1. INTRODUCTION
The judicial iconography of the Madras High Court reflects a recurring historical tension between British and Indian ideas of justice. This becomes apparent in the semiotics of the judicial space of the high court and is further reflected in the legal consciousness of the court personnel that use this space. The contemporary legal consciousness of these court personnel can be traced back to the history of the creation of the Madras High Court. For this study, I argue that, while the architecture and iconography of the Madras High Court reflect the contested and ambivalent legal consciousness of its court personnel—those who occupy this judicial space—it also assists in constituting, preserving, and reinforcing the ambivalent legal consciousness of those persons who subsequently enter the court.
The term “legal consciousness” refers to people’s attitudes and beliefs concerning the law viewed together with their actual behaviour and with the social structuring of legal institutions and authorities. Existing literature on legal consciousness details how law behaves in social relations even when it is not explicitly invoked,Footnote 1 how people interact with and deal with the legal system in different ways,Footnote 2 and the fact that it is not a unitary phenomenon, but rather exists in relation to particular laws, social hierarchies, and individual experiences.Footnote 3 For example, David Engel and Frank Munger’s research on legal consciousness shows how the study of law’s behaviour in everyday life can be documented through individual autobiographies,Footnote 4 while Austin Sarat explains legal consciousness through his account of the way social welfare recipients assert themselves before government bureaucrats.Footnote 5 In this study, however, I depart from prior legal consciousness research that emphasizes social interactions and autobiographies. Instead, I focus on the architecture and iconography of a legal space, and I observe how practices, beliefs, and social arrangements within that space intersect with its semiotics to constitute the legal consciousness of those who enter. Specifically, I analyze how the perceptions and behaviour of the court personnel are shaped by their experience within an iconic Indian courthouse.
The law and its processes mean different things for different people. Attitudes and beliefs towards the law create social structures that produce a corresponding legal order. In this article, I look at the judicial iconography and the various images of justice that abound in one high court of India—the Madras High Court, located in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, in the south of India. I consider how the physical arrangements in this particular legal space both reflect the legal consciousness of judicial authorities and at the same time constitute the forms of legal consciousness that can be observed among court staff and patrons. The Madras High Court was one of the first high courts to be established under the British rule in 1862 and the court continues to function out of the building that was built for its use over 100 years ago. The judicial iconography of the Madras High Court is unique in that it was built in the Indo-Saracenic architectural style and reflects the presence of both the colonial and the local in its precincts. I shall suggest that the tension between colonial and local legal ideologies and symbols is a recurring feature of legal consciousness within this legal space.
For this study, I conducted an ethnography of the Madras High Court in the year 2015, where I was a participant observer of court processes and day-to-day life within the building. I conducted a systematic exploration of the physical space of the court itself, and I mapped the court building as it stands today. The court personnel, whose legal consciousness I explore in this article, are the judges, lawyers, and court staff whom I interviewed while in the field. Their individual experiences, documented through the interviews I conducted and the oral history as narrated, highlight that the law is not constant and it develops continuously through experiences, as has been argued by Sally Engle Merry.Footnote 6 My research in the field documents how the judicial iconography and images of justice become representations of the legal consciousness of this set of court personnel. The narrative I provide indicates that the participation with and interpretation of the law are continuously reproduced and amended based on the attitudes and beliefs of the different individuals that enter and practise in the courthouse.Footnote 7
Section 2 describes the origin of the courts of law in the Madras presidency leading to the establishment of the Madras High Court. Understanding the origin of the court and its link to its colonial history is imperative in order to recognize the legal consciousness of the personnel that interact with their court space. In this section on the history of the high court, I also recount the establishment of this specific building for the Madras High Court, whose judicial iconography forms the basis of my study. Of particular importance is the oral history of this legal space and the grounds on which the court was built. The focus in Section 2 is on the origin of the judicial system, while Section 3 describes the judicial iconography of the Madras High Court building that was constructed pursuant to the changes in the legal system in colonial India. Explaining its architectural style and in particular the design forms utilized on its exterior assists in analyzing how architecture and iconography preserve and reinforce the ambivalent legal consciousness of those who enter and use this space. Here, I also discuss the Chief Justice’s court hall and the way in which its superior status architecturally reinforces the hierarchy of legal personnel maintained in the court. The architecture and iconography of the high court reflect the equivocal legal consciousness of the court personnel. Keeping the judicial iconography of the high court to the fore, Section 4 focuses on the images of justice as they are represented in the Madras High Court. These images are identified through different forms, ranging from the presence of a lighthouse atop the high court building and the portraits hung in the corridors of the court to the statuary on the court premises and the heritage walks conducted in the high court grounds. It describes contestations over the installation of statues and, more generally, the role of conserving law as heritage and exhibiting the history of the court as a particular reflection of the legal consciousness of its court personnel. The judicial iconography present in and around the court reflects the recurring historical tension between British and Indian concepts of justice.
The article concludes with the observation that the judicial iconography and images of justice that fill the court structure have an effect on the legal consciousness of the judges, lawyers, and court staff. They, in turn, bring a new cultural meaning to this legal space through the narration of their individual experiences and a perpetuation of their own oral history. Legal authority in this form gets fused with the consciousness of the court personnel in ways that cause them to rethink questions of law and legality when they are presented before them in an ocular form.
2. HISTORY OF THE MADRAS HIGH COURT AND ESTABLISHMENT OF ITS BUILDING
To understand how the Madras High Court reflects the recurring historical tension between British and Indian ideas of justice, it is imperative to recall the origin of the legal system itself in colonial India and how in particular the architecture and iconography of the high court building thus established reinforce the ambivalent legal consciousness of the court personnel that utilize this space.
