My freedom to argue: 'Freedom is being allowed to fly; in India, it's about breaking the chains'
Graduate from the National Law School, Bangalore, with a PhD from Oxford University and a Master's from Harvard Law School, Guruswamy, 41, started her own practice in Delhi in 2009; previously worked on a petition with T.S.R. Subramanian and 86 other bureaucrats for transparency and accountability in relationship between the executive and bureaucracy; defended a provision in the Right to Education Act mandating that all private schools admit disadvantaged children; currently appointed amicus curiae in a case looking into 1,528 extra-judicial killings by police or armed forces in Manipur.
I think Amartya Sen once said that freedom is all very well, but you also have to have the capability to exercise freedom. In many ways, the Constitution is an interesting instrument in capacity-building for all citizens. It's a radical idea. Traditionally, in Indian society, you had enhanced capacity for a few and diminished capacity for the majority; women were meant to have diminished capacity, as were the lower castes and religious minorities. But the Constitution would ensure enhanced capacity for everyone. We would all be entitled to achieve our true potential and it would set up that moral code, a legally enforceable doctrine which the courts would interpret and the executive would implement.
I've had a diverse, across-the-board litigating practice, but I would hope that some of the cases I've fought, whether regarding the right to education, bureaucratic reforms, Section 377, challenging vigilantism in Chhattisgarh or extrajudicial executions, are in small ways chipping away at things that shackle freedom. Freedom is conventionally, in its western conception, thought of as expression, speech, writing. It certainly is all of that, but it is also about education, healthcare, food, access to movement, employment and opportunity. Freedom is opportunity. The caste system is about restricted opportunity, the Constitution is about extraordinary opportunity. Freedom in its simplest version, is just being allowed to fly, and in its more pragmatic version, in India, it's about breaking the chains, so that you can fly.
Freedom of education ensures people can conceive of different ways of imagining their potential, perhaps differently from how their parents or grandparents imagined theirs. There is tremendous amount of opportunity in private schools. Obviously these are elitist, well-resourced oases. But it's also true that some of the children in these institutions rarely have the opportunity to meet their fellow citizens. And that's a loss both ways. The thing about diversity is that it presumes that the marginalised are enriched, it does not understand that the privileged are also enriched. And the Right to Education Act is about both those things. It is about breaking down islands of privilege, but it is also about enabling conversations, friendships and fraternity.
The Azim Premji foundation was the only private body that actually came forward to defend the act. They thought the idea of an amalgamation of Indians studying together was a wonderful and principled thing. We live in a country of lineages and clan-based alliances-whether political or business dynasties, caste-based voting. The idea that we can stand up for different castes, class and creeds can only be implemented in schools, when you form those friendships. That's why the freedom project has to be implemented at the primary school level, not when you're standing for your first election and are suddenly expected not to play the caste or religion card.
(As told to Asmita Bakshi)