J. Sai Deepak | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1985 (age 38–39) Hyderabad, India |
| Education | Mechanical engineering Law |
| Alma mater | Anna University IIT Kharagpur |
| Occupation(s) | Lawyer, writer |
| Website | jsaideepak |
J. Sai Deepak (born 1985) is an Indian Hindutva activist, lawyer, and writer. [1] As a counsel, he practices before the Supreme Court of India and the High Court of Delhi. [2] [3]
Deepak attended St. Anthony's High School, Hyderabad. He then graduated in Mechanical Engineering from Anna University and completed law from IIT Kharagpur's Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law. [4]
Deepak argued the case for the entry of women to Sabarimala Temple. He argued against the entry, stating that the Hindu deity Ayyappan observes naishtika brahmacharya ("lifelong celibacy"). [5] He was also a counsel in a petition to allow priests of any caste to be priests at Sabarimala, the priesthood at the temple has historically been open to only Malayali Brahmins. [6] The Kerala High Court ruled in favor of the traditional practices.
Deepak represented the Travancore royal family for their right to manage the estates of the Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Thiruvananthapuram. [7] The Supreme Court of India ruled in favor of the family. [8] [9]
Deepak was the counsel for Anand Ranganathan in the contempt of court case against the former for endorsing the criticism of Justice S. Muralidhar by S Gurumurthy and Vivek Agnihotri. [10] The Delhi High Court closed the proceedings against Ranganathan. [11]
Deepak writes two blogs, one named Yukti on constitutional theory and legal philosophy; and one named The Demanding Mistress on civil, commercial and intellectual property law. An article in the latter blog was cited by the Madras High Court in its decision on the TVS Motor Company vs. Bajaj Auto Limited intellectual property dispute. [12]
Deepak is a Hindutva activist. He believes that the several good qualities of the knowledge systems of ancient Hindu civilization, mixed with the good qualities of modern Education systems, can be a template for modern Indian education systems, which he considers to have multiple drawbacks. [13] [14] He opposes the Dravidian movement and Periyarite thought, and claims they are Western interventions in Southern Indian societal faultlines. [15] He was criticized for his article where he discussed limitations imposed by the Indian Constitution against Hindu majoritarian expression. He had criticized the provisions for Hindu majority authority being subject to judicial review and being overruled if it conflicts with constitutional morality. [13]
Deepak's talks on the Karnataka hijab ban at St. Stephen's College, and on minority rights at Jamia Millia Islamia respectively, were cancelled despite receiving permission in what was termed by some journalists as the advent of cancel culture and deplatforming in India. [16] Deepak's talk on the Uniform Civil Code in Bengaluru at a Karnataka Bar Association event was faced with opposition from a group of lawyers who wanted the event to be cancelled in an attempted case of deplatforming, but it wasn't. [17]
Deepak has participated in multiple debates, the prominent ones being with Saurabh Kirpal on same sex marriage; [18] with S. Y. Quraishi and Manish Tewari on the Uniform Civil Code; [19] with Shashi Tharoor on decoloniality; [20] and with AG Krishna Menon and Sanjay Nirupam on nationalism. [21] Deepak is also a frequent orator, having spoken at multiple universities, as well as at literature and cultural festivals. [22]
Hindutva is a political ideology encompassing the cultural justification of Hindu nationalism and the belief in establishing Hindu hegemony within India. The political ideology was formulated by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in 1922. It is used by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), the current ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and other organisations, collectively called the Sangh Parivar.
The Bharat Ratna is the highest civilian award of the Republic of India. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is conferred in recognition of "exceptional service/performance of the highest order", without distinction of race, occupation, position or gender. The award was originally limited to achievements in the arts, literature, science, and public services, but the Government of India expanded the criteria to include "any field of human endeavor" in December 2011. The recommendations for the award are made by the Prime Minister to the President. The recipients receive a Sanad (certificate) signed by the President and a peepal leaf-shaped medallion with no monetary grant associated with the award. Bharat Ratna recipients rank seventh in the Indian order of precedence.
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar was an Indian politician, activist and writer. Savarkar developed the Hindu nationalist political ideology of Hindutva while confined at Ratnagiri in 1922. He was a leading figure in the Hindu Mahasabha. The prefix "Veer" has been applied to his name by his followers.
The Sabarimala Sree Dharma Sastha Temple is a Hindu temple that is devoted to the worship of a deity named Ayyappan, also known as Dharma Shasta. Ayyappan is believed to be the son of Shiva and Mohini. The temple is situated atop a hill in the village of Ranni-Perunad, within the Ranni Taluk of the Pathanamthitta district in the state of Kerala, India. The temple is surrounded by 18 hills in the Periyar Tiger Reserve. It is one of the largest annual pilgrimage sites in the world, with an estimate of over 10 to 15 million devotees visiting every year.
Purushottam Nagesh Oak was a historical negationist from India.
The Padmanabhaswamy Temple is a Hindu temple dedicated to Vishnu in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of the state of Kerala, India. It is one of the 108 Divya Desams which are considered the sacred abodes of Vishnu in the Sri Vaishnava tradition. The name of the city of 'Thiruvananthapuram' in Malayalam and Tamil translates to "The City of Ananta". The temple is built in an intricate fusion of the Kerala style and the Dravidian style of architecture, featuring high walls, and a 16th-century gopuram. While as per some traditions the Ananthapura temple in Kumbla in Kasaragod district in Kerala is considered as the original spiritual seat of the deity ("Mulasthanam"), architecturally to some extent, the temple is a replica of the Adikesava Perumal temple in Thiruvattar in Kanyakumari district in Tamil Nadu. It is widely considered the world's richest Hindu temple.