Beginning in the 1600s, colonial courts of law were established in Madras. Over the centuries, the system of law and courts evolved, culminating in the establishment of the Madras High Court as a separate entity in 1862. Tracing the history of law courts from the 1600s reveals the creation of judicial systems through the East India Company. While the East India Company’s original motivations were related to trade, its emergence as a political power soon made the administration of justice central to their concerns. They did this by establishing judicial institutions in a centralized manner across all their territories.Footnote 8 By 1862, the year when the Madras High Court was established, the British had become a world power and it was during this period that they granted a Letters Patent that created the high court in the presidency town of Madras.
Political events of 1857Footnote 9 triggered changes in the functioning and power structure of the East India Company, and the government of England assumed direct rule over the territory of British India.Footnote 10 One of the major changes was the introduction of The Indian High Courts Act, 1861Footnote 11 that was passed on 6 August 1861. This act empowered the Queen of England to issue a Letters Patent that established the Madras High Court, along with high courts in Calcutta and Bombay. Once the Letters Patent was brought into effect, the existing courts in the presidency town of Madras were abolished.Footnote 12 All the existing powers and jurisdiction of these courts were transferred to the high court thus established.
With India’s independence in August 1947 and the adoption of the Constitution of India on 26 January 1950, the Supreme Court of India was established, which superseded the authority of all the high courts, including the Madras High Court.Footnote 13 The jurisdiction of the Madras High Court was also redefined at this time. This jurisdiction has evolved and changed over time, with the regional, political, and administrative boundaries being altered in independent India since 1950.
While the Madras High Court officially commenced its work on 15 August 1862, it moved to its present building only in 1892. The construction of a separate building specifically for the high court was authorized after the issuance of the Letters Patent. The new building was opened with much pomp and grandeur, and a majestic ceremony was held to establish the high court as the epitome of justice in the Madras area.Footnote 14 This occurred on 12 July 1892, almost 30 years after the commencement of work in the Madras High Court.
Before construction of the present building of the Madras High Court commenced, it was necessary first to find an appropriate location. The area selected used to be an enclosure of two temples. As folklore goes, the temples were destroyed in a “mysterious” fire, making the location available for construction of the high court.Footnote 15 During my fieldwork, several court personnel I spoke with recounted the mysterious fire. They suggested that the fire was caused intentionally in order to make the space for the court available. However, there is conflicting information on this point. Some records note that, in 1762, for the purposes of expanding their army, the East India Company had the temples razed and offered an area of equal space for the temples to be rebuilt elsewhere.Footnote 16 The two temples stand at this new location on China Bazaar Road even today. Therefore, while the high court still stands on the ground that used to host the temples, it is not confirmed that the temples were actually destroyed for the purpose of accommodating the high court.
However, the high court is still associated with being built on consecrated grounds. As Justice V. Ramasubramanian writes in his article on the history of the high court, “The destruction of the temple of God paved way for the construction of the temple of justice.”Footnote 17 Many authors, judges, and advocates of the Madras High Court are of the opinion that “The edifice of justice thus rests on consecrated ground.”Footnote 18 Senior advocate T.R. Mani recollects that, up until 50 years ago, prasadams Footnote 19 from these temples would be brought to the Madras High Court to “facilitate the witnesses who took the solemn oath in the name of God.”Footnote 20 He further notes that this practice has since been discontinued. Senior advocate N.L. Rajah also narrated the story of priests from these temples who would use the water from the River Ganga and tulsi Footnote 21 leaves to facilitate the oath-taking in court. He also pointed out that this practice was stopped once the Gita and Quran were accepted for oath-taking. While this practice was in place, Rajah stated, there was still a connection between the high court and the temples.Footnote 22 Rajah’s narrative suggests a strong relation between law and sacrality, and history and memory in everyday forms of memorialization.Footnote 23 The example of this memory of history reflects on how legal culture is developed within a set of individuals in particular localities, in this case, the personnel of the Madras High Court.Footnote 24 The relationship between legal consciousness and society is constituted by the persistence of a narrative that deifies the court and gives it reason to be referred to as a “temple of justice.”
The belief that the court was built on holy ground led to the practice of using artefacts from the temples within the court precincts. The mix of the secular court, as designated by the Constitution of India, with these religious traditions then becomes a reproduction of the legal consciousness of the court personnel in transferring their ideas of the court into their everyday practices. Linda Mulcahy has also observed that courts often feature certain quasi-religious characteristics that become a form of secularization of the religious process under the veil of legal culture.Footnote 25
3. ARCHITECHTURE AND JUDICIAL ICNOHRAPHY OF THE MADRAS HIGH COURT
Along with the establishment of a high court for the Madras presidency, the creation of this specific building for the Madras High Court helps to constitute, preserve, and reinforce the equivocal relationship shared between this judicial space and the court personnel who use it. For this study, I argue that the recurring historical tension between the British and Indian judicial ideas is apparent in the semiotics of the high court iconography and this affects the legal consciousness of its court personnel. Therefore, an overview of the architecture and judicial iconography of the Madras High Court is necessary.
