AR Dave, SC Justice

advocating the compulsory study of the Bhagavad Gita in schools

Last Saturday, while speaking
at an international conference
on ‘Contemporary Issues and
Challenges of Human Rights in
the Era of Globalisation’ in
Ahmedabad, Supreme Court
judge AR Dave said that if he
were the dictator of India, he
would make the Bhagavad
Gita and Mahabharata
compulsory for students from
class one onwards. This, he
said, would help them “learn
how to live life”.

The conference
was organised by the
Gujarat Law Society. There
have been widespread
objections to his statement
and rightly so. Both the texts
that he so gloriously propounds
are identified with
Hinduism and to make them
compulsory might not be
acceptable to adherents of
other religions. Then there is
the question of whether the
Mahabharata is actually such
a surfeit of wisdom that Dave
makes it out to be.

Like all mythological works, it is a
matter of interpretation what
one derives from it. The Gita,
for instance, could be read
without nuance by some as
just an exhortation to war.
Dave sees only unalloyed
good coming from it, but that
is his personal viewpoint.
There is no reason for us to
take that as the only valid
interpretation. It is quite a
relief that he is not the
dictator of India.

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