Hindi imposition and its discontents (GS Paper 2, Governance)
Why in news?
- The reported recommendation of the Parliamentary Committee on Official Language to use Hindi as the medium of instruction in Central institutions of higher education in Hindi-speaking States and regional languages in other States has once again ignited a controversy over, what is called as an attempt to impose Hindi on non-Hindi speaking people.
- Chief Ministers of Tamil Nadu and Kerala have voiced their concerns over the recommendation.
What is the backdrop to the Hindi imposition row?
- The origin of the linguistic row goes back to the debate on official languages. In the Constituent Assembly, Hindi was voted as the official language by a single vote. However, it added that English would continue to be used as an associate official language for 15 years.
- The Official Languages Act came into effect on the expiry of this 15-year period in 1965. This was the background in which the anti-Hindi agitation took place.
- However, as early as in 1959, Jawaharlal Nehru had given an assurance in Parliament that English would continue to be in use as long as non-Hindi speaking people wanted it.
Why do many parties in Tamil Nadu stand against the recommendation?
- Tamil Nadu has had a long history of agitations against “Hindi imposition”.
- In August 1937, in the then Presidency of Madras, the regime headed by C. Rajagopalachari, also known as Rajaji or CR, decided to make Hindi compulsory in secondary schools. E.V. Ramasamy, or Periyar as he was known, who was still in the Justice Party at that time, had spearheaded an agitation against the move, marking the first such stir.
- A few months after CR’s resignation, the British government, in February 1940, made Hindi optional.
- In January 1965, the second round of agitations erupted in the wake of Hindi becoming the official language of the Union government coupled with the approach adopted by the Central government towards the whole issue.
- At different points in time, leaders, starting from Jawaharlal Nehru in the mid-1950s, assured the people of Tamil Nadu that there would be no “imposition” of Hindi.
Recent attempts:
- However, in recent years, be it the National Education Policy or reports of English signage on National Highways in the State getting replaced with Hindi signage, the political class of the State had overwhelmingly expressed its reservations.
- The reiteration of the age-old assurance by the Central government coupled with the promise of the promotion of other Indian languages have barely mollified the protesters.
- The essence of the Official Languages Act, 1963, is to provide something to each of the differing groups to meet its objections and safeguard its position. Whenever the parties in the State see any attempt to disturb this status quo, their reaction is always uniform, a virulent opposition.
What does the present proposal say?
- If reports in sections of the media are an indication, English, as a medium of instruction in all technical and non-technical institutions, will be permitted only where it is absolutely essential, as the idea is to replace the language gradually with Hindi in those institutions.
- While IITs, IIMs and All India Institute of Medical Sciences are considered technical institutions, KendriyaVidyalayas and NavodayaVidyalayas fall under the other category.
- Also, the committee has recommended the removal of English as one of the languages in examinations held for recruitment to the Central services.
- It has stated that the requisite knowledge of Hindi among candidates should also be ensured.
What is the alternative suggested by critics of the proposal?
- They have called for equal treatment to all the languages specified under the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.
- The Kerala Chief Minister has specifically stated that question papers for competitive examinations should be prepared in all the languages while his Tamil Nadu counterpart has urged the Centre to promote all languages and keep open the avenues of progress in terms of education and employment equal to speakers of all languages.
Judicial comity over arithmetic
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
Context:
- A Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court has unanimously held that a judgment delivered by a larger Bench will prevail over the decision of a smaller Bench, irrespective of the number of judges constituting the majority in the larger Bench.
Superiority:
- It is well-known in law that the decision of a superior court will always be binding on a lower court and that the decision of a larger Bench will always hold force over a smaller Bench of the same court.
- This canon of law seeks to ensure that there is stability and consistency in the decisions of the court.
- This principle stems from the assumption that a Bench with more strength is more likely to arrive at a correct decision.
Understanding Bench strength:
- A vast majority of cases before the Supreme Court is heard and decided by a Bench of two judges (Division Bench) or three (full Bench).
- It is a settled position that a Bench of equal strength cannot overrule or reconsider a decision of a coordinate Bench; it can, at best, doubt the correctness of it.
Constitution of larger Benches:
- Whenever there is doubt or conflict between decisions of co-equal Benches, it is referred to the Chief Justice of India and this is where larger Benches are constituted.
- The larger Benches examine the question or correctness of the decision and the majority opinion expressed by them becomes the verdict, which is binding on the lower Benches.
- An anomaly here is that a majority decision is treated as the ruling of the entire Bench, including the dissenting judges that examined the question. This is where the problem originates.
- If the correctness of a law laid down unanimously by a five-judge Bench is doubted, could it be overruled by four judges of a seven-judge Bench? Could it be said that the four judges of the larger Bench arrived at the correct decision and not the five judges of the smaller Bench?