The construction of the Madras High Court commenced in October 1888 and was completed in 1892 by the consulting architects to the British government.Footnote 26 In 1892, the Madras High Court was built with an extension for an additional Court of Small Causes and chambers for vakils.Footnote 27 The main tower for the high court building was always part of the design and was initially intended to be at a height of 142 feet. However, with the change in design, a lighthouse was relocatedFootnote 28 to the Madras High Court building and placed atop the central tower of the high court at 175 feet, adding one of the most unique features to any high court in India.Footnote 29 The Madras High Court therefore provided the port city of Madras with its tallest navigating point.Footnote 30
The Madras High Court is built in the Indo-Saracenic architectural style, which is sometimes referred to as the “Hindu-Saracenic” style, as was stated by the governor of Madras at the time of the opening of the high court building on 12 July 1892.Footnote 31 This style of architecture constitutes a mix of classical European styles of architecture and Indian architecture—in this case, mostly adapted from Mughal and Rajput architectural styles.Footnote 32 In his opening speech, after accepting the key to the building of the Madras High Court, the governor of Madras explained the architectural style of the building and noted that, while the style was “Hindu-Saracenic,” it was “freely treated according to local requirements.”Footnote 33 Therefore, the contribution and adaptation to the local architecture styles are a very important aspect of the architecture and construction of the Madras High Court. In addition to the style, all the material used to construct the building was sourced and manufactured locally. The only exception was the steel girders used to support the floor and the roof and some ornamental tiles.Footnote 34
The red colour of the Madras High Court building comes from the bricks supplied from the government brick-fields.Footnote 35 Red brickwork covers the exterior of the high court along with certain parts laid with granite stone.Footnote 36 Some of the most striking features of the Madras High Court building are the two domes that are visible on the exterior—one on the western side of the building and the other being the lighthouse dome. Both domes are onion-shaped and have elaborate designs on them with terracotta inlay work and multi-coloured plaster designs that adorn the external view of the Madras High Court. Along with the domes, the exterior features minarets, stone balconies, large and varied kinds of arches along with extensive chajjas,Footnote 37 finials, and pinnacles.Footnote 38 The different styles of arches also form a distinct characteristic of the court building when viewed from the outside. The ground floor has stone-edged Islamic style arches but, on the higher floors, they are in Gothic style with pointed arches and scalloped stone rims.Footnote 39 In other sections, one can see clover-shaped arches made of granite that differ in design because they are built with bricks and terracotta work. Although it was constructed in colonial times, the Madras High Court is unique in its Indo-Saracenic architectural style. I shall suggest that this style has affected the legal consciousness of the judges, lawyers, and court staff through the distinctive images of justice communicated by the building’s design and decorations. I will also discuss the significant absence of any rendition of the Western idea of lady justice in the court premises.
The floor plan of the high court building follows a classical style of symmetry. The main structure of the building is built atop a high plinth with thick brick walls for support. The initial high court building accommodated six courtrooms, referred to as “court halls,” for the use of the Madras High Court, with four additional court halls intended for the Court of Small Causes. Space was also provided for the court registry, bar associations, and chambers for lawyers. As of October 2015, the main Madras High Court building now has 29 court halls along with various administrative offices (the Court of Small Causes, while in the same complex, does not function out of the main high court building).
The main court hall in the Madras High Court is court hall 1—the Chief Justice’s court hall. The reason for this designation is detailed by senior advocate Mani when he writes about the high court’s structure.Footnote 40 His explanation differs from those of my interviewees, who largely believed that this tradition originated in the ranking of the Chief Justice as the first amongst equals, and therefore court hall 1 was appropriately assigned to the first judge—the chief justice. Mani, on the other hand, notes that the dimensions of the Chief Justice’s court are similar to the court of the Queen’s Bench in the UK, and the seating arrangements also follow the tradition of the British courts—with members of the bar seated in two rows with seven seats in each row.Footnote 41 These homologies could be the real reason why court hall 1 has been maintained as the Chief Justice’s court.
Thus, in the explanations surrounding the Chief Justice’s court hall, we see the first indication that a set of meanings can emerge from ideas about architecture and physical space and become a part of the historical narrative of the court—in this case, an idea about the colonial legacy that has carried forward through the design and dimensions of the chief justice’s court. The legal consciousness of the court personnel constitutes and is constituted by the symbolism of the colonial legacy that has continued post independence. As Mithi Mukherjee argues, independence did not mark the end of India’s colonial past; instead, the Indian state continued to evolve under the “shadows of empire.”Footnote 42
In the following section, I carry forward these ideas through different examples of the construction of legal consciousness through images of justice in the Madras High Court, seen from both a colonial and a post-colonial context.
4. IMAGES OF JUSTICE IN THE MADRAS HIGH COURT
In order to explain the legal consciousness of the court personnel of the Madras High Court in relation to the architectural setting in which they work, I refer to a few examples that I encountered in the field. I shall begin my analysis by identifying the images of justice present in the court—specifically, the imagery associated with the two lighthouses linked to the Madras High Court, the placement of portraits in the court corridors, and the disputed statues placed in and around the high court premises. In this study, I argue that the judicial iconography of the Madras High Court works to preserve and reinforce the ambivalent legal consciousness of its court personnel. I conclude this section by reflecting on how the court personnel of the Madras High Court have exhibited their legal consciousness in their everyday life by conserving law as heritage through the walking tours conducted in the high court premises.
4.1 The Lighthouses
One of the most important and unique features of the high court is the presence of two lighthouses: one in the Madras High Court complex and the other on the main building of the court. Both these lighthouses were used by the port city of Madras at different times. Almost every person I spoke to during my fieldwork mentioned the presence and significance of these lighthouses. They thus form an integral part of the Madras High Court structure and are an important source of iconography shaping the legal consciousness of the court personnel of the high court.
