Darpan letter · No. 523 September 2026

Reflect fully, then act

On a silence the Bench would not punish, dissent kept on file, the Vedic prayer to speak together, and the Gītā’s last word to Arjuna

प्रिय साथी,

Today’s papers carried two kinds of conscience. In the Supreme Court, a three-judge Bench heard a challenge to the amended national-honour law and to Home Ministry directions which, the petition says, require all six stanzas of Vande Mataram to be sung at public functions. One of the judges said the elected state may decide whether the national song has two stanzas or four, but that nobody can subject a conscientious objector to penal consequences. He recalled Bijoe Emmanuel (1986), where children who stood respectfully during the National Anthem but did not sing it were held to have done nothing wrong. Those remarks were oral, and the case is not decided; the Centre has two weeks to reply. In the other story, The Indian Express reported that two Election Commissioners had objected in writing at least fourteen times in ten months, saying decisions were going out in the Commission’s name without their knowledge. The Commission has not responded, so for now we have heard one side.

One is a silence and the other is a written note. I want to suggest that both come from the same place, and that our tradition thought about that place with unusual care.

The Ṛgveda ends with a hymn to concord (10.191). Its second verse says: सं गच्छध्वं सं वदध्वं सं वो मनांसि जानताम् — saṃ gacchadhvaṃ saṃ vadadhvaṃ saṃ vo manāṃsi jānatām — come together, speak together, let your minds know together (10.191.2). Look at the order. Agreement comes last, and it is reached by meeting and by speaking. The Vedic ideal of harmony was never a silence imposed from one end of the table. It was a conversation that ends in a shared mind.

Now read the 2023 law on the Election Commission. Its business is to be transacted unanimously “as far as possible”, and where members differ, the majority prevails. That is the old ideal in statutory language: aim for one mind, and when you cannot reach it, count honestly. What the ideal cannot survive is what the notes describe. One Commissioner wrote that he learnt of new IT modules “from media only”. The other recorded that for over a year he had received no agenda or minutes of Commission meetings. You cannot speak together with someone who has not been told that the meeting is on.

Then the silent objector. An earlier hymn of the same Ṛgveda contains a line you have probably heard: एकं सद्विप्रा बहुधा वदन्ति — ekaṃ sad viprā bahudhā vadanti — truth is one; the wise speak of it in many ways (1.164.46). A civilisation that put this line in its oldest book did not, at its best, measure reverence by whether everyone said the same words at the same moment. A person who stands in silence while others sing has not left the assembly. He is present in the way his conscience allows. Bijoe Emmanuel recognised exactly this: the children stood, they disturbed no one, and standing was their respect. Whatever the Court finally decides about the new law, that principle is older than the Constitution that now protects it.

Here is the part I am proudest of. Indian philosophical writing built dissent into its structure. A Mīmāṃsā discussion is laid out as an adhikaraṇa: the topic, the doubt, the pūrvapakṣa or opposing view, the reply, and only then the settled conclusion, the siddhānta. Śaṅkara’s commentary on the Brahma Sūtra is arranged the same way, and the Naiyāyikas and the Buddhist logicians they argued with for centuries set out each other’s positions at length before answering them. A treatise that skipped the pūrvapakṣa was not finished. The opponent’s view was not a nuisance to be kept off the record. It was part of the record. That is exactly what a dissenting note on a government file is: the pūrvapakṣa, preserved, so that the siddhānta can one day be judged.

And the officer who must decide whether to follow an order? The Kaṭha Upaniṣad gives that moment its oldest shape: श्रेयश्च प्रेयश्च मनुष्यमेतस्तौ सम्परीत्य विविनक्ति धीरः — the good and the pleasant both come to a person; the wise one examines them all round and tells them apart (1.2.2). Preyas is the convenient thing: the order already signed, the software that has already decided, the crowd at a function demanding an arrest. Śreyas is what is right, and it seldom arrives labelled. The verb is vivinakti, he separates, he discriminates. It does not say he refuses. An officer who resists every order is as idle as one who obeys every order. The dhīra does the harder work and looks.

Then the Gītā. After eighteen chapters, after the whole teaching on action, knowledge and devotion, Kṛṣṇa does not end with a command. He says: इति ते ज्ञानमाख्यातं गुह्याद्गुह्यतरं मया। विमृश्यैतदशेषेण यथेच्छसि तथा कुरु॥ — thus I have told you wisdom more secret than all secrets; reflect on it fully, and then do as you choose (18.63). The teacher of the most loved text in our tradition leaves his student free. He asks only one thing first: vimṛśya aśeṣeṇa, reflection that leaves nothing out. The choice that follows is Arjuna’s own, and so is the responsibility for it. That is the dignity our tradition gives a conscience. It must be informed, and then it must be respected.

What this means for your preparation is quite practical. In every “critically examine” question, write the pūrvapakṣa honestly. On the Vande Mataram case, state the government’s position — that the elected state may define its national symbols, which the Bench itself accepted — before you state the objector’s right. On the Election Commission, note that the Commission has not yet answered, and that an institution’s credibility is also at stake when dissent is carried outside it. An examiner trusts an answer that has faced its strongest opponent. In ethics case studies, do what the Kaṭha asks: list the preyas and the śreyas separately before you choose. Today’s Case 1, “Six Stanzas and One Silent Officer”, is a good place to practise. And put your reasons in writing. Those notes on the Commission’s file will matter for years because they are dated and signed.

One small exercise for tonight. Take an editorial you disagreed with this week. Write its argument in five lines, as strongly as its author would have written it. Only then write your reply. If you cannot state the pūrvapakṣa well, you do not yet fully own your siddhānta.

Be proud of this, and be proud of it for the right reason. Our tradition is not great because it had the answers first. It is great because it kept the questions, and the people who asked them, on the record; because it prayed for minds that meet by speaking; and because its best-loved dialogue ends by handing the choice back to the student. You are preparing to join institutions that will ask you to follow orders, to record dissent and to protect people who stay silent. You are better equipped for that than you think.

Reflect fully. Then act, and sign your name to it.

— आपका साथी, दर्पण

Sources: Ṛgveda 10.191.2 · Ṛgveda 1.164.46 · Kaṭha Upaniṣad 1.2.2 · Bhagavad Gītā 18.63 · Mīmāṃsā adhikaraṇa method (pūrvapakṣa and siddhānta)