India, March 6 -- Respected Justice Bhuyan, On 21 February last, addressing a seminar in Hyderabad, your Lordship reflected on what you described as India's enduring "deep societal faultlines"-that persist even after seventy-five years of constitutional democracy.

In illustrating this proposition, your honour cited two separate and seemingly "random" instances: first, that of a PhD scholar in Delhi allegedly denied accommodation after her Muslim identity became known; and second, an incident from Odisha in which schoolchildren were reportedly prevented by their parents from partaking of a mid-day meal prepared by a Dalit woman.

Let me state at the outset, without reservation, that discrimination based on religion or caste is morally ind...