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page.png 79 Gandhi’s Jurisconscience: Evolution of His Ideas of Justice

Sudarshan Iyengar

 

Abstract

The author, a lifelong Gandhian and former vice chancellor of Gujarat Vidyapith, the university founded by Mahatma Gandhi, discusses Gandhi’s ideas of justice in this chapter. The author makes an attempt to trace and illustrate the formation of Gandhi’s convictions and his reasoning on the idea of justice. He goes on to describe Gandhi’s training as a barrister and certain instances where he appeared before the court of law for his clients, to understand his idea and approach to legal justice. Finally, the author discusses Gandhi’s evolved idea of justice in the context of jurisprudence and jurisconscience.

. . . . .

At the outset, it needs to be stated that I do not have any formal background in law and its practice. My thoughts, shared here, are those of a student of Mahatma Gandhi and his thought. In this chapter, an attempt is made to explore Gandhiji’s idea of justice.1 The idea of justice arises in the context of interpersonal and inter-group conflict of interests. For Gandhiji, it also arises in the context of the self and the self’s responsibility to itself and others. A just society is an ideal order in which harmony prevails with the self and with others including the external environment — nature. However, in reality, injustice is addressed within a given framework of set norms and there is a system of justice. If there is any violation of the accepted norms of just order due to injustice committed by an individual or a group against any other individual or a group, the sufferers can approach the judicial system and make a plea with facts and reasoning and expect a judgment correcting the injustice if so established. The individual or the group inflicting injustice is page.png 80 penalised variously, which is also supposed to act as a deterrent for others from inflicting injustice. Thus, each society has its jurisprudence and on the basis of it, the system and structure of justice are laid out.

Gandhiji was a barrister, who initially failed in practice in India, but later set up a good practice in South Africa. However, he gave up his practice and led movements for Indian citizens’ rights in South Africa and the freedom movement in India. On various occasions, he stood before the courts of law of the British Empire and argued that his defiance of the law of the land was justified because he believed in natural law, which was above the law of the land. His idea of justice was indeed different and unique.

In Part I of this chapter, an attempt is made to trace and illustrate, through instances in Gandhiji’s childhood, the formation of his conviction and reasoning on the idea of justice. In Part II, Gandhiji’s formal training in law and selected instances where he appeared before the court of law for his clients, mainly in South Africa, are described, and an effort is made to understand his idea and approach to legal justice. In Part III, Gandhiji’s evolved idea of justice in the context of law of the land (jurisprudence) and natural law (jurisconscience) is discussed in brief.

Formation of Ideas of Justice

Gandhiji has said all along that he was an ordinary person. But his claim was in a specific context. He stated this clearly in the introduction to his autobiography. Gandhiji saw his life as experiments in the search of Truth.2 Experiments, because he does not claim any degree of perfection in them in the sense of finality. But he believed what appeared correct had to be practised with passion. He said his quest was for Truth, which is the sovereign principle: ‘This truth in not only truthfulness in word, but truthfulness in thought also, and not only the relative truth of our conception, but the Absolute Truth, the Eternal Principle, that is God.’3

Gandhiji notes in his autobiography that he was a mediocre student in the conventional sense, but he never told a lie either to his teachers or to his schoolmates. At the age of 12, Mohan (as he was called), was in the first year of high school. The education inspector was on a visit of inspection in his school, and when he was taking down dictation, he misspelled the world ‘kettle’. His teacher tried to prompt Mohan.4 But he would not be prompted. For Mohan, it was beyond him to see that his teacher wanted him to copy the spelling from his neighbour’s slate. He turned out to be the stupid one in the class, as everyone but him had taken the five words of dictation correctly. The teacher tried to make Mohan aware of his stupidity, but Mohan could never learn the art of copying.

Pre-teen and teenage are impressionable years. Some impressions become deeply imprinted in the conscience. Mohan mentions such impressions, and that they were imprinted so deep in the recesses of his mind and heart, that his practice and advocacy of self-suffering became the law to be followed in the quest for Truth and formation of a just society. This imprint was not only out of thinking with his head, but it was also created out of feeling intensely from the heart. Gandhiji was deeply inspired by the ideals of truth in the play Harishchandra.

