The Idea of Justice

In an astounding moment in Shakespeare’s King Lear, the king tears off his own robes when he sees a naked beggar, realising how he has neglected the hungry and homeless. Abandoned by his daughters and left to the elements, he finally understands that humanity is much more important than power. The play had such a subversive impact that in subsequent years, it was diluted to make it less disturbing to the powers that be. In the same play, there is another character, Gloucester, whose eyes are gouged out, and yet, he sees the world with profound compassion for the poor. If a blind man could feel that, there is every reason to expect that our high-ranking judges clearly needed to see the plight of the migrants that was in full view of the nation and was brought to their notice continuously over the course of the last nine months.

Absolute monarchy is almost dead now but there are a lot of autocratic rulers. Like King Lear, our rulers and particularly some of our judges need to do some introspection, and we need a creative writer, an artist, who can powerfully and compellingly portray the tragedy of our judiciary.