Letters: Remove injustices first

On the 150th anniversary of the Allahabad High Court, its chief justice quoted Nobel laureate Amartya Sen's theory of justice. Sen, in his book The Idea of Justice, argues that there have been two approaches to justice: a transcendentalist one focusing on institutions, behaviour and processes to ensure a just society; and a comparativist one seeking the actual realisation of justice by evaluating social injustice prevailing then.

The first approach can be compared with ancient Indian niti (law), the second with nyaya (justice). While the former promises a perfectly just society, the latter reduces injustice prevailing at a given time.

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Sen contends that the nyaya aspect has been neglected the world over. He believes that the common man does not seek a perfectly just society so much as he wants injustice to diminish. Thus, we should strive to remove the prevalent injustices first; this would eventually entail a perfectly just society.

Sachin K Jadhav, Washim

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