Born into a poor family in Kerala, he is the first member of the Dalit caste, or the “untouchables,” to reach his country’s highest judicial position.

India’s Supreme Court Chief Justice Konakuppakattil Gopinathan Balakrishnan, along with another justice and other high-ranking members of the Ministry of Law and Justice and Indian Law Institute, traveled to the University’s School of Law to lecture on “Individual Rights in India: A Perspective from the Supreme Court.”

Balakrishnan’s lecture on Monday addressed many aspects of India’s constitution, including common and national laws and social segregations, but the focus of the discussion was on the foundation of India’s Constitution and the drive behind Mahatma Gandhi’s freedom strike – individual rights.

“Individual rights is a question of maintaining democracy and rule of law,” Balakrishnan said. “India is a country of a large number of religions, minority and different languages.”

In contrast to the United States’ appeal process, India has no system of certiorari and the Supreme Court hears several thousand cases per year compared to the average of 150 cases that America’s Supreme Court hears every year.

“From a Supreme Court’s perspective, individual rights is very important because you have a right, in India, to have your case heard,” said Don Johnson, Director of the School of Law’s Dean Rusk Center. “In this country, the court has to grant certiorari, but in India, your case will be heard.”

With a population of about 1 billion, India is a democratic country with 31 justices – a significantly larger number than the nine justices that make up the highest court in the United States, said Gabriel Wilner, a professor of international law and executive director of the Dean Rusk Center.

In the past, Wilner studied the rules of foreign investments at the National Capital Territory of Delhi as a former Fulbright scholar.

“India’s Constitution compares very favorably with the United States, and what’s interesting is that the higher courts also speak English to one another because they do not understand each other’s languages,” Wilner said. “There’s lots of [Indian] national and local newspapers and many of them are in English since there are 14 different Indian languages, and although some are similar, others are completely different.”

The caste system, a tradition practiced by some Hindus, is a social classification that forces members of the lower castes to remain in their subordinate social status. Discrimination within the stratification system was abolished by the adoption of India’s Constitution in 1950.

“Among the Hindu community, there are different castes and the law does not wipe out this caste system, but it is not recognized in the Constitution,” Balakrishnan said. “Because of Gandhi’s influence, social segregation was abolished in the Constitution and minority rights are protected and this is not based on castes.”

Today, the caste system remains a part of India’s society, but “is only a social thing that deals with prosperity,” much like prominent individuals in the U.S., Wilner said.

“The caste system is prohibited but the lowest caste and former schedule of castes are specifically protected,” he said. “However, once you convert to Christianity or Islam, you are no longer in the system.”

Although women in India traditionally have been inferior to men, they are coming out of their subordinate status, Wilmer said.

“Women have equal rights – we have women in higher judge positions and a woman prime minister,” Balakrishnan said. “Currently, we do not have a woman in the Supreme Court, but in Parliament, there is a strong move in legislature to have more women members.”

“In many states, a third of the jobs are reserved for women,” he said. “This means that there must be 33 percent of women in the work force.”

After the lecture, the chief justice answered questions from the audience.

When asked about attacks against Christians in India, the chief justice admitted to religious turmoil in certain states, but he said these actions were against the law.

“It is unfortunate and certainly, this stuff happens when there are groups of minority and groups of majorities,” Balakrishnan said. “But the law, the system and the police are there to protect them.”

The tone wasn’t entirely serious throughout the lecture. At one point, the chief justice joked about the common law allowing Muslims to have more than one wife.

Although this law is not abolished, Balakrishnan discouraged the audience to convert merely for this tradition and states that one “cannot convert to Islam just to have more than one wife.”

Balakrishnan came to the University partly due to Prasanth Bhaskarannair, a graduate student in international community laws and former police officer in India.

Bhaskarannair is from the same state as the chief justice and extended the invitation from the University after discovering that Balakrishnan would be in visiting law schools in the U.S.

“We need the national and international legal comparison, especially among nuclear power countries,” he said. “The courts should be available in international laws to prevent international terrorism.”

The lecture was sponsored by the Dean Rusk Center, formed in 1997 in honor of Dean Rusk, a former Secretary of State under President Lyndon Johnson and John F. Kennedy.

The center aims to expand research in the scope of international laws in order to contribute solutions to global problems.

“It’s important to know that other systems exist and how they’re made up so that we know ours is not the only one,” Wilner said. “We hope that some more cooperation will come out of this meeting.”