By Krishna Jha
“The people of India, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a sovereign Democratic republic and to secure to all its citizens Justice, social, economic and political, Liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship, Equality of status and opportunity, and to Promote among them all, Fraternity assuring the this twenty sixth day of November, 1949, do hereby adopt, enact, and give ourselves this Constitution.”
With these solemn words the Constitution was adopted on November 26, 1949, and came into force on January 26, 1950. It provides for a parliamentary form of government which is federal in structure with certain unitary features.
This Constitution was the result of constant struggle among those engaged in the freedom movement and then those that represented colonial domination on the other. In course of the movement, the realization emerged and got concretised that the British colonial forces subjugated the Indian people and exploited them to wrench out the fruits of their labour to shape their own economy. Those engaged in the efforts to liberate the country also realized that due to hardships under which people were forced to live slowed the development of the country itself. As Karl Marx had written that with the steam and science, the British colonial rulers had brought industrialization in India followed by all swallowing famine. Those plundering the country also imposed heavy taxation, free and unequal trade. The entire process was based on ‘drain of wealth’ from India to Britain. As the character of the modern imperialism was getting exposed, especially since 1918, after the October revolution, the Marxist ideas also started spreading fast and helped to fight colonialism in a scientific way.
Almost in the same way, days are back, though on a higher plain. Today, our Constitution, which is the lifeline of our Democracy, and promises a republic for us with freedom, justice, fraternity, sovereignty, democracy, socialism and equality, stands wounded. We are under the rule of such forces that make every attempt to crush and curtail freedoms enshrined in the Constitution. The systematic and strident attack on the Constitution by the ruling right is visible in the undeserved sharp criticism of the democratic forces. Parliament stands nullified with expulsion of members. Our composite culture is getting fragmented. It is a reminder that in the era of colonial rule, communal ideology was used as an instrument to promote any initiation based on a politics of divide and rule.
In the first quarter of the new century, there is a blatant effort to distort the history of the country, surprisingly, without any historicity. The latest indicator is the call to rewrite the Constitution. Implicit in this call is the BJP government’s bid to make people remember only what V D Savarkar wrote in his monograph as early as in 1923, “…The whole of India is for Hindus by virtue of the fact that they alone, and not Muslims or Christians, considered its territory sacred.” He wrote further, “All Hindus claim to have in their veins the blood of the mighty race incorporated with and descended from the Vedic fathers, the Sindhus.” Summing it up, he wrote, “We [Hindus] are one because we are a nation, a race and own a common Sanskriti (culture).” He never mentions our most beautiful cultural heritage of unity in multiplicity.
The concept of separate Hindu nationality emerged for the first time in the monograph which tended to replace the anger against the injustices committed by the British colonialists with negativity against the Muslim community with the same intensity. In a way therefore it was offering a handle to British authorities to follow its divisive policy. It was the emphasis on the concept of Hindutva that added to its exclusivity and all others, especially Muslims, remained the ‘other’ against whom the negativity was to be directed. To Savarkar, the term Hindutva represented the politically conscious Hinduism that sought to organise Hindus as a nationality. India’s Muslims and Christians did not constitute a part of this vision of the nation. The book did not only define what he considered Hindu nationalism, it also echoed his call for actions against Muslims because he specified that “a conflict of life and death” began “after Mohammad of Gazni crossed the Indus”. The text therefore tended to place Hindus against Muslims.
There is another dimension of the issue. Constitution promotes the principles of secularism, fraternity, freedom of expression, equality, composite culture, socialist values and many other such concepts that are to be included in our nation building process, as these are in the ethos of our country’s life. These ingredients face direct attack in scheme of things that is planned out for revision of the Constitution that was adopted by our constituent assembly.
On our Republic Day, January 26, we observe and celebrate our democracy and pay homage to its makers as they guaranteed the social, economic and political rights of every Indian.
As a nation state, we have arrived at the edge where social justice and harmony are becoming casualty and the rights of the weaker sections are gradually seized. The labour time of the workers that was regularized at eight hours a day after struggle launched in almost every country of the world and ended in victory after great sacrifices one and half century back. Today all these gains are bulldozed and working hours are gone up to twelve hours. Labour laws, gained after much struggle, have been revised and confined into mere four codes. The farmers are denied minimum support price despite struggles launched umpteen times and every time hundreds have lost life. In the famous Kisan Dharna on Delhi borders, more than seven hundred were martyred. (IPA Service)
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