DECOLONIZATION OF NYAYA (JUSTICE): RECLAIMING INDIGENOUS CONCEPTION OF LAW AND MORALITY

Abstract

The history of human civilisation is characterised by continued deliberations epicentered at the ideational and philosophical conception of justice, and its epistemological deconstruction has been and still is one of the most belligerently contested phenomenological constructions of decolonisation. However, from Plato and Aristotle to Hobbes, from Locke, Kant, to Rawls, modern political philosophy and thought on the axis of justice have been associated within the narrowly placed Eurocentric hegemonic academic-intellectual horizons. Being one of the most potent instruments of power operating at subconscious echelons, these systems tend to present themselves as universal and were historically linked to colonial subordinations and imperial expansion of both body and mind, of colonized society and state. In the civilizational land of the Indian subcontinent, enriched with the diverse discourses of ‘Dharma’ since ancient times, tyrannical colonial legislations, particularly the Macaulay Indian Penal Code (1860), marginalized and destroyed indigenous dispute resolution processes and the natural flow of justice, and misinterpreted justice as rigid, procedural, and centered on punishment rather than morality and social considerations.

The Indian concept of Nyaya, however, offers a holistic humanizing understanding of justice. It interweaves cosmic order Rta in the Rigveda, ethical duty (dharm) in the Mahabharata, culturally codified law, and pragmatic governance (Arthashastra) for the welfare of the citizens. Nyaya is contextual, plural, and sensitive to the ethical, moral, social, and political facets of law, in contrast to Eurocentric models that place a great emphasis on nonconcrete universality of conjunctures of codifications. This paper examines the decolonization of justice, traces the development of the notion of Nyaya, contrasts it with colonial and Eurocentric conceptions, and examines the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023, as an illustration of an indigenous philosophical interpretation of justice. It has been suggested applying Amartya Sen's distinction between Niti (institutional rules) and Nyaya (realized justice), and that justice must be integrated into breathed realities rather than just replacing colonial laws with indigenous language to achieve true decolonization.