Mohan’s personality evolved from his intense sensitivity, self-introspection, and continuous course correction. The foundation of jurisconscience was laid in young Mohan, which took firm form as the duty of the self to conduct aatma nirikshan, aatma parikshan, and aatma shodhan. In other words, it is self-introspection on a continuous basis, examining the self, and setting course correction. page.png 81 To Mohan, it occurred naturally, as from his childhood he was truthful not only in an ordinary sense but also with a resolve to uphold this character under the most adverse situations. It gave him the strength to move toward nirikshan, parikshan, and shodhan.5

The process of character building showed soon in another instance in which, as per prevalent jurisprudence, the teenaged Mohan and his elder brother had committed a crime. Mohan’s brother had run into a debt of about Rs 25, a large sum in those times. Mohan stole a bit of gold out of his brother’s armlet of solid gold to pay off the debt.

Mohan was an ordinary teen and had done wrong. But his sensitivity led him to self-introspection and correction. The impact of Mohan’s act on his father Karamchand was also unusual. Gandhiji has noted in his autobiography that his father was short-tempered. Stealing gold was a grave matter. Mohan then thought that his father would be immensely pained and he would be angry, say hard things, and inflict punishment on his self. This would have caused deep anguish to the boy as he had profound respect for his father. However, Mohan took a risk as he wrote his confession on a slip of paper. He wanted to confess his wrongdoing and also express his resolve about never ever repeating the act. He also volunteered to take any punishment meted out to him. Thus, even in case of retributive justice, Gandhiji had formed the idea that at an individual level there must be punishment for wrongdoing, but its transforming impact over an individual would occur only if it is preceded by clean confession and repentance, with a resolve not to repeat any wrongdoing in future.

Gandhiji’s disposition about being truthful and his experience in practising it from his childhood appear to have helped him in forming his jurisconscience and his attitude towards prevalent jurisprudence later in life.

Formal Training in Law

Gandhiji’s quest for Truth was routed through working for societal well-being. In the process, he suffered, and the strength he received from it helped him in building his jurisconscience.

Let us now review his study of jurisprudence in England. Kirit Bhavsar, Mark Lindley, and Purnima Upadhyay have compiled a book titled Bibliography of Books Read by Mahatma Gandhi,6 where an annotated bibliography of the books read by Gandhiji when he was in England studying law is provided.7 Gandhiji notes that the curriculum of study in preparation for the bar was relatively easy. Examinations had practically no value. Though textbooks were prescribed for some subjects, students rarely read them. Most relied on some notes which were remembered by rote. However, Gandhiji seems to have taken pains to study. He had passed his matriculation examination in England for which he had studied Latin. Hence, he was able to read the legal texts better. He took it upon himself to read all the textbooks. Gandhiji went above regular expectations in this and read the books on ethical grounds. In his autobiography, he writes: ‘I felt that I should read all the textbooks. It was a fraud, I thought, not to read these books…. I decided to read Roman Law in Latin…. And all this reading was not without its value later on in South Africa, where Roman Dutch is the common law.’8

Gandhiji, during his study of law and later, while practising law, read basic texts of British jurisprudence with seriousness. Practice was a different matter, however, and Gandhiji has devoted a chapter to his predicament on this count.9 He mentions that he was able to read more books when he started practising in South Africa. His idea of legal justice that arose from existing jurisprudence also was distinct, and this had an impact on his practice in South Africa.

page.png 82 It is known that he did not have a good practice as a barrister in India after he returned from England. His failure, which was more because of his timidity and lack of confidence, is described again in a separate chapter in his autobiography.10 His practice did however pick up in South Africa. During his tenure, he displayed his distinctive approach to legal practice. Ajit Atri notes that Gandhiji’s view on legal justice was not epistemological but ontological.11 We will first review his idea of legal justice.

