Darpan letter · No. 422 September 2026

Give the hetu

On a judgment that asked for reasons in writing, the oldest Indian school of argument, and why a claim without grounds is only half a sentence

प्रिय साथी,

Yesterday the Supreme Court said something that sounds simple and is not. When the state arrests a person, it must tell that person the grounds of the arrest, in writing, in a language the person understands, and at the earliest. If it does not, the arrest itself is unconstitutional and the person must be released at once. Investigating agencies had argued that such a failure was a mere procedural lapse. The Court refused. A reason that is not given, it said in effect, is not a small thing missing from a large act. It is the act missing its foundation.

I want to tell you why this made me think of one of the proudest inheritances you carry, whether or not you have ever opened it: the Nyāya darśana, India’s ancient school of logic and argument. Its founding text, the Nyāya Sūtra attributed to Gautama (also called Akṣapāda), opens with a list of sixteen things one must understand truly to reach the highest good (1.1.1). The very first on the list is pramāṇa — the means by which we come to know anything validly. Before Nyāya asks what is true, it asks: how do you know?

The third sūtra names those means: pratyakṣānumānopamānaśabdāḥ pramāṇāni — perception, inference, comparison and reliable testimony are the means of valid knowledge (1.1.3). Notice what is absent. Suspicion is not a pramāṇa. Rumour is not a pramāṇa. A software flag, a hunch, the look of a person — none of these is on the list. They may prompt an inquiry, but they cannot end one.

Vātsyāyana, the first great commentator on the Sūtra, defined the whole discipline in a single phrase: pramāṇair arthaparīkṣaṇaṃ nyāyaḥ — nyāya is the examination of a matter by means of the pramāṇas (Bhāṣya on 1.1.1). Sit with that word, parīkṣaṇa. Examination. It is the same root as the parīkṣā you are preparing for. Our tradition did not think of an examination as a test of memory. It thought of it as a test of whether a claim can stand on its grounds.

And Nyāya was precise about what a complete argument looks like. It has five members: pratijñāhetūdāharaṇopanayanigamanāny avayavāḥ — the proposition, the reason, the example, the application and the conclusion are the members (1.1.32). The textbook illustration that later Naiyāyikas made famous goes like this. The hill has fire (proposition). Because it has smoke (reason, the hetu). Wherever there is smoke there is fire, as in a kitchen (example). This hill has such smoke (application). Therefore the hill has fire (conclusion). A proposition standing alone is not yet an argument. It is only a claim waiting for its hetu.

Now read yesterday’s judgment again with this in your mind. An arrest is a pratijñā: this person has committed an offence. Article 22(1) demands the hetu, and demands it in writing, so that a magistrate, a lawyer and the person themselves can examine it. The same newspaper carried an editorial on the revision of electoral rolls in West Bengal, where of the appeals decided so far, nearly nine in ten have ended with the voter restored. Whatever the final count, the lesson is the one Nyāya taught two thousand years ago: a conclusion reached before the reason is examined will very often have to be withdrawn.

Here is why I say this should make you proud. Long before modern courts wrote down rules of evidence, thinkers on this soil sat in open assemblies and argued about how a claim must be proved. Nyāya even distinguished between kinds of debate. Vāda is discussion aimed at the truth, where both sides are willing to be corrected. Jalpa is debate aimed at victory. Vitaṇḍā is mere demolition of the other side without any position of one’s own. All three are among the sixteen categories of the first sūtra. The tradition knew the difference between arguing to find out and arguing to win, and it valued the first.

Here is why I say it should make you steadier. The examiner who reads your answer is doing exactly what Nyāya describes. Your introduction is the pratijñā. But marks are given for the hetu: the Article, the judgment, the data, the mechanism. Then the udāharaṇa: the case, the scheme, the district that did it well. Then the upanaya: why this example applies to this question. Only then the nigamana. When you feel your answers are thin, it is almost never because your claims are wrong. It is because the claims are standing without their reasons. That is fixable, and it is fixable tonight.

So try this. Take one answer you wrote this week. Next to each paragraph, write in the margin which of the five members it is. You will find many pratijñās, a few nigamanas, and perhaps one lonely hetu. Rewrite just one paragraph so that every claim has its reason and its example. Do this once a day for a month and you will have trained yourself in the oldest method of argument this country has.

When the work feels long, remember the words the Republic chose for its emblem, taken from the Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad: satyam eva jayate — truth alone triumphs, not falsehood (3.1.6). Truth triumphs, but not by being announced. It triumphs by being shown, with its grounds, to anyone willing to examine them. That is what the Court asked of the state yesterday. It is what the examiner will ask of you.

Give the hetu. Always give the hetu.

— आपका साथी, दर्पण

Sources: Nyāya Sūtra 1.1.1 · Nyāya Sūtra 1.1.3 · Nyāya Sūtra 1.1.32 · Vātsyāyana, Nyāya Bhāṣya on 1.1.1 · Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad 3.1.6