90 per cent of the Muslims living in India were converted from Hinduism, which is the primary religion of this country. Hindus and Muslims have lived together as friends and comtrades from time immemorial. They participate in one another's festivals and even worship together common Saints in whom they both have faith.

Chagla, the diamond-hard secularist, is, in every cell of him an Indian. Let him speak for himself. (After all, appropriate quotations are meant to be appropriate).

I think it is wrong to equate religion with nationality. A nation has many more attributes than a religion has. The fact of worshipping in the same place, or believing in the same religious tenets, does not by itself go to create a sense of nationhood. A nation must have a common culture, a common past, a common heritage, and Hindus and Muslims shared all these; and the mere fact that they subscribe to different religious tenets could not or should not have come in the way of their looking upon themselves as belonging to one nation. Religion is a purely private and personal matter.

Patriotism should always be territorial and not communal or religious. One loves one's country, one loves one's motherland, and that is the essence of patriotism. One may love one's religion, but that cannot override the love that one has for the land of one's birth. Of course, there is a danger in India - and I am afraid, it is a grave danger - that territorial patriotism is often confined to a particular part or region of the country, and does not necessarily embrace the whole of it. One may be a good Maharashtrian or a good Gujarati or a good Bengali, but this is a narrow loyalty. The larger loyalty should be reserved for the country as a whole, for it is that which belongs to all Maharashtrians, Gujaratis or Bengali.

Chagla's vision of secularism is instructive. His perception deserves exception.

Today, secularism has been written into our Constitution in indeliable lines. A legal concept, secularism means equality before the law, and no distinction between one citizen and another as far as the application of laws is concerned. It also means equality of opportunity and a refusal to classify citizens into first class citizens and second class citizens. But, in my opinion, secularism is much more than that. Secularism is an attitude of the mind and a quality of the heart. It is a matter of temperament, of outlook. It looks upon all persons as human beings pure and simple, equally estimable or precious not only in the eye of the law, but in the eye of God. You refuse to classify people according to the religious labels which you attach to them. You do not think of a man as a Hindu, a Muslim or a Christian, but merely as a human being. I have always resented the suggestion that because I am a Muslim I am less of an Indian than a Hindu.

Inevitably, the question of curiosity and principle arises as to why and when Chagla bid farewell to his one time master at the Bar.

My breach with Jinnah had been growing since the rejection of the Nehru Report by the Muslim League and my consequent resignation from that body. That breach became complete, when eventually Jinnah accepted the idea of Pakistan and the two nation theory. It was then clear to me that the time had come when we should have a political Muslim body which would counteract the vicious propaganda that Jinnah and his colleagues were carrying on in the country.

Chagla, with some good reason, had a grievance against Gandhiji for boosting Jinnah and ignoring nationalist Muslims.

But one grievance about which I felt deeply arose from the indifference shown by the Congress, and even Mahatma Gandhi to the Muslim nationalists. Jinnah and his communalist following seemed all important. In comparison we counted for nothing. It was Gandhiji who gave Jinnah the appellation of Quaid-e-Azam - one which Jinnah gratefully and proudly accepted. It was then assumed - I do not know what the basis of the assumption was - that the Muslim masses were behind Jinnah. I knew the affairs of the Muslim League well and I knew that its membership did not number more than a few hundred, or at most a few thousand. Its leaders, apart from Jinnah, were reactionary Nawabs and Zamindars whose only interest was to preserve their position and status in public life.

Has this perspective relevance to the placative policy of any currently strident "secular" Party? The convincing politics of Chagla vis vis Jinnah is relevant even today in India. Thinking Indians must, with cultural-political sense and democratic sensibility, ponder the Chagla discernment.

In conclusion I said that I entirely agreed with Jinnah that the Musalmans had got to be organised, but I did not like to see them organised as a separate political unit. True, they must be organised educationally and economically; but politically, they must join hands with members of the other communities who held the same political views as themselves. But is now a matter of history that my views fell on deaf ears, and the election was ultimately fought by Jinnah on the Muslim League ticket, with the League organised as a political party.

Years after he left the Bench, Chagla practised in the Supreme Court. As a judge I came to know him briefly then. One day I was passing his way to attend a meeting on Hindu-Muslim amity. "Judge, where are you going?" he asked. I explained the purpose when, in a tone of rebuke, he remarked, "Why waste time on this messy communal business? I am a Hindu by right, because my ancestors were Indians and lived on this side of river Sindhu. So, this religious conflict is a deliberate confusion with political poison. To be a Hindu is a territorial concept." I was surprised at his brave words. That was the militantly secular MCC.

