A petition by a Madhya Pradesh advocate contends that the compulsory recitation of the Pavamana mantra (asato ma sadgamaya…) from the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad in KV schools is a violation of the fundamental rights of the students professing non-Hindu faiths or those who are atheists, agnostics, sceptics or rationalists. A two-member bench of the Supreme Court, in its wisdom, has agreed that the matter needs to be examined and has called for setting up a Constitution Bench to look at the matter. There is no doubt that the text from which the mantra comes from is a Hindu religious text, but is that the only value ascribable to it? The mantra translates as “Om, Lead me from falsehood to truth, from darkness to light, and from death to immortality. Om, peace, peace, peace”. If we were to drop the Om (even though it is not exclusively Hindu; it is a part of Jain, Buddhist and Sikh incantations also), doesn’t the mantra have a more universal resonance, save for atheists and agnostics?
Does the Supreme Court’s motto, yato dharma, stato jaya—“wherever there is dharma (in this context, dharma is read as justice), there is victory”—which has a more explicitly religious association, make the Court less secular? The SC will also need to examine whether the Indian republic’s motto, satyameva jayate (truth alone triumps; Mundaka Upanishad) is similarly an Hindu imposition, as also RAW’s dharmo rakshati rakshitaha (dharma protects those who protect it; the Mahabharata), etc. Rigid stances like the petition’s only foster ghetto-isation, not tolerance. Bear in mind, in Indonesia, a largely Islamic nation, many government institutions and wings (including the armed forces) bear Sanskrit mottos. It is a nod to the country’s history, as also the universal value these mottos encapsulate.