Bengaluru: Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud on Saturday said though liberty has been understood as the absence of State interference in a person's choices, when it doesn't intervene, the State automatically allows communities with social and economic capital to dominate the marginalised.
Justice Chandrachud's remarks came at a conference in Bengaluru as he spoke about the complex and evolving relationship between liberty and the State and stressed the need for affirmative action to address deep-rooted discrimination.
“While the relationship between the State and liberty has been widely understood, the task of establishing and explaining the relationship between identity and liberty is incomplete," said the CJI while delivering the keynote address as part of the LawAsia Conference on the topic “Identity, the Individual and the State: New Paths to Liberty”.
"Traditionally, liberty has been understood as the absence of State interference in a person’s right to make choices. However, contemporary scholars have come to the conclusion that the role of the State in perpetuating social prejudices and hierarchies cannot be ignored. In effect, where the State does not intervene, it automatically allows communities with social and economic capital to exercise dominance over communities who have been historically marginalised.”
Giving a historical perspective on liberty, he further spoke about the limitations of understanding and the inclusion of identity and the State within the fold of liberty.
“Identity and its recognition by the State play a crucial part in what resources people get and their ability to express their grievances and demands that arise," Justice Chandrachud said. "The State, therefore, confers personhood and juristic personality as the first step in recognising the claims of entities and individuals."
In this context, the CJI touched upon Artificial Intelligence — a development that is taking the world by storm — and highlighted the "complex interplay between AI and personhood".
"History is replete with examples of state prejudice based on identity. In this context, it made sense for social movements to demand that their identity be treated with respectability and create better conditions for the exercise of liberty,” he said.
The CJI further gave examples of laws framed around the gender binary, which, he said, "commit a dual fallacy". "First, they assume that there are two and only two genders that must be distinguished. Second, they actively disadvantage women and advantage men.”
Referring to the reports about widespread abuses faced by the marginalised groups, Justice Chandrachud said reservation as affirmative action stands as a beacon of hope to weed out caste-based inequalities.
“While the journey of liberty has aimed to maximize human freedoms, it is our life’s work to imagine liberty as the removal of systemic barriers and make oppression-based identities obsolete," the CJI said.