Every word is an empty signifier. When a word like politics or ethics is used in commonsensical sense, one takes it as certain, as if something is there, which can be defined as such. To refer Derrida, it is "metaphysics of presence", which is known as logocentrism, is taken for granted. A term such a politics has no fixed meaning. Words are never meant to signify any fixed reality. It is always already absent in its presence, just like an arche-type of difference. History of philosophy has been obsessed with a question, "who experiences the world?" Is there any fixed identity in me? I have never been familiar to myself. How can I be a fixed "I"? Fixation and definition are just like an amusing act by logician, lawyers, and mathematician. They take their being for granted, as if, being has been implanted in the world to experience deceit and insurmountable sorrow and fear of unknown. Being is an interpretative function, which remains and effaces itself in fragments, whose memorial is united by memory. Just like Bergson' time is a fiction. Second as a basic unit of time may be divided further into its subatomic level and then it disappears in its infinity. Politics is not a transcendental signifier like Heidegger's Being, it has seen rainbow of colours. Aristotelian politics was a conduct of ordinary affairs, an important facet for a civilian, a guiding monad for society and cooperation, Gandhian politics was the fundamental tool for ethical affirmation of truth, non-violence, and love force. Ambedkar's politics was fundamentally rooted against the daily experiences of voiceless and subaltern. Nehruvian socialism emerged out of colonial and anti-colonial politics, especially from the experience of European wars, gross inequality, suffering from religious animosity. The fundamentals of politics have never been static, it is for some "will to power", for others a means to choose appropriate vocation. For few, it's emancipatory for others it's just like an opportunity to enjoy name, reputation, fame. There is no fixed definition of politics. There can't be one. It is progressing, decomposing, and recomposing into a temporary concept, which needs a constant alertness to feel its fragrance of existence. The 21st century of human's world has already witnessed so many upheavals, and the clamour of politics and justice is still on like it has ever been.
Aristotle once wrote in his Nicomachean Ethics that there are four significant virtues for human beings, namely Prudence, Temperance, Justice, and Courage. There are a few judges who have courage and sense of justice, both. Hon'ble Mr. Justice Rohinton Nariman has been truly an exemplar judge and erudite historian, theologian and philologist, a great scholar of music as well as a courageous and meticulous jurist of our country. He did his Master of Laws from Harvard Law School in 1980-81 and taught by one of the finest jurists of the last century, Roberto Unger. He became Senior Advocate in 1993 in the age of 37 and also served as Solicitor General of India in 2011 before he was elevated as a judge of the Supreme Court of India in 2014. He delivered many landmark judgments, including Shreya Singhal v. Union of India. There are a few people with whom time moves too fast, but to count that experience takes ages. Justice Rohinton Nariman is one of those great jurists with whom a meet...
Great thought process
ReplyDeleteThank you so much!
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