I am like John the Baptist, want to end caste divide, says former SC judge Katju

Former Supreme Court judge, Markandey Katju, on Friday morning posted to his fans on Facebook that while he is too old to be enter politics, he is donning the role of John the Baptist.

In the post, Justice Katju said, "My job is to break the false idols which you have been taught to worship by false propaganda. My job is to promote scientific thinking, which alone is the path to your prosperity. And this job I will keep doing for the rest of my life."

The former press council chairman also said that he had no political aspirations. "I am too old to be your leader. You must select a young individual. My job is to remove all the crap, e.g. casteism and communalism, which has been drilled into your heads by vested interests," he said.

The former Supreme Court judge was recently in the news for sharing a Facebook post of a message by a dalit girl, who wrote to him about her marriage with an Agarwal boy. 

Recalling the incident, Katju said the girl had contacted him in 2014. “The girl, an MTech student in Delhi, was friendly with an upper caste boy for seven years. She told me that the boy’s parents refused to give their consent to marriage, as she was a Dalit,” he wrote.

The girl then asked Katju for advice, to which he told her to tell the boy to choose between her and his family, as it wasn’t fair to keep hanging on forever.

In the beginning of February, Katju received a Facebook message from the girl, who shared that she had finally married the boy. “My in-laws have fully accepted me and treat me as their own daughter,” she said.