The presence of a lighthouse within the Madras High Court building inspired several analogies related to symbols and images of justice. Significantly, during my fieldwork, I did not encounter any statue of the lady of justice, in any form, on the court premises. None of the court personnel that I interviewed had seen an image of justice or heard of anything similar existing within or around the Madras High Court building. Most respondents said that they had not seen any structure resembling the visual stereotype of a lady with scales and a blindfold. One judge that I interviewed mentioned that the reason for the absence of a statue of lady justice in the European form is because this high court was built in the Indo-Saracenic architectural style. His explanation was that the Indian architectural style made irrelevant any display of the Western conceptualization of Justitia. While there was uncertainty on why there was no figure of justice in the court premises, there was one construction that every person was well aware of which is the edifice of the lighthouse that forms a part of the main building of the high court. In this instance, the court personnel depart from carrying forward colonial notions and instead cite the rejection of those notions as a reason for the absence of a European depiction of justice.
In this section, I will suggest that the iconography of the Madras High Court does not portray a symbol of lady justice with its colonial connotations, but instead there is a continual and highly significant invocation of the symbolism of the lighthouse placed atop the high court building. The lighthouse viewed in this form has become a motif and sign of justice for the high court—its very own statue of justice. The recurring historical tension evident in the modern-day legal consciousness of the court personnel is thus reflected in this form.
The city of Madras has had four lighthouses altogether. The first was installed in 1796 on the terrace of the Officers’ Mess and Exchange,Footnote 43 which was a part of the Fort St George precinct.Footnote 44 This lighthouse was a simple construction created by placing a large lantern with oil-wick lampsFootnote 45 atop a wooden building on the terrace.Footnote 46 The height of this lighthouse was at 99 feet above sea level and the beam of the light went as far as 25 miles.Footnote 47 The lighthouse in this form was operational until 1841.Footnote 48
The second lighthouse constructed for the city of Madras was placed in an area called The Esplanade. Later, when the high court was commissioned, this area was incorporated into the Madras High Court complex. Therefore, this lighthouse was part of the complex even before the court itself.Footnote 49 Work on its construction began in 1838 and was completed in 1840.Footnote 50 This lighthouse, made of stone, is commonly referred to as the Doric column lighthouse due to its architectural style and pillared structure.Footnote 51 The lighthouse stands at 125 feet in height.Footnote 52 Once the new light apparatus was installed, the lighthouse was considered to be fully operational.Footnote 53 The inscription, which is still visible at the base of the lighthouse, reads “1838–44,” indicating the dates of commencement and completion of the construction of the lighthouse.
In 1894, the government decided that they needed a lighthouse taller than the existing Doric column lighthouse. Therefore, a third lighthouse was installed in the city of Madras. This lighthouse, the second associated with the Madras High Court, was incorporated as a part of the existing high court building itself.Footnote 54 At the time of the court’s construction, there was no proposal to install a lighthouse as part of its structure. In 1892, when the new high court building had been constructed behind the existing Doric column lighthouse, its location made it difficult for mariners to identify the lighthouse tower from the sea because the dome of the high court building was taller and obscured it.Footnote 55 Due to these complaints, the lantern of the lighthouse was shifted and placed on top of the main dome of the high court building, which was represented as the tallest minaret of the court.Footnote 56
The lighthouse in this form is around 175 feet high and approximately six floors taller than the third-floor terrace of the high court.Footnote 57 Since the lighthouse was not part of the initial structure of the high court building, certain adjustments had to be made to install the lantern in the dome. The dome had to be “cut open by removing several stones, and a spiral staircase was provided to enter the lantern room erected over the dome.”Footnote 58 When it began functioning on 1 June 1894, it was the tallest vantage point for the city.Footnote 59 The fire in its kerosene lantern could be seen a great distance from this lighthouse.Footnote 60 In 1927, the lighting equipment was replaced with a new and improved version.Footnote 61 Owing to its importance to the port city of Madras, the copper cupola was gold-plated.Footnote 62 This dome therefore became an attraction for the public, and people were allowed to go to the top of the lighthouse and witness the panoramic views of the city for a fee. Therefore, a lot of people, including students, would visit the Madras High Court. One judge I interviewed narrated a story about the visitors to the lighthouse. He said that non-literate visitors sometimes came from small villages to climb up the lighthouse. The staff would show these visitors the judge’s elevator shaft and the dangling wire rope and tell them a story—completely inaccurate—of how convicts were brought there to be hanged. This narrative reflects how court actors can draw on architectural features to shape the legal consciousness of individuals who enter the court premises, wherein the legal professionals assert their dominance over those they perceive as social inferiors through storytelling and falsehood.
