Law Commission's report on extreme poverty

Law Commission's 223rd Report on the need for ameliorating the lot of the have-nots has a chapter on the pending petition in the Supreme Court on beggars' human rights. This petition is coming up for further hearing on July 16. Those of us who have had the opportunity to reflect on begging in one of the previous posts may be surprised to find that the report does not refer to the Delhi High Court's celebrated judgment in Ram Lakhan vs. State. Further responses to this report are welcome.

On Begging

The case of Ram Lakhan v State 137 (2007) DLT 173 on begging is a lesson in stupid laws and sensitive adjudication. Justice Badar Durrez Ahmad of the Delhi High Court deserves commendation. The discussion on the (lack of) differences between duress and necessity is fascinating:

... while in the case of exploitation and compulsion by the ring leaders of a 'begging racket', the "beggar" who begs under compulsion of fear for bodily harm from them would have the defense of duress, where the "beggar" takes to begging compelled by poverty and hunger, he would be entitled to invoke the defense of necessity. The common feature of both defenses being the element of involuntariness or, shall I say, lack of legitimate choices. It is the absence of legal alternatives that provides the defense of duress or necessity. This is aptly described by Dickson J giving the majority opinion of the Supreme Court of Canada in Perka v. The Queen [1984] 2 SCR 232 in the following manner:

Given that the accused had to act, could he nevertheless realistically have acted to avoid the peril or present the harm, without breaking the law? Was there a legal way out? I think this is what Bracton means when he lists "necessity" as a defense, providing the wrongful act was not "avoidable". The question to be asked is whether the agent had any real choice: could he have done otherwise? If there is a reasonable legal alternative to disobeying the law, then the decision to disobey becomes a voluntary one, impelled by some consideration beyond the dictates of "necessity" and human instincts.

This mirrors the famous philosophical debate on liberty: Isaiah Berlin's claim that negative liberty and positive liberty are distinct concepts, whereas people like Joseph Raz, Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum insisting that true liberty must include positive liberty (i.e. not merely the absence of duress/coercion, but the ability to do things, or in Raz's words, having 'an adequate range of valuable options').

The discussion on begging as protected expression under Article 19(1)(a) is also fascinating. Usha Ramanathan discusses our jurisprudence around begging laws in this excellent piece. (Hat-tip t0 Siddhartha and Srinivasan)

Slumdog millionaire: some critical perspectives

Well, we have had enough of rave reviews of the film. Here are two critical reviews which I found interesting. Sudip Mazumdar's Man Bites Slumdog is an absorbing autobiographical account of a former slum dweller-turned-successful journalist. He concludes as follows: Slumdog was a hit because it throbs with excitement, hope and positive energy. But remember an ugly fact: slums exist, in large part, because they're allowed to exist. Slumdogs aren't the only ones whose minds need to be opened up.

Amiya K Samanta in this article, says in spite of its technical excellence none will perhaps commend that the film has succeeded in reaching a certain level of artistic height. The story line is rather weak and often banal. Technical excellence and a somewhat unorthodox way of story telling have rescued the film from being a flop, the author says. The author's comparison of the film with Arvind Adiga's White Tiger is refreshing.

Update: Pritam helpfully sent this review by Arundhati Roy in Dawn newspaper.