Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy (Vidhi) is a distinguished think tank dedicated to driving impactful legal reforms, ensuring transparency and fostering societal progress, according to my Google Guru.

It is an independent think tank doing legal research to make better laws and improve governance for the public good. Yes, for “public good.” This reminds me of Bernard Shaw who made Napoleon say in the play “The Man of Destiny”:

“The Englishman. He does everything on principle. He fights you on patriotic principles; he robs you on business principles; he enslaves you on manly principles; he supports his King on loyal principles and cuts off his head on republican principles. His watch word is always duty.”

In India today we find NGOs in thousands, filling their bottomless pockets with foreign funding mouthing the watch word “public good.” Perish the idea. However, we need not despair and lose hope on NGOs. Some of them are really working for “public good.” NGOs indeed have an important role to play in our society. Like Vidhi, which is focussed primarily on the Constitutional law and legal matters.

For example, today, if we have the Right To Information (RTI) Act thanks to the efforts of an NGO headed by Aruna Roy, an IAS Officer. We have Vidhi apparently doing some good work dedicated to bring in legal reformation in our country.

It is an irony that despite our Constituent Assembly, that framed our Constitution, having maximum number of illustrious lawyers, not much thought was given to change the colonial laws that was intended to keep the “natives” under subjugation and enable the colonial masters to exploit Indians.

Part III of our Constitution deals with this subject. Thus, many moth-eaten laws in force in the territory of India, immediately before independence and the commencement of the Constitution, remained and only those inconsistent with the provision of Part III (Fundamental Rights) became void. Furthermore, even the language of these laws and the languages used by Advocates in drafting legal documents that are archaic and opaque remained.

It is impossible even for Lord Brahma to decipher and understand the purport and meaning of these legal documents and the laws written by our English-speaking masters. It had the flavour of Geoffrey Chaucer, father of English literature and the complexity of the highbrow Victorian language used by Thomas MaCaulay who wrote uniform Indian Penal Code (IPC), Code of Civil Procedure and the                                                 Evidence Act.

British judges of those days would have understood it well enough to interpret the letter and spirit of the law, but I am afraid whether our judges, who came after independence had the same advantage and felicity to understand. Yet we had carried on with the “white man’s burden” of delivering justice to our gullible people even to this day, after 77 years of          independence.

Let me get personal with apologies to my readers. Once, many years ago, I decided to contest for the Presidentship of Sri Kanteerava Narasimharaja Sports Club (Mysore Sports Club). Under the Bylaw of the Club (written not in MaCaulay’s English), a member who had already completed his two terms under the eligibility clause was not eligible to contest for a third term. But one ineligible member filed his nomination. I objected. However, in the General Body, with the President favouring the ineligible candidate, surprisingly, some senior members including an English Professor, twisted the language of the Bylaw and allowed that slimy Club-politician to contest. It was too late for me to withdraw from the contest and I lost.

My friends urged me to fight it out in the Court of law. So, I went to the City Court presided over by a lady Judge and had to argue my case myself, because of Advocates’ strike on that day. I won. I got a stay.

The loser went in appeal and lost. He went to High Court. An order was passed in his favour upon an undertaking given. By then 10 months had passed with my adversary unable to assume office. He was thus allowed to assume office which he did late in the night!! The ‘undertaking’ was later ‘denied’ as not given and the Court agreed. The Court accepted the affidavit to that effect without giving me notice. There is more but let me rest here.

All that I want to say is, how a legal language even in a Bylaw could be misread by the highly educated.

Be that as it may, I was happy that our judges could understand easily the English language of the Bylaw which some educated members of the Club could not.

To revert to the language of the legal world, the Vidhi is indeed doing what is urgently needed. Best of luck to its members, specially its Founder Arghya Sengupta.

Surprisingly, one of the easily understandable books in english is said to be the Bible, except for its archaic use of verbs and conjunctions. For example, see this text from the Old Testament:

“I came and saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill, but time and chance happeneth to them all.”

I am sure this message can be understood even by an illiterate lay person. Now see how a colonial or modern-day lawyer would write the same          text in English:

“Objective consideration of contemporary phenomenon compels the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must.”

Will Shashi Tharoor help with his mastery over the English language or will he be another MaCaulay?

Tailpiece: Having spoken about the problem found in our legal language, particularly in English, our Law Ministers —   Arjun Meghwal at the Centre and the Law Ministers at the respective States — have a huge responsibility to correct the inadequacies and  abstractions found in the language. NGOs like Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy will be of much help in speeding up the process.

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