'The Judiciary Is Like A Black Hole'

'People don't know about the immense pressures that come with this position -- every decision a judge takes affects real people and their lives.'
'This is not a job that one can take lightly.'

Insiyah Vahanvaty is an independent Indian journalist, commentator and scholar.

Vahanvaty holds a second Master's degree from King's College London in Global Affairs, where her research focused on the intersection of Indian ethnonationalism, media dynamics, and the erosion of press freedoms.

She also serves as a trustee of the Ahmadi Foundation, an institution dedicated to preserving and furthering the legacy of Justice A M Ahmadi.

She is the author of The Fearless Judge - Life and Times of Chief Justice A M Ahmadi, a biography of her grandfather who served as India's 26th Chief Justice.

As a granddaughter who lived in the same home as Justice Ahmadi since the age of seven, she has had the advantage of witnessing his life up close.

This intimate perspective has allowed her to provide a fascinating and nuanced account of a judge's life in a highly politicised country like India.

Insiyah Vahanvaty reveals why she embarked on her grandfather's biography.

The inspiration for this book came from my grandfather himself. You see, his original intention had been to write his autobiography.

In the few years before he passed away, he had started making some notes, but he didn't get a chance to write the book -- his time ran out and he passed away last year.

After his passing I started getting calls from some publishers asking if there was going to be a book about him -- and if I would be writing it.

I told them that I would think about it. A few days later, I switched on his computer and started reading his notes.

I discovered that while he hadn't got around to writing much about the cases, he had briefly mentioned some landmark ones, and political events.

I recognised some that I remembered from my childhood -- Ayodhya, the demolition of the Babri mosque, the Hazratbal shrine in Kashmir that militants had seized.

But most importantly, I found that he had written his thoughts and opinions about various cases and events.

I realised this was his legacy, and it needed to be shared.

His story needed to be told and I had to be the one to tell it.

Because I am a writer by profession, and I also knew him intimately, I felt a sense of responsibility to bring his voice and experiences to life.

The fact that we live in times where many of the ideals that he stood for are becoming compromised, I felt it was even more important to write this book now to remind young people that things weren't always like this.

From a personal perspective, my grandfather was a huge influence in my life. He was my father figure.

My parents' marriage dissolved when I was seven years old, and my brother, mother, and I moved to Delhi to live with my grandparents.

Since then, Nana Jaan was the only father I really knew, and losing him was really hard.

When I started writing this book, I was grieving for him.

It was a tough time in my life, but the process of writing helped me channel those emotions and work through my loss.

It became a way for me to honour him and keep his memory alive.

He was an eminent jurist and a legal luminary. Everyone knows the judgments he delivered, but through this book now they will also understand why and how he did this.

You see the world of the judiciary is very opaque. People know the judgment, but don't know why and how the judge came to that conclusion.

Nobody knows what is happening in their personal life, what they are going through while sitting in judgement on others.

They don't know the individual personalities of the judges and their convictions/biases.

The working of this arm of the government -- the Judiciary -- is almost like a black hole. It is unlike other arms of the government.

Take the Executive, for example. Politicians speak often and they speak freely, so we know a lot about them.

You cannot say the same thing about judges. People also don't know about the immense pressures that come with this position. Every decision a judge takes affects real people and their lives. This is not a job that one can take lightly.

There have not been many books written about judges and I do feel that people deserve to know what a judge's life looks like from the inside.

The mental fortitude that is required when deciding important cases is unfathomable to most people.

Judges do their work knowing that every judgment will have implications for individual lives as well as future cases and so they are constantly under huge amounts of pressure that the layman can't even imagine.

Further, they work under the harsh glare of the media, and so they have to have the strength of character to deliver judgments that are right, and withstand any backlash that might follow.

As it is often said, 'It is the judge that is on trial.' It takes a lot to stand strong in these circumstances.

I have witnessed my grandfather do this time and again, seemingly without flinching, but I know it wasn't easy. After all, judges are human beings too.

A Chief Justice's life is more than traveling in red beacon cars and receiving 21 gun salutes. It is also a life of immense dedication and sacrifice -- a life of service to the nation.

In my book, I have brought to bring to light these aspects -= the stresses judges work under, the sacrifices their families must make to adjust to this demanding life.

It requires courage and fortitude not only from the judge, but his family too.

What I am trying to say is that it is not a bed of roses.

That's why a significant portion of the book also delves into my grandfather's personal and family life -- much of it is drawn from personal and family memories, so that it gives a fuller picture.

And I have a lot of memories, especially from my childhood. Some of them might surprise people because not many know that when he was not working, my Nana Jaan was quite playful.

One of the childhood memories I treasure is playing table tennis with him.

We had this huge dining table and we had bought one of those cheap plastic nets we get in the market. After the table was cleared we used to put up the net and play.

That was the only time we could coax him out of his work. He was very keen on various sports.

Cricket was his favourite -- he used to sometimes indulge in friendly matches between the bar and the bench of the Supreme Court -- but TT was also high up on the list.

We used to play on weekends and occasionally in the evenings when his workload was light.

Sometimes if other members of the family were playing, he would hear the ball bouncing on the table and, unable to resist, come out for a quick match before disappearing back into his office.

I had friends like every other girl and we used to go to each other's house to play.

One of my friends used to keep making excuses to avoid coming to my house.