Doctrine of Precedents:
- The Supreme Court, while considering the same question, held that if the number of judges is to have salience and not Bench strength, then every decision of a larger bench could be doubted and overruled on the ground of plurality of opinions, thereby toppling the certainty and stability of decisions.
- The observation holds some rationale, as even in a study, the one with the larger sample space (larger Bench) is assumed to reflect a correct outcome over a study with a smaller sample space. This is the underlying raison d'être for the Rule of Precedents.
Consequences:
- However, a blanket adherence to the Doctrine of Precedents as enunciated by the Supreme Court can have serious consequences, as the correctness of a decision would become a game of numbers rather than reasons.
- The Supreme Court justified the binding nature of the larger Bench’s view saying that this view was arrived at after deliberation by more judges. But just because a decision was considered by more judges does not mean that it is correct and it certainly would not be perceived to be correct.
- In fact, if a larger Bench arrived at a decision by a slim majority (say, 4:3 in a seven-judge Bench), its correctness would be all the more doubted on the presumption that had the Bench comprised different judges, the outcome might have been different.
- After all, it is natural that a decision by a larger majority is perceived to be correct over a decision considered by a larger number.
How precedent cases are treated in other countries?
- Such an anomaly is usually avoided in the U.S. and in South Africa owing to the fact that any reconsideration of a precedent is a matter deliberated by the entire sitting strength of the court as opposed to division(s).
- While both the U.K. and Australia follow a system similar to that of India, the entire act of ‘reconsidering a precedent’ is viewed as a delicate and grave judicial responsibility in these countries.
- Rarely do precedents get re-decided more than once, unlike in India, in order to give quietus to litigation and in the limited occasion where a decision is reopened, the only requirement is that it would examined by a Bench of all ‘available judges’.
Recommendations:
- If such conflicts are to be avoided by the Supreme Court of India, certain changes are required in terms of how larger Benches are constituted.
- It is recommended that the term ‘larger Bench’ be understood not in the strict sense of being merely greater in strength than the lower Bench. Instead, there should be an endeavour to have a quorum with a break-even or a greater majority than the lower Bench.
- Thus, if a five-judge unanimous decision is referred to a larger Bench, it should be considered by a nine-judge Bench rather than seven, so that it would in any case be decided by a majority of at least five judges. After all, correctness of a judicial decision has more to it than just the number of judges deliberating the vexed question of law.
- Otherwise, a lower number of judges holding a majority opinion could overrule a higher number of judges holding a majority opinion based on the sheer fact that the lower number of majority opinion judges was part of a larger bench.
Conclusion:
- By permitting this possibility, the Supreme Court has opened up the likeliness of its decisions being criticised on the grounds of having a ‘narrow majority’ in comparison to its previous unanimous decisions.
Printing human tissues to studying ovaries: New science headed to space
(GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)
Why in news?
- With the new crew taking on their roles in space and adjusting to life in zero gravity for the next few months, NASA is planning to launch the next resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS).
Scientific investigations:
- The Cygnus spacecraft carrying new scientific research will lift off in November from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in Virginia.
- The scientific investigations will deal with areas of plant mutations and mudflow structure along with a demonstration of camera technology and small satellites from Japan, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.
- The flying laboratory has been home to thousands of research that are aimed not only at space exploration but also benefitting people living on the planet, especially in the field of medical science.
What research is headed to space?
- NASA will launch its BioFabrication Facility that in 2019 successfully printed a partial human knee meniscus and a large volume of human heart cells. The technology is being re-flown to space with new capabilities to test whether microgravity enables the printing of tissue samples of higher quality than those printed on the ground.
- NASA will also conduct a study on growing plants in space. The Plant Habitat-03 will assess whether adaptations in one generation of plants grown in space can transfer to the next generation. The research will the addition of extra information to the DNA of plants in space.
- NASA said that the long-term goal of the investigation is to understand how epigenetics can contribute to adaptive strategies plants use in space and, ultimately, to develop plants better suited for use on future missions to provide food and other services.
- Scientists will also shed light on climate change and global warming through the Post-Wildfire Mudflow Micro-Structure (TangoLab Mission-28) which aims to study the thin layer of soil which is created after a wildfire burns plants and repels water.
Microgravity:
- Gravity plays a crucial role in the process by driving air up and out of the mixture and particles down to the bottom of the water. Removing gravity, therefore, could provide insights into the internal structure dynamics of these sand-water-air mixtures and a baseline for their behavior.
- Meanwhile, astronauts in Space Station will also be examining the effect of microgravity on bovine cell cultures that could improve fertility treatments on Earth and help prepare for future human settlement in space.
