Judging Language

A new study examining 75 years of constitutional bench verdicts has opened an uncomfortable but necessary conversation: India’s highest court, even while expanding constitutional protections for Dalits, has often spoken in ways that perpetuate the very hierarchies it seeks to dismantle. It is a paradox that sits at the heart of India’s democratic journey ~ progressive outcomes expressed through regressive vocabulary, and justice articulated in idioms that still carry the scent of caste.

The University of Melbourne-funded study, conducted in partnership with the Court itself, does not accuse judges of malice. Instead, it exposes an institutional blind spot shaped by decades of limited diversity on the bench. With only a handful of Dalit judges serving in the Court’s history, the judicial imagination has been overwhelmingly shaped by those who have never lived the experience of caste discrimination. In such a landscape, metaphors and analogies that appear harmless to those drafting judgments can carry profound insult for those whom the judgments concern. The findings are sobering. Caste oppression is likened to disability. Dalit communities compared to “ordinary horses” in contrast to “race horses.” Poverty and marginalisation are portrayed as personal shortcomings that can be overcome through diligence and education rather than as the outcome of centuries of exclusion. At times, even the origins of caste have been sanitised into a benign division of labour ~ an astonishing misreading of one of the world’s most entrenched systems of social control. Language matters because it shapes the boundaries of empathy. When judicial prose normalises stereotypes, it subtly limits the judiciary’s capacity to fully comprehend the structural nature of caste. Courts do not merely interpret the Constitution; they model how society talks about equality.

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Their words permeate classrooms, arguments in courtrooms, and public discourse. A stray analogy can travel further than the judgment it accompanies. There are, however, signs of institutional awakening. Recent efforts to review discriminatory practices in prisons and to issue handbooks discouraging gender-stereotyped language show that the Court recognises how outdated vocabulary can distort legal reasoning. Yet the caste study makes clear that reform cannot rely on voluntary sensitivity alone. Genuine change requires expanding the spectrum of experience within the judiciary itself. Without diverse voices at the table, the Court risks repeating the same linguistic lapses that this study now documents with precision. India’s constitutional promise rests not only on what judges decide but also on how they choose to articulate those decisions. A judiciary that speaks in a vocabulary sensitive to dignity strengthens public trust and enhances the moral weight of its rulings. By confronting the biases embedded in its own language, the Court has taken a significant first step. What follows should be a sustained commitment to introspection, representation, and the recognition that justice demands not only sound principles, but also words that honour those they seek to protect.