The political, bureaucratic, judicial, and legal system have an inherited colonial legacy which gives them elitism, supremacy, and entitlement over the rest of the populace. Using impunity from any transparency, culpability, and accountability leads to a toxic elitism with pompousness, hierarchies, entitlements, and protocols. The conjectural basis is that this legal system is somehow superior in protecting the rights of individuals. There is no empirical evidence of this being so but rather supports the criticism that effective colonialization demands a legal system to maintain control over a country and resolve disputes within it.
In such an elitism of cultural hegemony, the concept of aboriginal, native rights and culture is frozen to be called a distinctive culture to the point when it came in contact with colonial masters (Frozen Rights in Canada, John Borrows, American Indian Law Review, Vol 22, Number 1, 1997. How much is this situation analogous to Independent India can be examined. The rise of populism poses a challenge and their criticism is that non-elected judges overturn acts of the elected majority in a tyranny of the non-elected elite. In the case of classical economics logic the inherent limitations in markets’ ability to supply a sufficient quantity of public goods and services, the market failure /government failure is used to create elitist NGOs in a model of competitive elitism. On this supply-side the non-profit development requires a socio-political entrepreneur with external fund dependence.
Even if a paradigm of conflict is ignored and a partnership viewpoint is taken, radical activism is a threat to elitist NGOs. There is a difference between the mass and elitist human rights movements. In this scenario of Resource dependent elitist pluralism and NGO there is a departure from activism to advocacy. It becomes a part of the power structure, perceived altruism, and emerging elitism.
Ignoring informational restrictions, in social choice theory levels of utility and preference comparisons, aggregation of information to generate a social choice or preferences brings us back to entropy. When reference levels for changes in outcomes determining preferences are there we have bounded rationality. (Herbert A Simon, Administrative Behavior) which only speaks of satificity i.e to suffice and satisfy. With the cognitive limits being considered but not emphasizing the frame of reference and interaction of inferential and referential curve, particularly when it is self-referential of elites.
In Walrasian general equilibrium with a social choice function with satisficity does not clarify self-referential elitism. Perceived pricing of say legal services based on altering market power and fee structure on elitist dispensation and emergence of Lobby for advocacy does not generate the optimized social welfare function according to first allocation rule of egalitarianism based on social equality. A first-stage regression on legal origins with a dependent variable of legal formalities, procedural complexities, property right institutions along with a restraint on executive function because of myopic voting we take a strictly concave utility function along with convex preferences, With Schrodinger’s wave equation the structure collapses to fundamental entropy state as evident in time-sensitive cases and decisions. We look at the empirical evidence on the development of legal thought. Apparently, this lobby or elitism has turned India into legal backwaters. A recent study showed that Indian Supreme Court is not being cited in USA, Canada, or UK but their Supreme Court decisions are copiously being fitted in Supreme Court of India decisions.
Further, the paradox arises where the elite has a rational emulation and deviance arises when individuals care about the relative position of status. In trying to be different from the rest they find it rational to imitate other people. Having deviated in rational choice setup the experience of deviance and its incentive is an economic deviant behavior rather than criminal or social deviant. Ex-CJI Mr. Justice Ranjan Gogoi’s outburst that a lobby is holding Judiciary to ransom, Sealed cover Jurisprudence, and outcomes in likes of Jehangirpuri Delhi demolition drive of 2022, bulldozing and acrimonious debates, dusk to the dawn appointment process, brings us to knowledge potential, knowledge system and knowledge generation in a political, economic colonial mindset. Knowledge is not solely preparation for an occupation but also the development of a disciplined participant who shares common values and social norms.
(The writer is an Advocate in Supreme Court of India)