Gandhiji’s first informal case was that of Dada Abdulla’s dispute in the matter of business accounts. Though he was not formally associated with the case as a lawyer, Gandhiji helped Dada Abdulla by explaining to him the legal intricacies of the case and informed the English barrister who appeared in court for Dada Abdulla of facts and case details.12

Gandhiji had studied the facts and found that they were on the side of Dada Abdulla. As a professional in the formative age, he could have impressed his client and continued with the case in court and earned money. But Gandhiji had evolved as a person in the quest for Truth, and in that quest, a sense of being fair and honest was at the core. A lawyer’s duty is to the client and to his conscience. Similarly, lawyers should not take help of legal lacunae and technicalities to secure clients’ due, when he is morally certain that his clients are guilty.13

This case illustrates Gandhiji’s thoughts on legal justice was one that dealt with highly complicated accounts. The accounting was given to arbitrators who had submitted the accounts. The award was to be in favour of Gandhiji’s client. However, while examining the report, Gandhiji found the arbitrators had inadvertently committed an error. The senior counsel in the case saw no need to admit this mistake on the part of their client. However, Gandhiji stated that he would withdraw himself if the error was not admitted in the court. The senior counsel refused to argue the case and so, with his client’s consent, Gandhiji argued the case with the admission of the error. Gandhiji notes in his autobiography: ‘I was confirmed in my conviction that it is not impossible to practise law without compromising truth.’14

Atri has summarised Gandhiji’s idea of legal justice well.

Gandhiji’s insistence on truth is not a matter of personal conviction. It is a matter, which is inherent in the proper functioning of the law and society, and above all, in the proper dispensation of legal justice. In Gandhi’s definition justice is an inquiry into truth by using fair means as to what is due to whom and who is entitled to what within the established framework, when the framework itself is not faulty or discriminatory.15

The second case relates to admission of guilt and preparedness to accept punishment. Atri has stated this case well.

In Parsi Rustomji’s case, the Parsi was an importer of goods from Bombay and Calcutta. He resorted to smuggling and was caught. He came to Gandhiji and confessed his guilt. Gandhi’s answer was clear that he could try to save him only by means of confession. The confession was made before the Customs Officer as well as the before the Attorney General. Gandhiji pleaded Parsi’s case, the Parsi was scared from the ordeal of going to jail and was ordered to pay a penalty equal to twice the amount he had confessed for having smuggled.16

When Gandhiji presented the case to the customs officer he not only admitted the wrong his client had committed but also told him how penitent his client had been feeling. Gandhiji’s approach to legal justice and hence his idea of justice at the individual level was based on facts and truth and in case of guilt, its admission with remorse, resolve to never do it again, and readiness to accept the punishment. He established sveekruti (acknowledging page.png 83 the wrong), pashchatap (remorse), and prayashchit (punishment to correct self).

Before the discussion on Gandhi’s idea of justice in legal practice and individual wrongdoing is closed, it would be relevant to discuss punishment in the context of prayashchit. The starting point for this discussion is again with reference to the admission of guilt by Mohan at the age of 15 and his reflection on it when he was 58. In his autobiography he says, ‘This was, for me, an object lesson in Ahimsa. Then I could read in it nothing more than a father’s love, but today I know that it was pure Ahimsa. When such Ahimsa becomes all-embracing, it transforms everything it touches. There is no limit to its power.’17

Gandhiji called it ‘sublime forgiveness’, which in his opinion, is the highest form of forgiveness to be adopted in correcting the wrongdoer. He would look for transformation in the wrongdoer and the forces of transformation would be love and non-violence. However, as seen above, he had told Parsi Rustomji that he should be prepared to go to jail and treat that as penance for transformation.

