Human society is one of the largest societies among other living creatures on this planet earth. It is said that we are one percent more intelligent than our ancestors apes, and this just one percent took up to moon. We have travelled from Stone Age to industrialization and to globalization but it was not an easy process. Human is a social being and thus in the process of its development many socio-economical, personal and interpersonal problems has also followed the tail.
Justice has always been an enigma. It is very relative as any law or argument which is supported by one section of society may be stigmatized by the other. The very sole aim of justice system is to make laws to establish happy relationship between all the sections of society, to ensure their welfare and to prevent crimes. We can’t have a united justice system for whole of the world as people in different corners have different social, economical and cultural background. For example, marital rape holds a criminal identity in USA but in India people generally don’t think of it as a crime.
Any belief, argument or perspective has generally three types of people attached to it. One category is of those who agree with it and the other category is of those who disagree and the last category is of those who doesn’t find it a topic of importance and are neutral.
Let’s take a very simple example
“Killing someone is a crime”. In the modern era, we all know that killing is a crime but in past, where it finds its origin there were also these three classes of people. Some people supported killing someone by give different arguments and explanations, while others went against it with their own arguments and explanation and some people were not in condition to judge or comment on this and remained neutral. Now, when a law was made on this- all the arguments, explanations were analyzed and finally killing someone is declared as crime. Now those people who supported killing found this law to be unjust, and others were happy with the law.So, finally any law made can be a Just Law or an Unjust Law. Martin Luther King said
“A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law, or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law”. A law which is made and supported by majority of people today may or may not be supported tomorrow. So the law being a just or unjust keeps on changing with the passage of time.
In 18th century Britain, homosexuality was considered a crime and any person caught in the act had a severe punishment of death penalty or of chemical castration. After 1861, death penalty was removed but it had remained illegal and many gays were arrested and put behind bars. With the advent of sciences like psychology, philosophy, human behavioral sciences homosexuality slowly gained respect in the society. So the laws which were made on homosexuality soon became injustice to majority of people of Britain and made them to protest against it and resulted in freedom to LGBT communities.
In India, since past few decades Section 124 A of Indian Penal Code has been a bone of contention. This law was enacted by British Govt. in colonial time to curb the growing nationalism in India. Even after the independence this law was up held by constitution makers. But in last few decades, it is seen that this law is widely misused by the govt. to suppress any philosophy which goes against the ruling party’s mindset. The argument made by many intellectuals is that “it is violation of fundamental right of freedom of speech and expression.” I have already written in detail on this in my previous post you can visit that. So for now, I would say that this law which has been in law books from a long time is now an injustice to the citizens and people are coming on street to condemn it.
Very recent case of Beef Ban in Maharashtra has stirred a hornet’s nest. I won’t go into detail of ban on cow slaughter, beef – a cow’s meat or buffalo’ meat etc. because that I will cover in my next post of “Beef Demystified”. For now, I will go with widely accepted definition of beef i.e flesh of a cow, bull, or ox used as food. Be it a rich or poor, everyone body’s need same amount of proteins, calcium, vitamins etc. and it is very well known that a non-vegetarian diet is rich in it. Chicken, Fish, Meat etc. are very expensive food and a poor can’t afford and so he turns to beef to fulfill his bodily needs. So, basically Beef is food of Poor and govt. decision to ban beef has worsened their situations which was already not good. So this law is another injustice to people and persuaded them to raise voice against it.“An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.” – Martin Luther King
Be it a democracy, communalism or anything else. If any law which goes against the a very large section of society on basis of its moral nature, rational view, scientific approach, then it should be stigmatized. We can and we should peacefully protest against such laws.It is not wrong to say that complexity of justice will always remain intact, but with the need of time it will have to be continuously amended. A law which is strongly supported today might be strongly criticized tomorrow. And whenever any law voids fragile limit of justice, it becomes duty of people to resist it.
The Indian Gene 