January 2, 2011
Dara P Mehta’s acceptance speech - award of Chevalier de l’Ordre National
du Mérite
Monsieur le Consul General de France, Mme Mayumi Pujolas, ladies and
gentlemen.
I sincerely thank the Embassy of France in India and the Consulate General
of France at Mumbai for bestowing on me this award of Chevalier de l’Ordre
National du Mérite. I consider that I have been chosen for an exceptionally
high honour and privilege. When I was first told about the granting of this
award I could not believe it. None of the other Indian awardees of Chevalier in
the National Order of Merit had, to the best of my knowledge, been lawyers
practising in India. I have tried to research the names of the Indian awardees
of this honour in the recent past and was unable to find the name of any
Indian practising lawyer among them. Of course this French award and other
similar awards have been given to many distinguished Indians occupying high
positions in other professions. That is why, Monsieur le Consul General, I
consider myself to be very fortunate to have been chosen to receive this
honour which I humbly and gratefully accept.
When I first qualified as an advocate and was admitted to the Bar in 1955 little
did I realise that I would one day be chosen to receive such a prestigious
French award. I was then told that"The law is a jealous companion and
requires a long and constant courtship."Many lawyers go through their
professional careers without deviating from the pursuit of the law. That may
not be true of all lawyers. Some of the most famous political leaders of India
were lawyers. Mahatma Gandhi and Vallabhbhai Patel had both studied and
practised law. Gandhi had indeed started practising law in South Africa. Patel
was a successful lawyer in Gujarat before he became a politician.Mr
Mahomed Hidayatulla, who was one the most distinguished chief justices of
the Supreme Court of India had cheated on his jealous companion by
studying and becoming proficient in French. While serving as acting VicePresident of India he had delivered an address in French in Parliament to
welcome a distinguished French leader.
Although I had studied French in school and later at the University for the BA
degree, this study was quite superficial and shallow. It was by a sheer
accident that I was asked to become a member of the executive committee of
the Cercle Litteraire. That was in the year 1979. I then borrowed a French
book thinking that I would be able to understand it. I could not have been
more mistaken. I had to refer to the dictionary to understand the meaning of
almost every word of every line. This made me quite ashamed of myself.
Disregarding my “jealous companion”, I decided to start learning French all
over again. I did so by registering myself as a student at the Alliance
Francaise de Bombay for the diploma in higher studies in commerce. I did this
to acquire a better understanding of commercial and legal terms in French. I
became deeply interested in studying commercial and legal French and was
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successful in the examination at the end of this course. These studies
encouraged me to spend another year in studying French literature and
culture and I passed the exam for the Diplome Superiure in literature and
culture. I did these exams when I was already about 50 years old and enjoyed
every moment of the work without detracting in any way from my professional
legal practice.
In the year 1980 I was elected a member of the Executive Committee of the
Alliance Francaise de Bombay and have since served as its Vice-President.
The Alliance has a growing number of Indian students who study French for
pleasure or for profit. The Alliance has acted as one of the principal
instruments in India for the spread of the awareness of the French language
and culture.
Let me tell you a little bit about the Cercle Litteraire and Bibliotheque Dinshaw
Petit. It was started in the year 1887. In the beginning it was called «LeCercle
Franco-Parsi de Bombay»! It was at that time a centre of Fench culture in
Bombay. In the course of more than 135 years of its existence the vast
majority of its members are no longer Parsis! It has now become a completely
secular institution which the French love to call “laïque”! It has a fine library of
French books. It is perhaps the only privately owned and managed French
library in India. It houses a collection of rare and priceless books on history,
religion and philosophy. The great French traveller and writer Pierre Lotti had
visited the Cercle and had signed its Golden Book. During the second world
war the office of the Cercle Litteraire was also the place from which the
magazine “France Libre” was published in India. It became a centre for the
Free French movement during the war years.
The third French institution that I have had the honour and pleasure to serve
is the Indo-French Chamber of Commerce and Industry. I have been an
elected member of the Governing Council. In that capacity I have served as a
delegate on various missions to France where we have interacted with
officials of French chambers of commerce and with executives of leading
French companies.
The interaction between India and France has become highly focused and
dynamic in the last two or three years. On January 26, 2008, India was
honoured to have His Excellency the President of France Nicolas Sarkozy as
the chief guest of honour at the annual Republic Day parade at New Delhi. On
July 14, 2009, Mr Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India was the chief
guest at the Bastille Day parade in Paris. Perhaps for the first time, a
contingent of smartly attired Indian troops marched down the Champs
Elysees led by a military bandof Indian musicians playing Indian martial airs.
In December 2010, just about a month ago, President Nicolas Sarkozy made
a second state visit to India. The seven Memoranda of Understanding that
India and France signed during the visit are a pointer to the kind of scientific
and technological partnership they intend to forge. It may not have been a
mere lexical coincidence that the words "limitless" and "partner" found
repetitive use in Sarkozy's speeches and remarks. If anything, this showed
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how much France valued its "partnership" with India, whose freedom fighters
had drawn inspiration from the French ideals of equality, liberty and fraternity.
As a lawyer I have been deeply impressed by the French system of law and
the administration of justice. France gave to the world the first Declaration of
the Rights of Man and Citizens. It was adopted in 1791by the National
Constituent Assembly. It was Montesqieu, a famous French legal thinker and
political philosopher who in his treatise De l’esprit des lois (On) The Spirit of
the Laws, published in 1748 had declared the principle of the separation of
powers which greatly influenced Madison in the drafting of the Constitution of
the United States of America. It also influenced Ambedkar when he drafted
the Constitution of India. The principle of the separation of powers is one of its
important elements.
Mr Consul General, now that you have given me this award I assure you that
henceforth all my most beautiful dreams will be in French and that all my most
terrible nightmares will be in English.
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