HIS STATEMENT
“To me, politics has to be about ideas, or it’s nothing. If you are interested in a career without convictions and principles, you may as well be a banker or lawyer or accountant and make money, or a chief executive and wield power.”, said the erudite and articulate Dr. Shashi Tharoor.
THE CONTROVERSY
I had occasion to read the article from which that statement is, well, surgically extracted. The instant my eyes fell on those words, I smiled, and this is despite being a lawyer myself. Knowing my brothers in the profession only too well, I knew instinctively that the affable gentleman had it coming. Personally, of course, I had no doubt in my mind that Dr. Tharoor didn’t insinuate anything even remotely close to the nature of the meaning that would be assigned to his words.
Very predictably, a section of lawyers is alleging that Dr. Tharoor has insulted the legal profession. It is alleged that he said that lawyers lack loyalty and principles. Based on this, they seek to extract an apology from Dr. Tharoor.
STANDARD OF JUDGMENT
Now, we in the law are supposed to judge this by a well-established standard – the conclusion “a reasonable person of ordinary common-sense” would draw in this scenario. Judging what he said by that gold standard, I am unable to persuade myself that a reasonable man of ordinary common-sense would take it that Dr. Tharoor meant to imply that banking, law, accountancy, and the like attract unscrupulous characters. Let me substantiate my point.
PERSONAL VERSUS PROFESSIONAL
By its very nature, banking, law, accountancy and even the practice of medicine are not professions that demand a set of pre-existing personal political convictions that are necessary for the practice of those professions. Of course, each profession has its ethical code which must be observed in the line of practice of that profession.
It is impossible to miss an important distinction. Dr. Tharoor was speaking about “personal” views or convictions or ideals. He was not referring to “professional” ethics or conduct.
Clearly, he meant, and I would say, rightly too, that people of varying or divergent personal political convictions and ideals may practice the profession of banking or law or accountancy because the career is not one that demands “personal” political convictions.
However, a career in politics is predicated on personal political convictions. If you choose to be a politician, you must choose a camp that represents your personal convictions. You cannot switch to one that represents a conflicting set of convictions.
IF IN DOUBT, TAKE MEANING FROM THE CONTEXT
I would suggest that we lawyers don’t act forgetting the rule of contextual interpretation. In the event of a literal interpretation yielding unreasonable or absurd constructs, one shall employ contextual interpretation.
If one wishes to examine the matter contextually which, I might add, is the only way to examine it, one shall have to go through the entire article. And then it would become abundantly clear that the implication sought to be placed on the particular words, divorced from its intended context, is so absurdly strained and contrived that no person of reasonable prudence would ever be able to arrive at that conclusion.
BUT ANYWAY, AREN’T WE LAWYERS DUTY BOUND TO ACT REGARDLESS OF CONFLICTING PERSONAL CONVICTIONS
As a matter of fact, whatever ethical rules of conduct many of us lawyers may forget, we cannot pretend to forget the most important one known even to laymen. It is that we shall defend a person accused of a crime regardless of our personal opinion, views or convictions.
Likewise with doctors, they shall do their duty regardless of what they feel about the patient. likewise with policemen and likewise soldiers, they shall follow orders and perform duties regardless of their own personal views.
But NOT so with politicians. For them it is reverse. They shall NOT serve in conflict with their personal convictions.
LETS BE REASONABLE
So, whose standards are we adopting to judge his statement? That of the “reasonable person of ordinary common-sense” or that of a petulant busybody ? I shall have to leave that to your good judgment.
SATYAMEVA JAYATHE ! 