New Insignia of the Supreme Court: Aesthetic shift and constitutional symbolism

Recently, the Apex Court organized a three-day conference to deliberate upon the efficiency of the district judiciary. On September 1, 2024, during the conference's valedictory ceremony—also marking the 75th anniversary of the Supreme Court of India—the President of India unveiled the court’s new insignia and flag, designed by the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), New Delhi.

The Insignia of the Supreme Court

National emblems and insignia of state institutions play a crucial role in shaping and communicating their identity. Since its first sitting on January 28, 1950, two days after the adoption of the Indian Constitution, the Supreme Court of India has stood as a formidable pillar of the Indian state, navigating complex jurisprudential and socio-political challenges over the past 75 years. These challenges include external aggressions, internal trials like the Emergency, striking balance between state’s authority and citizens’ rights, and various communal and electoral issues, amongst others.

The original insignia of the Supreme Court, featuring the Dharma Chakra above the Ashoka Stambha, symbolized the highest judicial institution of the country. The Ashoka Stambha, with its four lions representing courage, strength, confidence, and pride, encapsulates the aspirational qualities of India’s highest court. The circular abacus, adorned with engravings of a bull, a horse, and an elephant—key elements of Indian classical art—represents Dharma, progress and power, and wisdom, respectively. The inclusion of the Ashoka Stambha, also the national emblem, linked the institution’s identity to the nation’s value resolutions.

The principle of Dharma, though not easily translatable into English, broadly encompasses sustainability and universal order (ṛtam). The Dharma Chakra atop the Ashoka Stambh in the court’s insignia represented the institution’s commitment to upholding Dharma, as reflected in its motto, “Yato Dharmastato Jayaḥ” (Where there is Dharma, there is victory). The new insignia, however, replaces the Ashoka Stambha with the iconography of the ‘Supreme Court building’ standing on the ‘book of the Constitution’, retaining only the Dharma Chakra and the motto.

Shift of the aesthetics

An insignia serves as a rhetorical device, employing visual elements to convey ideas in an intriguing, aesthetic, and powerful manner. It mediates the relationship between the institution and the values it represents, effectively influencing perception by embodying fundamental principles through specific iconography.

In his classic work ‘Aesthetics of Art’, Hegel notes that when a need of representing an inner sentiment of a general and universal power arises—after transcending the matter and being struck by the spectacle of the phenomena of nature—one acquires presentiment of concealed power of something grand and mysterious in elements of nature. These elements—sea, mountain, animals, and so on—then lose their immediate sense and significance and become the ‘spirit images’ of this invisible power. “It is then”, writes Hegel, “that art appears; it arises from the necessity of representing this idea by sensuous images, addressed at once to the senses and the spirit.” By this standard, an aesthetic insignia is a piece of art that addresses the sense as well as the spirit, with the elements signifying ideas deeper to their immediate and ex-facie meaning.

The Ashoka Stambha, with its symbolic richness, squarely fits in this description of an aesthetic insignia. However, replacing it with the icons of the ‘building of Supreme Court’ and the ‘book of the Constitution’ diminishes the insignia's aesthetic appeal. The expression of a deeper appeal to sense and spirit, which the insignia reflects, gets limited to the ex-facie and immediate significance of these elements. An article in the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism (1970) describes an emblem or insignia, in a literary context, as “a device that integrates an actual picture with the poem [deeper symbolic expression] instead of suggesting one by verbal [direct] means. It is a tripartite entity composed of the picture, the sententia, and the ‘thinking,’ which is more often verse than prose.” The Ashoka Stambha encapsulated the poetic essence of Indian civilization. Its replacement renders the Supreme Court’s insignia more prosaic.

While aesthetics of public symbols and structures can be subjective and reasons for its dilution may not be gauged analytically, a recent New York Times Opinion article offers insight into this dilution. The article suggests that the cultural disillusionment following the World Wars, and the abandonment of the belief that human artifice taps into a deeper cosmic order, has led to a decline in the aesthetic beauty of public architecture—a trend now visible globally.

Guardian of form, but importantly the spirit!

Though designed by a ‘fashion institute’, an insignia should still feature elements that are timeless, rooted in the nation’s classical cultural expressions, rather than merely reflecting ‘contemporary trends’. While the ‘book of the Constitution’ and the ‘Supreme Court building’ undoubtedly represent the ‘form’ of institution’s values in today’s context; they do not necessarily embody the ‘spirit’ of these values in a timeless, natural and holistic sense. Symbolizing the spirit of constitutionalism through a ‘book’ and a ‘building’ is unrefined and myopic.

Indian philosophical thought has traditionally been value-centric rather than book-centric. The Dharmaśāstras, which encapsulate Dharmic principles relevant to specific times and spaces, are texts, but they are not perpetually in force. It is the principle of Dharma that is perennial. Dharma, the sustainability principle of order, manifests in the jurisprudential milieu through various legal expressions, with the Constitution being one such expression. While constitutionalism may be considered pari passu (similar) to Dharma in socio-political milieu, the book of the Constitution merely embodies this principle for a particular time and space and is subject to amendment. The Constitution has been amended over a hundred times in 75 years. Even the same Assembly that adopted the book of the Constitution, when sat as the Legislative assembly decided a year later to amend a portion of the book (ref: 1st amendment of 1951). It is the spirit of constitutionalism that is paramount, not necessarily the book enshrining the principles.

The Court, as well, has acknowledged on several occasions that it safeguards the deeper values reflected in the Constitution's text. Even when constitutional provisions are suspended, as during the Emergency of 1975, the Court remained the custodian of the principles of constitutionalism. In the Habeas Corpus case, while the majority on the bench admitted their incapacity to grant relief during the suspension of provisions of the book of Constitution, Justice H.R. Khanna, in his dissenting opinion, recognized that certain “higher values which mankind began to cherish in its evolution from a state of tooth and claw to a civilized existence” are “not the gift of the Constitution.” Justice Khanna’s opinion, which cost him the Chief Justiceship in 1978 and honoured him his portrait in Courtroom No. 2 for protecting the idea of constitutionalism, affirms that the Supreme Court safeguards not just the Constitutional book but the deeper values that endure even when the text is suspended or ceases to exist.

The Supreme Court had its first sitting in the ‘Old Parliament building’ before shifting to its new building in 1958. The new building as well has undergone structural changes at least on three occasions since then. Despite the modifications to the building, the institution of the Court remains intact. Therefore, the afore-arguments are valid also for the ‘building’ element in the insignia.

Beyond aesthetics and constitutionalism, the issue of public history and consultation is also relevant in this case. As there has been no official notification regarding the new insignia or the process of its selection, detailed commentary may be premature. However, it is hoped that the court applied the same standards of public consultation to that it has required of the executive in public architectural projects.

Insignia of national institutions serves as link to the civilizational history of a nation with the future aspirations of its institutions. As India embarks on a journey of decolonization and southernization in the legal arena, replacing a symbol—that not only reflects the country’s historical roots but also serves as its national emblem—may not be a wise for optics as well.

Image source: Internet

The author Nitish Rai Parwani is a D.Phil. student at the University of Oxford, and a former Law-clerk at the Supreme Court of India.