One day I asked her, "I come regularly to your house, but you don't come to my house, what is the reason?" She told me that she was scared of my grandpa.

I went and complained to him that I don't have many friends because you keep scaring them. He laughed and said bring your friend home, tell her I invited her.

I went and told her that Nana Jaan had invited her and she readily agreed.

Normally he never used to come out of his office, but that day he came out to see us.

He asked us, "What are you girls doing?" We told him some nonsense game we were playing. He said, "Let us play table tennis".

So we cleared the table and put up the net. He played with us and after a while my friend whispered, "He is not scary."

Whenever there was an important cricket match on, he would find the time to watch at least a part of it.

When he was in a particularly good mood, he would mute the TV and then deliver the commentary extempore.

We would watch him in fascination as his commentary was delightful, he was so good at it.

The household staff too would pause their work to peep into the TV room.

They would whisper to each other to quickly come and see saheb's entertaining performance.

He was also quite curious and enjoyed hanging out with kids.

One day, one of my friends had come over and we decided to play in the garden. We had a big garden with lots of trees.

We tied a rope between two trees, threw a blanket over it and built a tent.

We were sitting in our tent munching on some pickle that my grandmother had made and given us.

At the far end of our garden, there were a couple of tall trees where vultures had built their nests.

They occasionally came down to the lower part of the garden, and we were fascinated by these majestic birds.

So we decided to throw some of the pickle on the grass to lure them, and eagerly waited for the vultures to swoop down.

Just then, my grandpa happened to be walking past, and saw us.

Curiously, he asked us what we were doing. We told him and he was intrigued. He said, 'Okay I will also join you.'

He came and sat with us in our makeshift tent and we all waited for the vultures to come down, but, of course, they did not.

I guess vultures don't really care for pickle! Eventually my grandmother called out from the house, "Enough of all this for today, everyone please come in for lunch".

People remember him for his fearless judgments, his courageous dissents and his work in keeping the judiciary independent.

But he was also the third Muslim Chief Justice of India, and since his retirement nearly 30 years ago, there's only been one other Muslim Chief Justice.

Even today, there's just one Muslim judge on the Supreme Court which tells us how challenging it is to be a Muslim judge in India, making his achievements even more astonishing,

In my book I have revealed how the chips are stacked against those from minority communities right from the beginning.

Every step of the way, religion becomes a hurdle that needs to be overcome.

My grandpa achieved all his successes without once compromising on his integrity or dignity, eventually going on to become the Chief Justice of India. Truly, he was a remarkable man!

Everyone knows Justice Ahmadi the jurist, but very few knew Aziz Ahmadi, the man.

Through this book I have tried to bring the human angle -- the man behind the robe -- into the limelight so readers can get to know him as a person.

He was a patient man for the most part, but he did have a temper.

And when I was a naughty child growing up in the 90s, of course I received many scoldings from him.

His temper was particularly short during his years as Chief Justice, and understandably so.

As you would have gathered from the book, the '90s were a tumultuous time for the Indian judiciary -- the pressures faced then were only comparable to one two instances in Independent India's history.

And my grandfather, being an honest upright judge who refused to compromise his principles, felt them even more.

As I grew up, I began to rely more and more on his advice and counsel. I discussed everything with him -- my post graduate subject, my career choice, job offers - everything.

As my father figure, Nana Jaan played a crucial role in my life decisions, alongside other family members.

He encouraged me to experiment with different careers, find internships so that I could get a sense of what I wanted to do.

For the longest time, he hoped I would do law -- he thought I was best suited for it -- but I simply didn't have an interest at that time.

When I told him that I wanted to marry a Hindu man, he simply shrugged off my apprehensions, saying that the boy's religion was immaterial to him.

He asked me to invite Shaurya over for lunch one Sunday so that the family could meet him.

Of course I was nervous -- my grandfather was not an easy man to impress -- and I knew he would not take this meeting lightly.

If he expressed reservations, it would be very tough to change his mind.

But in the end, I trusted his judgment and knew how much he loved me, which gave me some comfort.

After we had finished lunch, he invited Shaurya to join him in his office, for a one-on-one talk.

The rest of us stayed in the family room, completely unaware of what was being discussed.

Till date I don't know the details of the conversation as neither of them ever revealed it to us.

But at the end of the visit, as Shaurya was leaving, my grandfather shook his hand and said, "Welcome to the family." That's when we knew it was done!

When I decided to shift to Mumbai and work there, he was very supportive. He encouraged it wholeheartedly.

My grandfather was always supportive of my desire to explore life, face challenges on my own, and learn from those experiences.

He believed in independence and personal growth. And he was especially supportive of these ambitions in daughters -- his own as well as his friends'.

He used to spend a significant amount of time in Mumbai for his arbitrations -- a week or more each month. So we still got to see each other often.

We would meet each day for dinner at his hotel, where we would talk about everything -- politics, culture, religion- -- as well as my life experiences in living alone and the joys and challenges that came with it.

These evenings were very special. This was the time when I was just starting my career in journalism and developing a keen interest in politics and current events.

He listened to my opinions with genuine interest -- sometimes asking a provocative question, to push me to think more deeply about something.

This is also the time when I started probing his mind - seeking his views on current events, judicial questions etc.

Looking back, I cherish those years and those moments. While I didn't fully appreciate their significance at the time, I realise now how much they have shaped my world view and strengthened my bond with him.

As told to A Ganesh Nadar.

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com