When the large number of crowds became unmanageable, the presidency port officers notified the government and requested a restriction on the entry permissions for the lighthouse. After this decision was taken in August 1895, a procedure to obtain a pass to see the lighthouse was put into place.Footnote 63 In 1977, this lighthouse also became non-functional and the lighthouse of the city of Madras was shifted to Marina Beach, where it stands today.Footnote 64 Once the high court lighthouse was closed, the public visits to the dome were no longer permitted. The new lighthouse, the fourth for the city, started functioning on 10 January 1977 and was equipped with electrical lighting facilities. It was manufactured by a French company and installed on the coastal front of the city at a height of approximately 187 feet.Footnote 65
Using the concepts of iconography with the interpretation of signs and symbols, we can see that a unique visual culture has developed in the Madras High Court, drawing a parallel between the lighthouse and the concept of the light of justice.Footnote 66 On the occasion of Law Day in 2007, the Madras High Court released a report in which they captioned a picture of the lighthouse with the following words: “Light House—now not for sailors at sea but for the sea of men and women seeking for the light of justice.”Footnote 67 Another annual report for 2011–14 writes: “Though the Light House has become dysfunctional now, yet the High Court continues to serve as a beacon of light for those in quest of justice.”Footnote 68 They further compare the Madras High Court official website to a “legal light house” where information is available at the click of a button.Footnote 69 Therefore, the existence of the lighthouse has attached a particular symbolism to the Madras High Court building and has over the years become an expression of a particular form of justice that is expected from the high court that it towers over. Justice Sudhakar, who heads the Heritage Committee of the high court, remarks that “the lighthouses, though not functional, are still the beacons of justice and this institution will never fail in its duty to live up to the peoples’ mandate enshrined in the preamble to the Constitution.”Footnote 70 The lighthouse is thus viewed in this form within the high court and it has become a motif and symbol of justice for the high court—its very own statue of justice. Based on the transmission of a message through a sign peculiar to the law, the lighthouse is seen as a structure that plays the same role as that of a beacon of justice.Footnote 71 It thus offers a new interpretation of an icon of justice in a manner that might not have been stated explicitly at the time of its inception or been analyzed in a semiotic form until now. The lighthouse that stands tall atop the Madras High Court building therefore symbolizes and constitutes the legal consciousness of the court personnel in the form of an idea of justice for this court—an idea that is meant to reject the country’s colonial heritage while simultaneously reaffirming connections between Madras and London. In this format, it exerts a newly found control over collective understandings of legality, which are reaffirmed through daily practices and discourses.
However, not all allusions to the lighthouse take the form of positive affirmations. Justice Chandru writes, in an article entitled “A Blot to a Lighthouse,” of the corrupt practices involved in the elections to the bar associations of the high court.Footnote 72 He asks: “The hundred year light house in the High Court building escaped the bombing of the Emden ship. Can we avoid the damages being caused today by the blots being caused by the sons and daughters of Emden?”Footnote 73 Whether to highlight the idea of the lighthouse as a beacon of justice or to use the lighthouse as a metaphor for present day injustices, the lighthouse is continually invoked as a symbol by court personnel and other persons associated with the court. Its importance to the building and the retelling of its significance therefore form significant iconological references for the Madras High Court in terms of the way legal consciousness is defined for its court personnel.
4.2 Portraits in the Madras High Court: Justice in the Frame
Another important aspect of judicial iconography within the court is the presence of statues and portraits that adorn the compounds and corridors. Portraits in many courts are often large and hung on the walls, where they look down upon the people who walk past.Footnote 74 As Leslie Moran writes, portraits of judges and/or members of the profession represent two subjects—first is the person in the portrait and the second is the institutional subject.Footnote 75 By placing justice in the frame, “the individual’s image is fabricated according to the abstract ideas, values and virtues associated with the institution and the collective.”Footnote 76 The legal socialization that is a part of the process of constructing the legal consciousness of court personnel places legal institutions before the law, at the top of the hierarchy. The exhibition of these images of justice directly affects individuals’ interactions with the court. Therefore, the creation and placement of portraits in courts of law are linked to the visual narrative that the legal institution chooses to set out for itself. This ocular display allows the institution to proclaim its pride, prestige, and values in a way that is intended to directly affect the legal consciousness of the court personnel.
The Madras High Court’s corridors are adorned with huge portraits and paintings, all of which depict former judges of the high court, except for one portrait of Eardley Norton, who was an advocate in the Madras High Court. Other than the Chief Justice’s court hall, where there is a painting of Thomas Strange, these huge paintings appear only in the corridors and not in the court halls themselves.Footnote 77
In the corridor near court hall 2, there is an important painting of Justice Sir K.P. Lakshmana Rao, who is depicted in a seated position with a pair of white gloves in his hand. This image relates to the practice of a maiden assize that was prevalent in the high courts under their criminal jurisdiction. The maiden assize was a ceremony conducted in the sessions courtroom of the high court and featured the sheriff of the city presenting a pair of white gloves to the judge presiding over that criminal court. The ceremony was held when a judge was scheduled to preside over a criminal session of the high court but there were no prisoners in the dock, indicating that there were no criminal matters to be heard that day. Historically, a maiden assize took place when no prisoner was given the death sentence; but it later came to mean that there was no prisoner on trial.Footnote 78 Once the judge, accompanied by the sheriff and other attendants, entered the court and was seated, the clerk of the court handed over a white calendar representing a blank cause list to the judge and the advocate present stated that there was no matter to be tried.Footnote 79 The Sheriff, at one such ceremony, remarked that it was
symbolic of a sense of relief and satisfaction at the clean and unstained court calendar with which an assize judge is faced and a complete absence of a squalid criminal trial which may ultimately have ended in a grim sentence of death.Footnote 80
The presiding judge noted that “white gloves were symbolic—whiteness represented peace and tranquillity in the State and indicated that there had been no triable crime in society.”Footnote 81 With changes in the criminal jurisdiction of the high courts in India, however, and the abolition of the office of the sheriff in most cities, this practice has been abandoned.Footnote 82
Justice P.B. Mukherji, who presided over the maiden assize of the Calcutta High Court, notes the relevance of the gloves to the ceremony.Footnote 83 Mukherji states that gloves were prominently associated with different customs prevalent in European societies, most of which were far from “peaceful.”Footnote 84 In the courts of law, however, the white gloves symbolically represented peace and tranquillity in the state.Footnote 85 Mukherji writes that “When you wear Gloves it means that you do not do any work,” thereby indicating that, when the judge is presented with gloves, then there is nothing for them to do in the criminal sessions.Footnote 86 In general, judges were prohibited from wearing gloves while presiding over court—a practice Mukherji associates with an old British custom.Footnote 87
The wearing of white gloves in the maiden assize introduces further iconological symbolism relevant to the constitution of legal consciousness. James Epstein reports that judges “donned a black cap before pronouncing the sentence of death or slipped on white gloves to signal a ‘maiden’ assize session at which there had been no capital sentences.”Footnote 88 Black and white colours in these ceremonies symbolically invoke “the powers of light and darkness.”Footnote 89 Thus, the portrait of Justice Rao in the corridor of the Madras High Court is meant to remind court personnel of crucially important meanings associated with traditional social practices within the cultural context of the courthouse. Therefore, the symbolism of the ceremony and its enshrinement in the historical memory of the court, in this case in the form of the portrait, helps to constitute the legal consciousness of the court personnel who view it daily, reminding them of the ideals of the institution and its association with a particular understanding of the concept of justice.