Roses in December gives so much of inside information, not merely of the rarely known family life of Jinnah but their relevance to his political tergiversation. But the Indian Bench and Bar regard Chagla as a legendary figure in the judicial universe. Setalvad, the great doyen of the All India Bar, was not more decidedly the greatest Indian Attorney General. Jayaprakash Narayan, the incredible, although critically ailing opponent of the Emergency, was not more decidedly the greatest of battlers against the notorious despotic spell. Dr. Radhakrishnan, the philosopher- wonder was not more decidedly the rarest of erudite Rashtrapatis than Justice Chagla who was the finest among, socially sensitive Chief Justices of the Indian High Courts. A brief look at this "robed brother" on the Bombay bench may be elevating. The greatness of a Chief Justice, his firmness against so obstinate a Chief Minister as Morarji Desai, his endearing relations with the Bar are so edifying that every young advocate must read the Roses. Humility and cordiality, never any ill-temper, harmonious cooperation, luminuous exchanges in forensic proceedings, with truth and justice as the goal, an open mind without pre-conceived made-up perceptions when hearing a case - that is the finest tribute a judge can claim and Chagla had that privilege.

An anecdote by Chagla will prove this point.

I remember sitting with Shah, who in course of time became the Chief Justice of India, and who very often, as soon as an appeal was called out would start cross-examining the advocate. I would interrupt and say: "I have a very learned and illustrious brother sitting with me. He knows all about the case. I do not know anything. Please open the appeal, and tell me what it is all about". The least a judge can do is to let the lawyer at least open the appeal, state the relevant facts, and lay down propositions of law. Then, and only then, should he take the matter in hand, go to the root of the question, and try and get the lawyer to concentrate on that particular decisive aspect of the question.

The current impatient tribe of judges have much to imbibe from this superlative sentinel of justice. An irascible mediocrity on the Bench with pretentious hubris is a menace to judicial justice.

M. C. Chagla is remembered by posterity as a great judge. The enquiry into the Life Insurance Corporation (virutally against T. T. Krishnamachari) was memorable because Chagla conducted it with such independence and unpleasant impartiality, that the Mundhra enquiry still remains a marvel of public enquiries, annoying Nehru a great deal, though. What a contrast to the present crowd of judges, sitting and retired, who head commissions and produce enquiry reports which are forgotten and often deserve to be forgotten and frustratingly unimplemented, even unpublished. The Mundhra enquiry became a great event and even Dr. Rajendra Prasad regarded the report "as one of the best judgments ever delivered" and expressed the opinion that even if half a dozen of the best judges of the world have been brought together, they could not have produced a more judicial and judicious document."

Chagla was appointed an ad hoc judge of the International Court of Justice. There again he made a mark. A point of remember in the contemporary context of judicial hunger for more, is the response of Chagla to the fee for his service at the International Court.

"When I was asked to go to the International Court, an inquiry was made of me about what fees I would charge, and I was told afterwards that the Government expected that I would mention a fairly large amount. But they were all surprised when they learned that I would charge no fees and that it was a privilege to represent the Government of my country in a case which was very dear to my heart, and for which I had fought as far back as 1946 when I first went to the United Nations."

What a pathetic contrast today to behold the unedifying spectacle of retired judges, with manipulative tactics and "stoop to conquer" sophistries, trying to secure "Commissions" and obliging the governments with unhappy Reports which go into oblivion unwept, unhonoured and unsung. Judicial dignity is too frequently becoming a negotiable commodity, and clinging to Commissions has become a chronic addiction.

The magnificent functionalism of Chagla, when the country's full history comes to be written, is his performance in the United Nations and South Africa, in his successfully diplomatic role in the United States and the United Kingdom. Of course, M. C. Setalvad, in his autobiography, has been critical of Chagla himself when he resigned from his judicial office, to become India's Ambassador to the United States: I quote:

"He - (meaning myself) - was so keen to get into politics that soon after the Law Commission Report was signed by him, and even before the ink of his signature on the Report had dried, he resigned his office to become India's Ambassador to the United States. His action was characteristic of the self-seeking attitude of many of our leading men".

And yet Chagla did not have any rancour, and mentions that Setalvad was kind to him and recommended his name for the Chief Justiceship of India and the judgeship of the international court. Chagla met Setalvad and asked him why natural justice had been jettisoned by the latter not caring to ask the former about the circumstances leading to his acceptance of the offices mentioned above. The fact remains, Chagla was a success in his assignments and that is what matters for the country. Diplomacy is a difficult art, especially when we deal with a mighty power like the U.S.. Assignment in America to win confidence and foster friendship is a hard task, especially with India's dependencia syndrome. Chagla was versatile excellence and touched none he did not adorn.

Should judges belong to the aloof elite class cocooned in paper- logged insularity? Chagla answers:

On the other hand, a judge might equally take the view: "Because I was a judge, I do not cease to be a citizen. I should take a live interest in the contemporary scene. I should play my full part in all the activities, which concert the general welfare of my fellow citizens.In short, I should become a part of the life of my city and even of my State and my country, in a way that does not, of course, affect my official role as a judge". Having had a political background, and being keenly interested in public life, and in intellectural, cultural and artistic matters, I decided not to be the Chief Justice, but also a public spirited citizen of the city in which I lived.

Judicial recluses must remember Chief Justice Earl Warren: Our judges are not monks or scientists, but participants in the living stream of our national life, steering the law between the dangers of rigidity on the one hand and of formlessness on the other. Our system faces no theoretical dilemma but a single continuous problem how to apply to ever-changing conditions the never-changing principles of freedom.

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