K.G. Balakrishnan, Chief Justice of India, was once a member of the downtrodden class. Today, he is their voice
In 1997, the Kerala High Court created ripples across the nation by ruling that state-sponsored lock-outs, or bandhs, were illegal as they interfered with individual liberties and caused substantial economic loss to the nation. Until then, several state governments have behaved as if it was within their right to shut down the society whenever their political masters wished. The ruling broke that cruel comfort. A decade later, the Supreme Court used the judgement in its own ruling against bandhs.
The man who delivered the Kerala judgement was none other than K.G. Balakrishnan, who later became India’s first chief justice from the Dalit community. The judgement not only empowered the silently suffering masses to rise against the culture of forced bandhs, but also showed the sensitivity of a man who had come from an underprivileged background and used the judiciary as a tool to fight for civil rights.
Balakrishnan earned his bachelor’s degree in law in 1968. He went on to secure the first rank at the master’s course in law from the Government Law College at Ernakulam. His teacher, T.P. Kelu Nambiar, remembers Balakrishnan vividly. “He was a very quiet student. You couldn’t always feel his presence in the room. But I soon realised it was not because he was lost in his own world but because he was very attentive and studious.”
(This story appears in the 08 January, 2010 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)