4.3 From a Portrait to a Statue: Statues in the Madras High Court
Statuary on display in the Madras High Court also portrays the concept of justice in distinctive ways that contribute to the legal consciousness of court personnel and visitors.Footnote 90 As Moran argues, the installation of portraits or statues in court premises communicates hidden meanings and experiences associated with the person portrayed in the statue as well as with the location of its installation.Footnote 91 The creation and installation of statues, similar to the placement of portraits, convey the biography of the people they depict and the history of those personalities in relation to the space where they stand.Footnote 92
The installation of statues is thus important for the historical construction of the legal consciousness of the court personnel within their court space, and this is particularly the case in the Madras High Court, where the presence and acceptance of statues were a heavily debated issue. Two statues of people have been installed inside the Madras High Court building and one in the compound outside. The statues inside the high court are of Justice Iyer and Justice Rajamannar. The statue in the compound of the high court, near the entrance, is of Justice Iyengar. Additional statues have been added in the high court complex compound over time. The statues placed in and around the Madras High Court building were shrouded in controversy, as I was told that some people at the time strongly opposed venerating humans through stone statues.Footnote 93
A close analysis of the statue of Justice Iyer sheds light on contestations within the legal profession during the late colonial period. Sir Tiruvarur Muttuswami Iyer was the first Indian to be elevated as a judge of the Madras High Court—an office he held from 1878 until his death in 1895.Footnote 94 When Justice Iyer passed away, there was a proposal to erect a statue in his honour within the court premises. This led to several protests, as people felt the concept of installing statues was European in nature and did not exist as a part of Indian culture since neither the Hindus nor Muslims identified with the practice.Footnote 95 For Indians, the idea of commemorative statues was “unusual and indeed, a matter of debate and controversy.”Footnote 96 The Indo-Saracenic architectural style of the high court, which seemingly rejected European colonial influences, undoubtedly affected the legal consciousness of the court personnel in this regard and made them sympathetic to those who protested against the installation of statues in the high court premises.
Nevertheless, the British judges of the high court, led by Chief Justice Arthur Collins, disregarded those objections and endorsed the installation of a statue of Justice Iyer, resulting in Madras High Court’s first statue in 1898.Footnote 97 This marble statue is placed on the first floor, at the crossroads near the staircase landing. Justice Iyer is shown seated and wearing a panchakacham.Footnote 98 A senior advocate mentioned that the sculptor of this statue was George Wade, who was provided with a photograph from which he made the statue in London. The senior advocate pointed out that the panchakacham fell wrongly on the statue, as the British sculptor had no idea about the details of this garment and how it looked when draped on an individual. An article in the newspaper Madras Musings mentions that Wade attempted to look for a person in London who was wearing a dhoti Footnote 99 on which he could model Justice Iyer’s statue.Footnote 100 However, “he could only find a cigarette-maker in London who did so and it was in his likeness of wearing the dhoti that the statue was fashioned.”Footnote 101 A professor of history wrote an appreciation of Wade’s creation, given that he had “nothing to work on except a faded photograph of the Judge and a few hints that his colleagues gave him about his appearance.”Footnote 102 The draping of the panchakacham on the statue of Justice Iyer remains a point of discussion even today, because it has entered into the legal consciousness of the court personnel who still remember the unfortunate British influence leading to the installation of a statute that was unacceptable at the time and still disputed today.
A particularly significant feature of this statue is that Justice Iyer is not wearing any shoes. One court staff told me that this was because the court was considered a temple and therefore one would remove their shoes before entering the holy space.Footnote 103 However, we know from Bernard Cohn, when he writes about clothing and colonialism, that, while the head was considered the centre of power and knowledge, the feet were looked at in the opposite way, in an inferior manner.Footnote 104 When Cohn did fieldwork in India, he noted the Indian act of touching the feet of elder persons or superior persons, which was a form of “submission or surrender.”Footnote 105 In the same vein, shoes and slippers “were dirty,” not because they were utilized to walk around, but because they were the repositories of these impure portions of the body.Footnote 106 Prohibition of shoes, however, was also an intrinsic part of the despotic colonial rule. Radhika Singha reports that Indian vakils were made to remove their slippers in deference to their British masters.Footnote 107 She notes that, during early British rule, there was a controversy as to whether Indians were allowed to wear shoes in court,Footnote 108 and this issue continued to be debated for a long duration during colonial rule.Footnote 109 The process of subjugation and colonial regulation viewed Indians adopting European etiquettes as a “presumptuous claim to equality.”Footnote 110 Therefore, there was a deeply inherent aspect of colonial control linked to the wearing and not wearing of slippers by native Indian vakils Footnote 111 that has become a part of the narrative of the legal consciousness of the court personnel of this court. These meanings, however, rooted in colonial struggles, have become partially submerged. The discourse concerning shoes has been amended to disconnect it from colonialism, although remnants of the earlier struggles and meanings are still sensed around the court.
