Express Tribune: Markandey Katju.

When I was a judge in the Allahabad High Court, a criminal appeal came before me in which some Muslim boys had been convicted by the trial court of gang-raping a young Dalit Hindu girl. In Uttar Pradesh (UP, which is the largest state in India of about 200 million people), Muslims are about 18 per cent of the total population but in that particular village in UP where this incident happened, 90 per cent of the people are Muslims and only about 10 per cent are Hindus, most of them being Dalits (or low caste Hindus). I upheld the conviction and observed that a hallmark of a civilised society is the protection it gives to minorities. It is the solemn duty of every person belonging to the majority community to ensure that minorities in their areas live with dignity and respect. In this case, it was the duty of the Muslims of that village to ensure that the Hindus could live with respect but instead of doing so, the accused gang-raped a Dalit girl. Hence, they deserved harsh punishment.

I also observed in the same judgment that had the Hindus been the majority in the village, it would have been their duty to see that Muslims, Christians or any other minority in the village could live with dignity. If Hindus committed a similar crime, they would also be given harsh punishment.

The judgment assumes importance in view of the growing intolerance in many parts of the Indian subcontinent. The treatment of northeast people in many parts of India, of Muslims in Gujarat and the terror created in the tiny Hindu and other minorities in Pakistan are a disgrace to all of us. It shows that we are not really civilised. Thomas Jefferson, in his book, Notes on Virginia, writes: “It does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg”.

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