Former Supreme Court judge Justice Rohinton Nariman recently called for a nationwide ban on loudspeakers used for religious purposes, warning that such practices directly affect public health.

Justice Nariman said that religious expressions in the form of loudspeakers and bell ringing were intruding into citizens’ right to health and peaceful living, and must be curbed equally across faiths to avoid charges of favouritism.

“I find today every faith seems to get louder in its protestations and is making the Lord deaf. I find today that either a person is screaming in a microphone from a mosque or another is banging temple bells. All this must stop because this creates noise pollution. And if it creates noise pollution, it is covered by health primarily straight away. And every State should at the earliest according to me first ban loudspeakers and ban this kind of thing this bell ringing etc which disturbs people early morning and disturbs people’s sleep. So it is again something that is that the State must take into its hand and do it down the board so that again you can’t say that you are favoring X or favoring Y. You stop it completely. You can have loudspeakers in auditoriums like this where everybody wants to hear somebody and nothing goes out. But you can’t have loudspeakers outside which creates a nuisance,” Justice Nariman said.

He was delivering the KM Bashir Memorial Lecture at Thiruvananthapuram on September 1.

Placing the discussion in constitutional context, he reminded that the Preamble begins with “We the people of India,” which includes every citizen, not just the majority or any one community.

“We the people of India does not mean we the majority of the people of India or we the adult male population of India. It is we the people. We are therefore all the people of India. That is something that must never be forgotten,” he said.

He said that secularism as an essential step towards fraternity and the Constitution envisages three strands - no state religion, no discrimination by the state on religious grounds, and equal rights for individuals to practise their faith.

He highlighted Article 25 as guaranteeing freedom of conscience, and also noted how judicial interpretation in Reverend Stainislaus (1977) curtailed the right to propagate religion by excluding voluntary conversion, something he urged the Supreme Court to revisit.

He traced the five constitutional limits on religious freedom - public order, morality, health, regulation of secular activities associated with religion, and social welfare or reform and emphasised that health squarely justified restrictions on noise pollution from religious practices.

Justice Nariman then turned to fraternity, which he called the “single pivot on which everything else works.”

He said fraternity was essential to protect both the dignity of individuals and the unity and integrity of the nation. He criticised distortions in history textbooks that eroded fraternity and urged citizens to see fundamental duties, especially the promotion of harmony and respect for composite culture, as judicially enforceable obligations.

To illustrate this, he drew attention to the national flag, recalling its evolution and the symbolism of its colours. He explained that the white band signified peace and harmony among faiths, while the Ashoka Chakra represented dharma and moral law.

“Every time you people see the national flag, never forget that fraternity is the first thing that stares you in the face. And remember the white portion is the portion which speaks of everybody’s harmony. And the chakra is as to how you achieve it. You achieve it by serving dharma. And you serve dharma by studying everybody else’s faith and not denigrating it,” Justice Nariman said.

He also spoke about his recent book An Ode to Fraternity, with forewords by the Dalai Lama and Cardinal Oswald Gracias, highlighting how major world religions ultimately converge on moral living and pursuit of happiness. He cautioned against fanaticism, describing fanatics as people who neither understand their own faith nor respect others’.

Justice Nariman concluded by urging citizens to treat fraternity as a living constitutional value beyond governments and politics.

“Governments may come, governments may go. Constitutional values endure. That you have to remember first and second that every time you see your national flag never forget to remind yourself of the cardinal virtue of treating every other citizen as your brother. That is at the center of the flag. That is the basis of the flag and that is the basis of the Constitution. Because in the ultimate analysis, the stakes are very high. The stake is nothing less than the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of this great country,” he said.