The other statue present in the Madras High Court is that of Justice Sir Vanbakam Bhashyam Iyengar. It is a bronze statue in the seated position and is placed at one entrance of the main building. He is dressed in mixed clothing with an Indian turban and panchakacham along with shoes suggestive of a Western style of dressing. Justice Iyengar was appointed as the first Indian advocate general in 1897 and went on to become judge of the high court from 1901 to 1904.Footnote 112 In this case, protest against installing the statue came from the British judges, who had initially refused to allow an Indian to become advocate general and now opposed a statue for that very man. Eventually, the statue was placed in the compound in 1927.Footnote 113 Ironically, the British judges were compelled to walk past the statue they had opposed each time they entered the court through that entrance. In this example, the memory of the colonial is highlighted as the narrative is changed and the appearance of domination is altered.
A third statue is a bust of Justice Sir Pakala Venkata Rajamannar, made of bronze and placed at the end of the corridor of the Justice Rajamannar Hall on the first floor of the high court building. Justice Rajamannar was the first Indian Chief Justice of the Madras High Court and he held this office for the longest term, from 1948 to 1961. This statue was installed post independence, and there is no recorded oral history of any protest that might have occurred. The presence of all three statues proves to be integral to the iconographical history of the Madras High Court. Several meanings of the image of justice are attached to them, which have directly affected the legal consciousness of the court personnel. While there was opposition to the personified image of justice, there were also differences of opinion based on the nationality of judicial figures. The symbolic relevance and historical memories associated with being compelled to view these statues within the court premises were critical to the debate over their installation. The presence of human figures in themselves had different implications for the consciousness of Indians and British observers, and the contested iconography and symbolism associated with each figure had great relevance for perceptions of the court and of justice in India.
Additional statues in the Madras High Court compound have also stirred controversy. One such statue is that of the Chola king Manuneedhi Chola, who is a symbol of fairness and justice in Tamil literature.Footnote 114 The legend of the Chola king was that he killed his son under his own chariot wheel in order to give justice to a cow. As the story goes, the Chola king had placed a huge bell outside his palace for anyone seeking justice. Once a cow came and rang the bell seeking justice from the ruler, as her calf had got crushed under the chariot wheel of the king’s son. On finding this out, the king gave his son the same punishment by killing him under his own chariot wheel.Footnote 115 This scene has come to stand for fairness and justice in Tamil Nadu, the state where the Madras High Court stands.Footnote 116 The statue of the Chola King stands in one part of the compound of the Madras High Court near the judge’s entrance to the main court building. This statue is a recent addition and was installed during the post-centenary silver jubilee celebrations of the Madras High Court in the year 1988. The plaque at the base of the statue, in an inscription, acknowledges the “celebration committee” comprising four judges of the Madras High Court. It could be surmised that this committee was responsible for installing this statue in the court compound.
During my fieldwork, I spoke to several judges, lawyers, and court staff in the Madras High Court and asked them whether they considered this statue to be their version of a symbol of justice for this court. The inscription on the statue suggested to me that the idea of justice as virtue was embodied in the Chola king, who stood for the principle of impartiality in rendering justice. As I discovered in the field, however, that was not the case. The answer to my question was in the negative from all sources, and some judges, lawyers, and court staff stated categorically that the placement of this statue in the high court premises was a mistake. This was because the form of justice that the Chola king dispensed is not, and never has been, the justice system followed by the court. Basic tenets of justice on which the court is founded do not approve reciprocal punishments. In this legend, the son of the king was punished for an unintentional accident caused by his chariot. Therefore, for several people in the court, this statue was an incorrect symbol of justice and had thus been incorrectly placed. Within a single legal space, then, the visual field has competing images of justice that are identified with different forms of legal consciousness present among the court personnel.
In 2010, a statue of Dr B.R. AmbedkarFootnote 117 was installed in the Madras High Court compound. The chief minister of the state of Tamil Nadu unveiled this statue.Footnote 118 During the course of my fieldwork, several persons mentioned that the statue had been installed due to political compulsions and they did not consider it to be a legitimate part of the Madras High Court building. The expression of this view demonstrates that the installation of statues in the Madras High Court remains a source of controversy between competing concepts of justice even in the present day. The issue of Dalit politics today engulfs the Madras High Court, which is apparent, for example, in the ongoing case of Justice C.S. Karnan,Footnote 119 who contends that members of the lower castes are subjects of discriminatory treatment in the judiciary. Thus, the presence of a statue is once again a symbol of disputed viewpoints about law and justice in India.Footnote 120 The placement of this statue in the court compound and the divergent viewpoints of persons currently working in the Madras High Court further illustrate the importance of legal imagery conveyed by statues, as they exhibit a particular relevance to history and politics in the Madras High Court.Footnote 121
These statues share a unique relationship with the Madras High Court and reflect the deeply equivocal connection between law and the image it projects.Footnote 122 The placement of statues in the Madras High Court has been accorded an importance that has raised questions about the way law pictures itself. The visual metaphor, as Goodrich observes, can become so important in the scheme of justice that the symbolism overpowers the purpose of the law itself.Footnote 123 In the Madras High Court, colonial notions of law’s domination still play a critical role in communicating a particular image of the law, although these notions compete with alternative images and stories that present a very different understanding of justice in India. This study thus reinforces Mulcahy’s emphasis on the importance of iconography in interpreting images of justiceFootnote 124 and Piyel Haldar’s observation that the law is dependent on “aesthetic policies” while always remaining grounded in the image.Footnote 125 My ethnography of the Madras High Court reveals that the attitudes of court personnel towards different iconographical representations are diverse and conflicting, thus illuminating the ambivalent relationship between law and its image and the direct connection between legal iconography and the development and expression of legal consciousness.
