The fear of ostracism is said to be one of the strongest instincts that human beings have. Stage fright is also linked to this - the (involuntary) feeling is that being embarrassed and ridiculed will lead to a lowering of social standing, which is a path towards ostracism. It's why humans generally toe the line, prefer to just do as everyone around us is doing and not stick out. "The nail that sticks out gets hammered." And as a corollary to the fear of ostracism, we like to show that we are part of the group, in-line with everyone else.
I was writing a "Statement of Purpose" for a job I am applying to and I was making sure to use some keywords that I thought would boost my chances. "Cloud-resolving model". "Radiative-convective equilibrium".
What the hell are these, you may think? These are some technical terms from the field of weather and climate modelling. And you thinking "what the hell is this?" is exactly the effect I want to produce. Because the important thing isn't the effect I produce on the layman, it is about the effect I want to produce on a bunch of researchers working in exactly this field. They are my audience. What I want is for them to read these keywords and immediately think "Ah, he's one of us!" Speaking the right lingo, using the right words, these are powerful things that we do either consciously or unconsciously because we want to belong. We want to signal that hey, we're not that different. We're kith and kin.
And I think very often this is what happens in academia, where we have a propensity to use so much jargon - the jargon is pointed at other people who also use that exact same jargon and who will understand it. Using jargon is a way of claiming your place at the inner table. The more obscure and technical, the smaller the target audience, but more closely knit as well.
The natural reaction of people (including me) is to conclude that the more obscure the jargon, the harder the text is to read, the more intellectual it is. Generally if someone says something we have no clue about with total confidence, we believe it, particularly if the person saying it is someone we trust or the institution from which it is being said is a trusted institution. Like say a reputed academic journal. The words themselves give the hint. "Reputed". "Respected". "Esteemed". "Prestigious". Each of these are words which basically says that a community of people agree that this journal is of high quality. And if your work is published in the journal, everyone will automatically assume it's work of good caliber - this is about pure social standing.
Well, it's more than social standing. It might be unconsciously so, but if your work is published in an "esteemed" journal, then this increases your prospects of better jobs, better pay, awards, recognition, etc. So there is an intimate link between social standing, "recognition" and actual material benefits. And when you have a social group in which you are well considered, well there is the additional benefit that, say, they will defend you from slander or report any gossip about you back to you. This is of course slightly different from the main aim of group dynamics in the wild, where you want to be in a group or social circle to be safe from prey. The principle is the same though.
This was my stream of thoughts when I suddenly got reminded of something I had read, seemingly unrelated. Recently a Justice of the Supreme Court DY Chandrachud made a speech, which can be found here.
https://livelaw.in/top-stories/justice-dy-chandrachud-caste-privilege-caste-discrimination-dr-ambedkar-187082
Or a summary here - https://theprint.in/judiciary/castelessness-is-a-privilege-only-upper-caste-can-afford-says-justice-d-y-chandrachud/777777/
And his words infuriated me! Why so, you might ask? At first glance, there is nothing particularly inaccurate or revolutionary in the basic claim. If there is one system in which a group of people have an advantage or a privilege, then we transition to a new system where this privilege doesn't exist anymore, most certainly the group who had privileges in the first system have a head-start over the others. It's like developed nations exploiting resources of the Global south for centuries and at the end when the colonies proved too expensive to maintain, they return back to their shores and say "We're all free and equal nations now." The relationship can never be equal due to the head-start enjoyed by the colonisers.
The same case could be made say for a set of people who previously weren't allowed into schools on the basis of their caste. Opening the doors of schools to everyone and saying "now we're all equal in terms of education" is a fallacy. Whether such a system existed, how pervasive was the system, who were the beneficiaries, who was left out etc. are questions for sociologists and historians to study and answer.
Justice Chandrachud takes the argument to the next level and speaks of "Critical Theories" and whether the question of merit itself exists. I personally believe that merit itself exists and not every single difference can be explained away by conditioning and environment. But here too, Chandrachud doesn't say something particularly egregious, merely something debatable.
So why my annoyance? It's because of who said it. This gentleman is the son of the longest serving Chief Justice of India. He is also in-line to be the Chief Justice of India soon. He is the definition of privilege - he attended posh private schools, then St. Stephens in Delhi followed by Harvard Law School.
