Hindu justice - 4

...A Brahman could not be given a corporal punishment. No body could hurt a single strand of hair of Brahman. Further he could subvert the justice. A king could only ask him to leave the country without hurting him. If a man committed a crime to save a Brahman then it was not considered a crime. Because saving a Brahman was equivalent to saving dharma. A Brahman was dharma personified Thus he could not be convicted. When a capital punishment was well justified then he was to be tonsured only. So the maximum punishment for a Brahman was to hurt the hair on his head! It was the maximum punishment that could be given to him after a deliberate and long discussion; after all punishing a Brahman was a very risky thing. It was given only when dharma was endangered due to gross criminal act of some Brahman, which justified a capital punishment in case of other Varnas. The gravity of crime received lowest priority. There is no greater crime than killing a Brahman. Therefore all the kings avoided punishing the Brahmans.

The system of justice in Hindu society was completely Varna oriented with out any trace of equal justice. The same crime by different Varnas was viewed differently. The seriousness of the crime increased with the Varna of victim and reduced with the Varna of the accused. The punishments were caste graded. The lower the caste of accused the graver was the punishment. The caste of the accused and the victim played a role in different way. It was so because only the witnesses of the same caste were allowed to give the witness for the same caste. If the accused was from higher Varna then the lower Varnas witness could not give evidence against him. The act of lower Varnas giving any evidence against higher was adharmic.

This made the position of Brahmanas very safe; they were immune to judicial system and its power to convict. In a suit between accused of higher Varnas and victims of lower Varnas, there was no possibility of conviction because no person was willing to give evidence against his own Varna. Thus the justice process was diluted in favor of higher Varnas and the pious and pure lawmakers were the main beneficiaries. The actual justice was secondary to dharma. The concept of such a justice is truly enthralling and soothing and jubilating to Brahmanas who yearn for return of the same kind of days. The justice was more like a private enterprise of Brahmanas the fruits of which they alone enjoyed.

When Shudras could not get justice from the state, the question of justice to outcastes, untouchables or Chandals was never relevant. Actually the Shudras and outcastes were invisible to state. And the state was not visible to Shudras and untouchables who could only see a cruelly discriminating society. They lived in a perpetual state of cruel dharmic injustice. It was a system where the cries for justice from lowest two strata were lost in wilderness. It was a system of cruelties and mutilations par excellence. It was a great deterrent for potentially rebelling Shudras and untouchables...