Former SC Judge Rohinton Nariman warns that portraying Akbar only as a tyrant distorts history, breaches fraternity, and undermines India’s composite culture, urging citizens to seek judicial remedy.
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NEW DELHI: Former Supreme Court judge Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman has recently raised concerns over the erasure and distortion of history in school textbooks, stressing that such practices not only undermine the truth but also threaten the constitutional promise of fraternity. Delivering the KM Bashir Memorial Lecture at the Press Club of Trivandrum on September 1, Justice Nariman minced no words in warning that “prevention is always better than cure.”
Justice Nariman narrated a personal incident where a child read out from a textbook portraying Mughal Emperor Akbar as nothing more than a tyrant and mass murderer. Expressing his dismay, he said:
“I was flabbergasted to find in a particular book, and a child read it out to me, to find that Akbar is stated to be a person who is a tyrant and a person who organized mass murders at Chittor where so many women committed jauhar (self-immolation). That is pretty much all that was said about him and almost nothing was said about any of the great Mughals. So there is a complete effacement followed by a total distortion.”
According to him, the contributions of Akbar and the Mughal dynasty, once given due space in history books, are now being brushed aside in favor of selective narratives.
While acknowledging that fundamental duties under Article 51A of the Constitution are not directly enforceable in courts, Justice Nariman stressed that they do give rise to corresponding rights.
“Every duty has a correlative in a right because if it is my duty to behave in a particular manner and I have breached that duty, then there is a right in somebody to petition a court and come forward,”
he explained.
In particular, he highlighted the duty “to value and preserve the rich heritage of our composite culture.” If this duty is breached by the distortion or erasure of history, citizens can move courts, arguing that it undermines fraternity and India’s pluralistic ethos.
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Justice Nariman clarified that courts themselves may lack expertise in matters of history. However, they can play a facilitative role by appointing panels of experts to examine contested changes and recommend corrections.
“The court would have no expertise to do so itself. It could perhaps order some panel of experts to look into it and restore what our actual history is. This is only a suggestion made by me. But prevention is always better than cure.”
His lecture, titled “Fraternity in a secular state: the protection of cultural rights and duties”, emphasized that secularism is indispensable to fraternity. He also touched on the common moral threads in world religions, the need for judicial integrity, and the responsibility of citizens to uphold constitutional values.
He urged vigilance against attempts to distort the historical fabric that unites India’s diverse communities, reiterating that safeguarding the truth is essential to preserving the nation’s harmony.
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