4.4 Heritage Walks in the Madras High Court
In this section, I focus on the distinction between legal regulation of heritage and law as heritage. I examine those elements of court architecture, designs, artefacts, and practices that are constituted as heritage, showcased as exhibiting the history of the court, and play a role in reinforcing the equivocal relationship between the legal consciousness of the court personnel and the court space that they use.
As an integral part of the conservation of the heritage and pride of the Madras High Court, heritage walks are conducted throughout the premises. The first heritage walk was inaugurated on Sunday, 1 December 2013 by two judges of the Madras High Court,Footnote 126 and later they were continued in association with the high court and the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), Chennai chapter. The walks remain a regular feature and usually occur on the first Sunday of every month. During my fieldwork, I attended the heritage walk conducted by N.L. Rajah, a designated senior advocate of the Madras High Court, on Sunday, 1 November 2015.
When I interviewed him, Rajah stated that the heritage walks are quite popular and attract a sizeable number of participants every month. Vidhya Mohankumar, who herself attended the first heritage walk, also notes that such a large number of persons were interested in this initiative and attended the walk that it was decided to make it a regular feature.Footnote 127 When I attended the heritage walk, there were a large number of persons who were not themselves part of the legal system. The walk therefore afforded the opportunity to laypeople to acquaint themselves with the history of this judicial institution. However, the narrative remained largely that of the court personnel and therefore a reflection of how their legal consciousness engaged with and influenced their portrayal of the Madras High Court.
The walk commenced at 8 a.m. and ended at 10 a.m. The tour began at the base of the second lighthouse of the city of Madras (the first lighthouse in the high court complex). It continued with details of the external architecture and symbolism of the court building. Rajah also provided information on the restoration work ongoing within the court under the supervision of the Heritage Committee of the Madras High Court.Footnote 128 As Mohankumar writes, the introduction of the walk brought people closer to the high court, and it was “the first step towards the spirited conservation of our urban heritage—by instilling a sense of pride towards it.”Footnote 129 When I participated in the walking tour, I had a similar sense that it opened the law’s heritage to the people and created a feeling of pride for the high court. The reconstruction of the history of the high court through the heritage walking tour therefore perpetuates a form of legal consciousness that conveys particular ideas about justice, colonialism, and post-colonial Indian independence, and works toward the conservation of the heritage of the law.
5. CONCLUSION
This article approaches the notion of legal consciousness through a largely neglected route by focusing on the judicial iconography and images of justice within the legal space of an iconic court in India. It suggests that the images and symbols displayed in this space communicate past and current struggles over the meaning of justice. They express fundamental ideas about law and legal institutions and at the same time they shape the consciousness of both court personnel and laypeople who enter the premises. Scholars such as Engel write about the legal consciousness of ordinary laypeople who may or may not approach the courtFootnote 130 and others, such as Barbara Yngvesson, analyze the forms of legal consciousness produced and reproduced by the court clerk in a lower-level criminal court.Footnote 131 By contrast, this article introduces a different perspective. It analyses legal consciousness through the iconography and ocular presentations of the court; and it emphasizes the perspective of the court personnel in relation to these symbolic expressions.
The brief overview of the architectural style of the Madras High Court highlighted how the imposing colonial structure of the Madras High Court is nuanced through the Indo-Saracenic architectural style that, while commanding, also maintains a local and non-European identity. This architectural modification was unique for a colonial building that deviated from Western models. The deeply rooted awareness that the court had been built on consecrated grounds and the knowledge that the Chief Justice’s court had the same dimensions as those in England caused the legal consciousness of the court personnel to develop in distinctive ways and altered how they experienced the high court. A distinctive set of meanings also emerges from depictions of the maiden assize—a practice that reflects the local cultural context and the intersection of legal culture and legal ideology. In the depiction of a shoeless Justice Iyer, repressive colonial norms concerning the wearing of slippers by Indians are both reproduced and transformed, demonstrating how images and iconography can sustain historical memories while also instilling new meanings and ideologies. Finally, the heritage walks are efforts by the court personnel to present their legal consciousness to court visitors as a set of ideas and historical memories that convey how they believe this legal institution should be represented. Taken as a whole, these examples of legal spaces, symbols, and iconography denote the reciprocal meaning that people give to a particular pattern that becomes objectified and part of their legal consciousness.Footnote 132
The lighthouses are perhaps the most important of all the images associated with the Madras High Court. They signify justice for legal professionals and for laypeople who enter this legal space more powerfully than a conventional statue of justice with scales and swords. As such, they present a non-European alternative to the concepts of justice imposed by European colonizers. The presence of statues under protest, by comparison, would appear superficially to affirm European traditions over those derived from Indian culture. To some extent, the symbol of a statue is indeed linked to the idea of the “foreign,” though we have seen that some of the statues in the Madras High Court deliberately import Indian ideas and symbols that challenge the very European traditions they appear to perpetuate.
The architecture and judicial iconography of the Madras High Court thus reflect the historical tensions between the British and Indian concepts of justice. This is apparent in the semiotics of the Madras High Court as a judicial space and is further reflected in the legal consciousness of the court personnel who use the court daily. The architecture and judicial iconography of the Madras High Court as presented above reflect the contemporary legal consciousness of the court personnel as having deep historical roots. Legal authority in this form gets fused with the consciousness of the court personnel in ways that cause them to rethink questions of law and legality when they are preserved and reinforced before them in the court’s judicial iconography.