Subramanian Swamy is an Indian politician, economist and statistician. Before joining politics, he was a professor of Mathematical Economics at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. He is known for his Hindu nationalist views. Swamy was a member of the Planning Commission of India and was a Cabinet Minister in the Chandra Shekhar government. Between 1994 and 1996, Swamy was Chairman of the Commission on Labour Standards and International Trade under former Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao. Swamy was a long-time member of the Janata Party, serving as its president until 2013 when he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He has written on foreign affairs of India dealing largely with China, Pakistan and Israel. He was nominated to Rajya Sabha on 26 April 2016 for a six-year term, ending on 24 April 2022.
Indira Jaising is an Indian lawyer and activist. Jaising also runs Lawyers' Collective, a non-governmental organization (NGO), the license of which was permanently cancelled by the Home Ministry for alleged violations of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act in 2019. The Bombay High Court later passed an order to de-freeze NGO's domestic accounts. The case is ongoing in the Supreme Court of India.
Swapan Dasgupta is an Indian journalist and politician. He is influential within the Indian right wing, writing columns for leading English dailies espousing Hindu nationalism. He was a nominated member of the Rajya Sabha. In 2015, Dasgupta was conferred with the Padma Bhushan for his contribution to literature and education.
Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud is an Indian jurist, who is the 50th and current chief justice of India serving since November 2022. He was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court of India in May 2016. He has also previously served as the chief justice of the Allahabad High Court from 2013 to 2016 and as a judge of the Bombay High Court from 2000 to 2013. He is also a former executive chairperson (ex officio) of the National Legal Services Authority.
Hindu terrorism, sometimes called Hindutva terror or, metonymically, saffron terror, refer to terrorist acts carried out on the basis of motivations in broad association with Hindu nationalism or Hindutva.
Rohinton Fali Nariman is a former judge of the Supreme Court of India. Before being elevated as a judge, he practised as a senior counsel at the Supreme Court. He was appointed the Solicitor General of India on 23 July 2011. He also served as a member of the Bar Council of India. He was designated as a Senior Counsel by Chief Justice Manepalli Narayana Rao Venkatachaliah in 1993 at the early age of 37.
Uday Umesh Lalit is an Indian lawyer and former Supreme Court Judge, who served as the 49th Chief Justice of India. Previously, he has served as a judge of Supreme Court of India. Prior to his elevation as a judge, he practised as a senior counsel at the Supreme Court. Justice Lalit is one of the eleven senior counsels who have been directly elevated to the Supreme Court. He is currently ‘Distinguished Visiting Professor’ at Ashank Desai Centre for Policy Studies, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and Distinguished Visiting Professor at West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences.
Rahul Easwar is an Indian public policy commentator and activist from Kerala.
The Ready To Wait campaign is a social movement initiated in September 2016 by a group of female devotees of Hindu deity Ayyappan, as a response to a petition filed in the Supreme Court by women's groups to demand the right to enter the Sabarimala temple, located in the southern Indian state of Kerala, which traditionally restricts entry of women of reproductive age. The campaigners of "Ready To Wait" asserted their willingness to respect the traditions regarding entry to the Sabarimala temple. It started as a social media campaign with the hashtag #ReadyToWait and soon gained momentum as Hindu women from all over the country took to social media to show their support.
Sabarimala is a temple dedicated to Shasta, in Pathanamthitta District, Kerala, India. Women and girls of reproductive age have traditionally not been permitted to worship there, as Shasta is a celibate deity. The Kerala high court provided a legal justification for this tradition, and since 1991 onwards, women and girls were legally forbidden to enter the temple.
T. G. Mohandas is an Indian lawyer, social critic, writer, journalist and television presenter from Kerala. Mohandas was the state convener of Bharatiya Janata Party's Intellectual Cell and the General Secretary in 1997 of Bharateeya Vichara Kendram and its vice-president in 2006 and served also as General Manager of Ayodhya Printers, a company owned by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
In India, the offence of contempt of court is committed when a person either disobeys a court order, or when a person says or does anything that scandalizes, prejudices, or interferes with judicial proceedings and the administration of justice. Contempt of court can be punished with imprisonment or a fine, or both.
Bindu Ammini is an Indian lawyer and lecturer at Government Law College, Kozhikode, and a Dalit activist. She is one of the two first women between the age of 10 and 50 to enter the Sabarimala Temple after a Supreme Court of India decision allowed women of reproductive age to enter the temple.
In December 2021, a dharma sansad of Hindu ascetics was held at Haridwar in Uttarakhand, India, where hate speeches were delivered in which the speakers called for a genocide against Muslims in the name of protecting Hinduism. The government's apathy in the face of the hate event has been condemned by a wide cross section of Indian society, including retired military leaders, civil society activists, students, academics, and retired judges.
Of the Hindutva propagandists who deploy decolonial studies, J. Sai Deepak is the only one who has written substantively on it.
