Former Supreme Court judge Markandey Katju speaks with Ranjita Elangbam, wife of jailed Manipur journalist Kishorchandra Wangkhem during a press conference, at Press Club in New De...
Pressed For Answers His fervent mercy pleas on behalf of actor Sanjay Dutt may have landed Press Council of India chairman Markandey Katju in some legal tangles. After he wrote ...
He wants more PCI chairman Katju with Salman Khurshid (left) and Kapil Sibal
A.K. Ramanujan Medal of Honour for Infinite Wisdom: Justice Markandey Katju, for dubbing 90 per cent of Indians fools. Also for asking the media to relax on the whole rape thing an...
Disenchanted Press Council chairman Justice Katju
A journalist argues with Chairman of Press Council of India Justice Markandey Katju at a press conference in Lucknow. Katju said in the press conference that the Idea of Lokpal is ...
Emergency measures Retd Justice Katju
Vice President M. Hamid Ansari releases the book “Justice to Urdu” with its author Justice Makandey Katju as Law Minister Salman Khurshid and veteran Journalist Kuldeep Nayar l...
Justice Markandey Katju Vs the Indian media As an interested party, we should recuse ourselves from this! Moreover, if we say we understand what he’s saying, we’ll risk prov...
Describing Justice Katju's remarks as scary and ad hominem, Pratap Bhanu Mehta goes on to make a larger point:
Secularism, like communalism, is no longer a first principles debate; it is a pretext for forcing issues where none exist. The only two interpretations of secularism that are current in India are deeply warped: secularism as erasure of identity, or secularism as communal parity. Neither interpretation has room for the core meaning: secularism is about the freedom of individuals to make of themselves what they will; it is about making “identity” irrelevant to politics, not about its enforced erasure.
Citing a recent report according to which two Muslim-run schools in Bahraich had “converted” to madrasas in order to access a grant of Rs 6000 available to madrasas, "and the boys and girls had to suddenly start wearing skull caps and headscarves — with their ties," he points out how this case illustrates "the ways in which identities get structured by the incentives provided by the state":
But in a sense it is also illustrative of the way the Congress thinks: it wants to give benefits to minorities, not as a matter of their individual rights, not as part of an overall right to education, but as “minorities”.
...The BJP tags to target, Congress tags to provide noblesse oblige. But it is the tagging that’s insidious.
More here: Identity markers