Alright, so being particularly well-connected and educated at elite institutions isn't a crime. What about the institution he is a part of? Research suggests 33% of supreme court justices and a whopping 50% of high court judges are relatives of "members of higher judiciary". [1] Writing in 2018, Sanya Dhingra showed that no Dalit judge has been elevated to the Supreme court for 8 years and there were exactly 0 Dalit chief justices in 24 High Courts as well. [2]
Worse, the Supreme Court works with the "Collegium system", instituted by the (surprise surprise) Supreme Court itself, wherein the Chief Justice of India and 4 senior judges of the Supreme Court simply nominate who should be elevated from High Courts to the Supreme Court, who should be chosen as Chief Justice of high courts, etc. So basically no one can question nor overrule their selection, a system which was mandated by a judgement passed by the supreme court itself! The greatest legal protection available.
The judiciary is a huge roadblock to justice rather than being an avenue. Case pendency is off the charts. Cases languish in lower courts for decades, innocent people languish in custody for decades for this reason. Cases are simply "allocated" without any order or justification. And when they're put up for hearing depends often on how much media attention the case has got. And when there exists a society with some being more privileged and some being less privileged, most certainly the lesser privileged are disproportionately affected by these inefficiencies.
When I think of Justice Chandrachud spouting gyaan, I think of him in the context of this system. On the occasion of Constitution Day recently, when the Chief Justice had a platform to speak, he asked for protection for judges from "social media attacks". Recently the Supreme Court expressed annoyance that the CBI had not done anything to arrest two people who were accused of "making objectionable comments on judges of judges of the Andhra Pradesh high court over certain verdicts". [3] [4]
So here is the judiciary, unresponsive, creaking under case pendency which will perhaps soon outnumber our population itself. A court is the last place an average citizen of the country wants to step into. And on the other side is a totally unaccountable set of people choosing their own relatives for posts in the top judiciary, concerned not about setting up thousands of additional courts and court benches across the country and making speedy justice accessible, but more concerned about people slandering them on social media and even having people extradited from abroad for the same. And then they make great speeches about the freedom of expression and how merit is meaningless.
The reason it infuriated me is that it's all signalling. The insiders of a system who hold such views would try to reform that system first if they truly believed what they said. Or at least help to bring about speedy justice and improve the state of the lower courts. The problem is that Chandrachud and his ilk consider their social circle to be the academic community of elite US universities, not average Indian citizens. Hence the judgements running into hundreds of pages written in Shakespearean English which needs a Latin dictionary to be interpreted. Today it is fashionable and "in" to speak of disowning your privilege in those circles, so Chandrachud wants to increase his social standing there. Today critical theories are fashionable, so he will blindly transpose it to a different context and different society.
Today, in the same milieu that Chandrachud wants his remarks to be broadcast if the fashion was not to speak of disowning privilege but instead it was fashionable to take pride in your family and lineage, you can bet he would be speaking of how his father was a Chief Justice, how he is the cousin of some Maharaja or his great-great-grandfather was the trusted courtier in the late Mughal court or something similar. Anything for a benign smile and validation from elite Anglo-Saxons. If he could cut the signalling and operate as if his audience is the Indian people for whom he can actually do a lot from his position of immense power and influence, that would be great. And yes, "speaking up" isn't doing something, it's just satisfying yourself that you're doing something while doing nothing, again for validation. It is commendable when it's the least you can do, not when you hold the keys to change in your hand. Privilege is being able to hold sermons on privilege while using your privilege to make sure your own privilege endures.
[1] - https://www.hindustantimes.com/india/50-hc-judges-related-to-senior-judicial-members-report/story-S8RP2Ir9cEuIN4NewFnvML.html
[2] - https://theprint.in/opinion/dalit-history-month/no-dalit-judge-country-top-court-passed-order-sc-st-act/46484/
[3] - https://indianexpress.com/article/india/cji-lawyers-assist-judges-protect-institution-motivated-targeted-attacks-7642613/
[4] - https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/trendingtopics/for-judge-slur-cbi-seeks-deportation-of-2-from-us/ar-AAQBmN9