Gandhi’s” famous quote – “ in matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place” – is fraught with philosophical and semantic problems of interpretation.

Conscience is a moral sense of right and wrong but we’re not to sure about meaning of “majority” when applied in context of Hindraf’s struggles.

Best guess is that majority means here the law passed by representatives of majority (in this case the BN) in parliament : the Police Act and the ISA, the first not granting Hindraf police permit thereby making its assembly unlawful and the second punishing its leaders for organizing it.

But Conscience is a problematic concept. Most think its personal guide to universal truth and it is a duty to sacrifice and pay the price to try to do right, for justice and truth but how does one ascertain that one’s conscience is really right if not by the benchmark of the majority people around both at the time contemporaneous or way subsequent?

For example if one were a suicide bomber crashing the plane in the twin towers for his faith, and peoples of his faith, can it be justified by Gandhi’s axiom “ in matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place”? Obviously not. The majority would say that it is not justice and truth to do it but then again it depends on which society. Western societies will say it is wrong but not necessarily a Taliban society – so the judgment of which society counts? Like Hindraf’s actions, whether they are right or wrong, they’re definitely right by minority Tamil Indians or even civil society but is it to be measured by their opinion alone or should we measure it against the majority segment of Malaysian society – the Malay Muslim segment? Even PAS in the Opposition said their actions were wrong. Now if the majority here don’t agree, should we use the majority of international society, and then who comprise the majority internationally?

If this gets confusing – as to who’s to benchmark and who’s the majority – the other way to evaluate merits is the intrinsic goal of Hindraf’s actions.

Here Hindraf is promoting freedom of the oppressed underclass – in this case the Tamil Indians. By universal benchmarks, that is, in the abstract, always considered good. Cases in point will for examples, be:
· Mahatma Gandhi’s civil disobedience of British colonial laws to free Indians from colonial yoke of exploitation;
· Another example is Rosa Parks who defied a law requiring black persons to sit in the rear seats of a bus leading to birth of American civil rights movement with US Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation on city buses;
· Another example Nelson Mendela who paid price of 27 years in jail opposing Apartheid.

It will be seen that goals by themselves no matter how noble are not sufficient to determine the issue. It also depends on (a) the means adopted to achieve these goals and (b) the consequences of executing such means for these noble ends.

For example the famous “Doctor Death”, US pathologist Jack Kevorkian, who as matter of conscience defied law made by majority and administered euthanasia to end suffering of those afflicted by pain of incurable diseases. Do you think his conceince and methods justified?

So Hindraf’s problems are also its means. Detractors ask why the movement does not embrace other Indians or better still the underclass of all other Malaysians?; is it necessary and right to adopt the means of vitriolic language (“ethnic cleansing”) to galvanize attention? Is it right to galvanize international attention to one’s noble cause by ignoring what wrong ideas the word “ethnic cleansing” would convey at the expense of one’s own country’s image abroad? Is it right to expand the arguments and fight for rights beyond Malaysians to outsiders? – and so on.

So objectives have to be weighed against the methods and means.
And besides that, the objectives have also to be weighed against the consequences of one’s methods.

Here Hindraf scores better : the demonstration did not result in violence or riot harming innocent. It is able to achieve in a flash what MIC failed to do for years : draw urgent attention of govt to the Indian underclass problem of which granting a public holiday for Thaipusam for the first time is symbolic.

How much will the govt do after this remains to be seen though one must concede that it does work – up to an extent – to deliver wake up call to the government. Whether further Hindraf like demonstrations for this issue or other issues will capture attention and produce albeit limited desired results remains to be seen.

You see the judgment of whether what Hindraf or for that matter Gandhi, Mendela or Rosa Park did was a right thing is always measured by results of such actions, not just adjudged immediately but longer term by way of hind sight and how the government/opposing side reacted.

Had the British killed Gandhi or Mendela died in prison (without De Kerk releasing him) or no successor like Dr Martin Luther King carried Rosa’s torch of liberty further), one cannot ever be sure whether India would not have otherwise fragmented into civil war, or Apartheid in South Africa still remains today, and civil rights movement in US postponed for another 50 years, for history to judge the actions.

The quote “ in matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place” may also be interpreted from another angle as conscience versus the importance of respecting the law – which takes precedence the conscience or upholding of Law?

Here again it is fraught with interpretations problem. Take Hindraf’s case. Those whom Lim Kam Put described as “lawyers and wannabes” with a tad of derision are likely those perceived by him to adhere to upholding the laws even if the laws are blatantly unjust.

Here we have to be careful : the laws like Police Act may not be unjust by themselves – however it is their enforcement, the exercise of discretion by police in granting selectively police permits for assembly that may be unjust. That’s different from saying that the laws are themselves unjust.

Then there’s another view from another quarter. This segment says that there is no conflict between conscience and laws in context of Hindraf if laws implies the central cornerstone of Rule of Law. They say Rule of laws means a set of laws that recognizes fundamentals of due process – for eg. fundamental liberties are upheld and no person can be arrested without a lawful warrant, imprisoned without charges, kidnapped in the streets, interrogated without a lawyer present, held indefinitely in remand or detention without being informed of the charges, or without trial (ISA) or tortured during interrogation or be denied the means by which to challenge the legality of their detention; that without an independent judiciary with all the judicial fixing and fixing of cases there is no rule of law.

This group says that even if the laws are properly enacted by majority of parliamentary representatives, they or even the Constitution, without the freedoms and protective procedures above stated, will not qualify as “Rule of Law” and as such should not be followed and even purposely defied as bad laws. So this group says upholding Rule of Law and Conscience can be reconciled. They justify Hindraf’s breaking the Police Act and defying the ISA because these sets of laws are not Rule of Law.

Here again, there are those who take a different view – eg prominent philosopher Socrates.

In Ancient Greece he taught youths how to think logically by his “Socratic” question and answers method. Vested interest put him on trial for “corrupting minds of Youth, found him guilty and sentenced him to death by drinking poison hemlock. The only reprieve available was that he publicly recanted his teachings. Now Greek laws then had no Rule of Law. His students including Plato asked him to save himself – just recant; others implored him to flee. Socrates said his conscience did not permit him to recant; neither would he flee because laws, no matter how unjust and without Rule of law must be upheld and seen upheld. Otherwise they would be chaos. Everyone would use his own conscience to determine whether this law or that need to be followed or conform to Rule of Law. Civilised society would breakdown under such circumstances. Socrates believed laws that were unjust should be changed. It would be our sacred duty to fight for such a change. But until the unjust law was repealed and changed, it was however, still law – so no matter how unjust, it should be upheld by all of us for the higher purpose of order and stability. Consequently after explaining to his students this, he calmly drank the hemlock and went into his eternal sleep. I think this posting is long enough story for the day for reflection of complexities of Gandhi’s quote “In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place”. :)