The system’s approach to justice has been varied in different human societies. In most societies, punishment is an acceptable part of jurisprudence. A wrongdoer is punished and wrong is determined by the established norms that change over time. There have been refinements both in the norms and in processes used for proving wrong. In the Western world, the system has evolved from Moses’ teaching of justice as ‘an eye for an eye’, to Jesus Christ’s Sermon on the Mount where he said that one should turn the other cheek if somebody slaps one on one cheek. Gandhiji was most impressed by the Sermon on the Mount and celebrated the force of love in building a non-violent society. Democracy has evolved and has come to stay. Human rights have become fundamental rights for the global citizen. But, retributive justice is yet to be replaced by restorative and or reformative justice completely.18

Gandhiji was clearly in favour of restorative justice. The foundation for it is the individual quest for Truth through non-violence. Sveekruti, pashchatap, and prayashchit is the process of transformation for the individual and the acceptance of the restoration method by society. If an individual sways from the path of Truth and non-violence, and harms another individual who may or may not be following the same path, jurisprudence should not be resorting to retributive justice, as those who judge would also be following the same path. This is Gandhiji’s approach to legal justice. In the following section, we discuss Gandhiji’s appearance in court as an accused and reveal his jurisconscience.

Jurisprudence and Jurisconscience

The making of the Mahatma began in earnest in South Africa. His inward journey had begun right from his childhood, as has been illustrated in the foregoing sections. Had his life not taken the course it did, he may have perhaps been a spiritual master for all those who consider this world as an obstruction to achieving moksha. Gandhiji was admittedly a mumukshu.19 His quest for Truth, instead of alienating him from society for his sadhana (practice), put him in the midst of the oppressed. The society became his dharmakshetra (temple of justice). Be it South Africa or India, Gandhiji became the proverbial ‘good man’, having been blessed by God and took up the fight against the bad, namely, the oppressive state apparatus.

The ‘coolie barrister’s initial experiences were jolting. As a young man of 23, he was pushed out of the first-class compartment despite possessing a page.png 84 valid ticket. Sitting and shivering in the cold winter night in the waiting room of Maritzburg railway station, Gandhiji was in deep thought. His first thought was that he should immediately return to India. Another thought was to bear the insult, proceed further, finish the assignment that he had accepted and then return. He did not do either. Deep down, he sensed that the issue was that of equality at a human level. He thus reacted to the inequality that was meted to him. On this incident, Gandhiji says:

I began to think of my duty…. It would be cowardice to run back to India without fulfilling my obligation. The hardship to which I was subjected was superficial — only a symptom of the deep disease of colour prejudice. I should try, if possible, to root out the disease and suffer hardship in the process. Redress for wrongs I should seek only to the extent that would be necessary for the removal of colour prejudice.20

A fine distinction was made by the young Gandhiji that eventually changed the course of the history of humanity. He realised that the true inequality was not being disallowed from a particular compartment in the train, but being considered inferior as a human being due to one’s skin colour. The mumukshu in Gandhiji was pursuing the Truth, and hence this realisation hit him hard. The jurisconscience in Gandhiji had already taken him above the legal system and he sensed the supremacy of conscience over the legal system.

More hardships were yet to follow in his journey to Johannesburg.21 He was beaten up on the stagecoach that he had taken from Charlestown to Johannesburg. He protested on the spot and did not yield to the physical violence and also wrote a letter to the agent of the coach company, narrating the misdeed of the coach-in-charge. He got a reassuring reply, but the important point that Gandhiji notes was that he had no intention of proceeding against the man who had assaulted him. For him, the public cause was supreme, and any suffering that came upon an individual had to be endured with no ill will towards the tormentor.

When pushed and kicked by the policeman standing outside President Kruger’s house from the footpath onto the road, his friend Mr Coates, who was instrumental in getting him a letter from the state attorney authorising Gandhiji to move freely during all hours in the state (the evening and night hours were forbidden for the coloured), was passing by and felt sorry for him. Mr Coates told Gandhiji that he was ready to stand as a witness in the court if Gandhiji decided to proceed against the police guard for the offence. Gandhiji told Mr Coates not to be sorry and added, ‘I have made it a rule not to go to court in respect of any personal grievance…. I could not follow their talk, as it was in Dutch, the policeman being a Boer. But he apologised to me, for which there was no need. I had already forgiven him.’

