Silencing Civics

A democracy does not teach civics by reciting hymns.

- 

It teaches by showing how power is meant to work ~ and how it sometimes fails. That is why the recent decision by India's Supreme Court to halt the publication of a school textbook chapter that mentioned corruption and delays in the judiciary deserves more scrutiny than applause.The court's concern is easy to understand. Judges do not command armies or budgets; they rely on public trust. When Chief Justice Surya Kant warns that careless language can tarnish an entire institution, he is defending something real and fragile. Courts live or die by credibility.

But credibility is not porcelain. It is not preserved by locking it in a cabinet and asking citizens, or students, to admire it from a distance.