Karnataka Bar Council Ignores Demand By Lawyers' Organisation To Cancel Sai Deepak's Talk On UCC, Event Witnesses Huge Crowd
The Karnataka State Bar Council, despite demand for cancellation by a group of Lawyers named the All India Lawyers' Association for Justice (AILAJ), went ahead with an event on Thursday where Advocate J. Sai Deepak spoke on the “Uniform Civil Code – Pros and Cons”.
The attempt to de-platform Sai Deepak backfired and the event witnessed an unusually large crowd, with people standing outside the hall where the event was held, to listen to the speaker.
AILAJ, a left-leaning Lawyer's group, on August 28, 2023, by an open letter to the Karnataka State Bar Council, expressed shock and concerns over the event organised by the State Bar Council in association with Karnataka State Bar Council Law Academy on August 31, 2023. The letter mentioned Sai Deepak’s alleged unapologetic approach towards India being turned into a ‘Hindu Rashtra’.
“The main speaker proposed for the event is known to be a staunch supporter of India being turned into a Hindu Rashtra , a proposition that runs afoul of our constitutional democracy. He has also called for the denunciation of secularism by terming it ‘BS’ (short form for ‘bullshit’) and a Western idea", the letter said.
In their letter to the Karnataka Bar Council, the AILAJ employed various terms such as "Islamophobe" to characterize Sai Deepak. The letter also criticized the Supreme Court lawyer for his interview with Ranveer Allahabadia (BeerBiceps), known for conducting interviews with government officials and individuals who advocate for Hindu interests.
"It also no secret that he has repeatedly issued islamophobic statements and attacked the Christian community and Christian educational institutions calling them ‘anti-Hindu’ . Further, the speaker in question has publicly asked all non-Hindus to leave India ‘as it is not their motherland’," the letter said.
The Association had urged the Bar Council to reconsider or cancel the event for balanced representation and inclusivity.
Advocate Sai Deepak tweeted after the successful event thanking the people of Bengaluru for attending in such large numbers and sarcastically thanked the AILAJ for the unpaid publicity.
In his talk, Sai Deepak emphasized that he won’t be presenting his own views but keep the relevant facts and data and the audiences can draw their own conclusions and ask the right questions. However, he joked that if someone were to raise a political question then he would not take responsibility.
A large number of law students attended the lecture and he suggested that it is very crucial to understand the three codifications of religious laws in this country. He repeatedly asked the audience not to keep a binary approach in the lecture. He majorly covered a lot of historical facts. He also said that he himself was not convinced with the benefit of the UCC and remarked that “those who didn’t want me to speak today should ask themselves what pre-concieved notions did they have about it, they made up their mind about my notions”.