Seeking equality and equity for human beings in any society and protesting for it with preparedness to undergo personal suffering also had another component. Addressing the Indian community in Pretoria he prompted the community to rise for their rights and simultaneously engaged them over the issues of conducting business by fair and truthful means and to maintain high standards of hygiene and sanitation. The word satyagraha was yet to be coined, but the duties of a satyagrahi were already laid out and the practice of it had begun from himself first. Before Gandhiji left Pretoria, he made a strong case for equality in railway travel and received a reply ‘to the effect that first and second class tickets would be issued to Indians who were properly dressed’.22 The young barrister had accomplished what he thought was equality in the issue he had made public based on a personal experience of being discriminated.

Gandhiji’s historical actions reflecting his jurisconscience were yet to blossom fully, and may page.png 85 not even have, had Gandhiji not happened to see a report in the newspaper Natal Mercury where he saw that Indians were to be disenfranchised. People in South Africa requested him to stay on in South Africa and he eventually led the satyagraha, which was a long-drawn battle. The initial issue of disenfranchisement was settled relatively quickly as Lord Ripon, Secretary of State for the Colonies, disallowed the Bill after receiving 10,000 signatures from Indians, which meant almost the total population of the free Indians in Natal. Other discriminatory laws and rules were however imposed from time to time. Intensity of protest, resistance, and defiance began in 1906. For more than a dozen years, the Indians became organised, became politically sensitive towards discrimination, and protested in various forms registering small victories. The turn of events came on 11 September 1906.

The Transvaal Government Gazette Extraordinary of 22 August 1906 contained the most draconian of all the ordinances passed since the Indians had organised protests for demanding and obtaining equal status with other British citizens in South Africa.23 Gandhiji saw nothing but hatred for Indians in it. He had never known a legislation of this nature being directed against free men in any part of the world. When a huge gathering met in a Jewish theatre in Johannesburg on 11 September 1906, to discuss and plan protest, the full implications of the draft resolution hit Gandhiji also for the first time. In Gandhiji’s words: ‘But I must confess that even I myself had not then understood all the implications of the resolutions I had helped to frame…. I could read in every face the expectation of something strange to be done or to happen.’24

It was the impassioned speech by Sheth Haji Habib, a very old man who had lived in South Africa, which made Gandhiji think deeply and consider the implications of sharing the resolution with God as witness. Interestingly, Gandhiji was himself not prepared to take such an oath! But having realised the import of what Haji Habib had said, Gandhiji welcomed it and thought it to be his duty to explain the implications of such an oath to every one of those who were present. It was in later life that he said, ‘Truth is God’, but on that day in the Jewish theatre meeting, he explained to the gathering that they had resolved to oppose with all their strength a proposed draconian law which was against the ‘rule of life’ for all those who were in search of the ultimate Truth which was God. The actions that followed, which had a clear code of conduct for every protestor, came to be known as satyagraha. Gandhiji was successful in making people understand that the proposed rule of law was in contravention to the rule of life. Gandhiji explained that satyagraha was not the weapon of the weak but was the use of soul force with total non-violence and love towards the opponent.

Gandhiji was keen to serve people in India and make them aware that the rule of law should always move towards the rule of life. When rule of law or its implementation gives rise to injustice, rule of law must be defied. Gandhiji soon got an opportunity to demonstrate this.

The venue for the play was the magistrate’s court in Motihari, Champaran, Bihar. Gandhiji had been issued an order by the police superintendent to leave Champaran. Gandhiji accepted the notice and in acknowledgement wrote that he did not propose to comply with it and he would do so once the inquiry that he wanted to undertake was over. He received a summons to take his trial for disobeying the order. It became a sensational event. The administration was unnerved and wanted the trial to be postponed. But Gandhiji intervened and told the magistrate that he wanted to plead guilty and hence the trial should proceed. Gandhiji read a statement that he had prepared. Some excerpts are of the statement follow:

page.png 86 As a law-abiding citizen, my first instinct would be, as it was, to obey the order served upon me. But I could not do so without doing violence to my sense of duty to those for whom I have come…. I could only throw the responsibility of removing me from there on the administration. I am fully conscious of the fact that a person holding, in the public life of India, a position such as I do, has to be most careful in setting an example … what I have decided to do, that is to submit without protest to the penalty of disobedience.

