Former Supreme Court judge Justice Rohinton Nariman has called for a nationwide ban on loudspeakers and bell ringing for religious purposes, arguing that such practices directly harm public health and disturb citizens’ right to peaceful living.
Speaking at the KM Bashir Memorial Lecture on 1 September 2025, Justice Nariman said, “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.”
Placing the issue in constitutional context, Justice Nariman reminded that the Preamble begins with “We the people of India,” which, he stressed, includes all citizens. “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 described secularism as a key step toward fraternity and explained its three strands: no state religion, no discrimination by the state on religious grounds, and equal rights for individuals to practise their faith. He pointed to Article 25, which guarantees freedom of conscience, while recalling the Supreme Court’s 1977 judgment in Reverend Stainislaus, which restricted the right to propagate religion by excluding voluntary conversion. He urged the apex court to revisit this interpretation.
Justice Nariman outlined 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.”
Turning to the idea of fraternity, which he described as the “single pivot on which everything else works,” Justice Nariman said it was crucial to uphold both the dignity of individuals and the unity and integrity of the nation. He criticised distortions in history textbooks that undermined fraternity and urged citizens to treat fundamental duties, especially the duty to promote harmony and respect for composite culture, as judicially enforceable obligations.
He illustrated the point by recalling the symbolism of the national flag, noting that the white band signifies peace and harmony among faiths, while the Ashoka Chakra represents 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,” he said.
Justice Nariman also spoke about his recent book An Ode to Fraternity, which carries forewords by the Dalai Lama and Cardinal Oswald Gracias. He highlighted how major world religions ultimately converge on moral living and the pursuit of happiness. Fanaticism, he warned, stemmed from ignorance. “Fanatics are people who neither understand their own faith nor respect others’,” he remarked.
Concluding his lecture, Justice Nariman urged citizens to uphold fraternity as a living constitutional value. “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.
(With inputs from Live Law)
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