I venture to make this statement not in any way in extenuation of the penalty to be awarded against me, but to show that I have disregarded the order served upon me not for want of respect for lawful authority, but in obedience to the higher law of our being, the voice of conscience.25

On 10 March 1922, Gandhiji was arrested from Satyagraha Ashram, Sabarmati and was charged under Section 124-A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1860, for spreading disaffection towards the state by writing articles in Young India. Both Gandhiji and Shankarlal Banker, as the publisher of Young India, were being tried. The trial took place on 18 March 1922 at the Government Circuit House, Shahibaug, Ahmedabad before Mr C.N. Broomfield, District and Sessions Judge, Ahmedabad. Both Gandhiji and Banker had pleaded guilty and were undefended. The prosecution pressed the charges and the judge, before pronouncing the sentence, asked Gandhiji whether he wished to make a statement on the question of sentence. It is his statement and the response of the judge that has made the Shahibaug trial of Gandhiji iconic in the history of freedom struggle. Through his oral and written statements, Gandhiji established how a law-abiding citizen responds when the law is violated by him or because of him and why a citizen is right in defying the law when the state does not act in the earnest interest of its subjects.

Gandhiji stated that the grounds for being disaffectionist in India had its history in South Africa when he had the first contact with the British government. He discovered that as a man and an Indian he had no rights. More precisely, he had discovered that he did not have any rights as a man because he was an Indian. He believed that the treatment given to Indians in South Africa was an eyesore to the British system which was intrinsically and predominantly good. Hence, he had cooperated with the British government. Gandhiji also elaborated his cooperation in making recruitment for the First World War as late as 1918. But the British government was not responsive to Indians. He said:

The first shock came in the shape of the Rowlatt Act, a law designed to rob the people of all real freedom. I felt called upon to lead an intensive agitation against it. Then followed the Punjab horrors beginning with the massacre at Jallianwala Bagh and culminating in crawling orders, public floggings, and other indescribable humiliations…. I fought for cooperation and working the Montagu-Chemsford reforms … that the reforms, inadequate and unsatisfactory though they were, marked a new era of hope in the life of India. But all that hope was shattered. The Khilafat promise was not to be redeemed. The Punjab crime was whitewashed … I saw, too, that not only did the reforms not mark a change of heart, but they were only a method of further draining India of her wealth and of prolonging her servitude.26

Gandhiji then described in detail the economic exploitation of India and how the British policies and programmes killed the vibrant local home-based and small-scale industries in the country and how agriculture too had been brought to peril. The British government had failed to save lives and provide food during famines that were frequent. The law had simply served the foreign exploiters. Gandhiji explained that it was for these reasons that he was raising the conscience of every Indian through his writings.

But I hold it to be a virtue to be disaffected towards a government which in its totality has done more harm to India than any previous system. India is page.png 87 less manly under the British rule than she ever was before…. I believe that I have rendered a service to India and England by showing in non-cooperation the way out of the unnatural state in which both are living. In my humble opinion, non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good. But, in the past, non-cooperation has been deliberately expressed in violence to the evildoer. I am endeavouring to show to my countrymen that violent non-cooperation only multiplies evil and that, as evil can only be sustained by violence, withdrawal of support of evil requires complete abstention from violence. Non-violence implies voluntary submission to the penalty for non-cooperation with evil. I am here, therefore, to invite and submit cheerfully to the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me for what in law is a deliberate crime and what appears to me to be the highest duty of a citizen.

The satyagrahi was in full action. He was not sorry for preaching non-cooperation, but he was regretful that people were not yet ready to protest with complete non-violence. If the government felt that by doing so he was breaking the law, then he was willing to undergo the severest of the punishment. In this context, Justice Iyer had remarked that the moral imperative of the Mahatma was the rule of law shall not, without peril to its own life, rob its consumer, the common man, of his right to inalienable liberties. Gandhiji was a strong votary of individual freedom. Justice Iyer quotes Gandhiji in his lecture27 and says that Gandhiji’s notion of democracy meant a system where the weakest had the same opportunity as the strongest and claimed that no society could be built on a denial of individual freedom. The only tyrant Gandhiji accepted was the still small voice within. This was Gandhiji’s jurisconscience.

The idea and philosophy of justice that has evolved is in the context of the social entity of the human being. The code of conduct that was devised for a person had other persons in consideration. The more we socialised and the more we were civilised, the code of conduct was further refined. And when the code was violated, then came jurisprudence. If the provisions in a particular jurisprudence allowed for violating and exploiting fellow human beings, jurisconscience arose and defied the rule of law. Gandhiji’s unique position in this respect has been the presence of conscience even if the whole society consisted only of a Robinson Crusoe. There was justice to be done with self. Beginning from this position, the formation of society consisting of many individuals also requires each individual to be a mumukshu. The liberty and the right to liberty for an individual arises out of duty to the self. If the individual falters, then there is a corrective path. Reiterating what has been said earlier, it is sveekruti, pashchatap, and prayashchit. It involves immense suffering which is self-purifying. From such a person flows the soul force that impacts the heart and mind of the tyrant. In the highest point of Gandhian jurisconscience, jurisprudence is minimal.

NOTES

1. Some researchers and scholars with a background in law have written on the subject. One of the most erudite works is a lecture by Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer delivered on 30 January 30, at the Gandhi Peace Foundation, New Delhi. This lecture, titled ‘Jurisprudence and Jurisconscience a la Gandhi’ was published in the form of a book. See V. R. Krishna Iyer. 1976. Jurisprudence and Jurisconscience a la Gandhi. New Delhi: Gandhi Peace Foundation.

2. Truth (with a capital ‘T’) refers to the ultimate Truth. Gandhiji’s struggle for practising and establishing truth in worldly affairs was the path that led to the ultimate Truth.

3. M.K. Gandhi. 1927 [1976 reprint]. An Autobiography or the Story of My Experiments with Truth. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, p. x.

4. Gandhiji’s full name was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. In this chapter, he is called ‘Mohan’ when the reference is to his childhood or youth.

5. page.png 88  The words mean, respectively, nirikshan — observation, parikshan — introspection or examination, and shodhan — correction.

6. Kriti K. Bhavsar, Mark Lindley, and Purnima Upadhyay. 2011. Bibliography of Books read by Mahatma Gandhi. Ahmedabad: Gujarat Vidyapith. Available online at www.gujaratvidyapith.org (accessed on 6 October 2017).

7. Bhavsar et al., Bibliography of Books.

8. Gandhi, An Autobiography, pp. 59–60.

9. Gandhi, An Autobiography, pp. 60–62.

10. Gandhi, An Autobiography, pp. 68–70, 159.

11. Ajit Atri. 2007. Gandhi’s View of Legal Justice. New Delhi: Deep and Deep Publications.

12. Gandhi, An Autobiography, p. 99.

13. Gandhi, An Autobiography, pp. 273–274. For an analysis, refer to Atri, Gandhi’s View, pp. 57–60.

14. Gandhi, An Autobiography, p. 276.

15. Atri, Gandhi’s View, p. 59.

16. Atri, Gandhi’s View, p. 58.

17. Atri, Gandhi’s View, p. 20.

18. Atri, Gandhi’s View, Chapter 4. One may also find it interesting to read ‘Gandhi’s Justice and Restorative Justice’, by Fania E. Davis, remarks delivered at the 10th Annual Howard Thurman Convocation, Church of the Fellowship of All Peoples, available online at http://restorativejustice.org/10fulltext/davisfania.pdf (accessed on 7 October 2017).

19. In Hinduism and Hindu philosophy, a mumukshu is a seeker of moksha, or salvation of the soul.

20. Gandhi, An Autobiography, p. 82.

21. Gandhi, An Autobiography, pp. 82–94.

22. Gandhi, An Autobiography, p. 94.

23. M.K. Gandhi. 1928. Satyagraha in South Africa. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House.

24. Gandhi, Satyagraha, p. 140.

25. Gandhi, An Autobiography, pp. 311–312.

26. M.K. Gandhi. 1962. The Law and the Lawyers. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, p. 123.

27. Iyer, Jurisprudence and Jurisconscience.

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