With so many calls for changing the Constitution made by people associated with the ruling regime at the Union level, civil society and opposition have come together to make it a major election issue, writes S.N. Sahu.
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THE issue of saving the Constitution from the relentless onslaught of the Modi regime has become a defining theme of the general elections that are underway right now.
It has become a nationwide issue. In particular, people in states such as Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh have made it a major electoral plank.
Even the political leadership represented by Malikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi of the Indian National Congress, Sharad Pawar of the Nationalist Congress Party and more than twenty parties forming the INDIA alliance are expressing grave concerns that Narendra Modi, on assuming office as Prime Minister for a third term, will alter the Constitution and delete the provisions enshrined therein for reservation and affirmative action.
Such a concerted campaign now led by people and backed by opposition parties during the thick of the election campaign is unparalleled in the history of independent India.
Serious apprehensions were expressed by people that the Modi regime would tinker with the Constitution or replace it with a new one after Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders Ananta Hegde, Arun Govil, Lallu Singh and Jyoti Mirdha, on multiple occasions very categorically asserted in public that the BJP, on securing 400 plus seats in Lok Sabha, would change the Constitution. Many of those who said so are contesting elections.
“In 2017, Ananta Hegde, as a Union minister in Prime Minister Modi's cabinet, ridiculed secularism.
In fact, in 2017, Ananta Hegde as a Union minister in Prime Minister Modi's cabinet, ridiculed secularism and those who claim themselves to be secular and stated that they should stop doing so and introduce themselves by their religious or caste identities.
He then claimed that the BJP had been elected to form government at the Union level for changing the Constitution. On facing uproar in Rajya Sabha from the opposition benches for his outrageous statements, he tendered an apology.
Even K.J. Alphons, as a BJP member of Parliament in Rajya Sabha, moved a private member's resolution to remove the word 'socialist' from the Preamble of the Constitution (and replace it with the word 'equitable') and none of the top leaders of the BJP asked him not to do so.
Apart from the aforementioned BJP leaders, people occupying high constitutional posts during the Modi regime have not refrained from assailing the Constitution.
To illustrate, Vice President of India and Chairman of Rajya Sabha, Jagdeep Dhankar, made a dangerous statement last year criticising the Supreme Court's decision striking down the National Judicial Commission Appointment Act and disagreeing with the Supreme Court judgment of 1974 in Keshvananda Bharti case that Parliament cannot amend the 'basic structure' of the constitution.
Those utterances of Dhankar so enraged the Supreme Court that one of its Benches asked Attorney General R. Venkataramani to advise constitutional authorities to exercise restraint.
Challenging the basic structure of the Constitution and articulating the supremacy of the Parliament to amend it by disregarding the Supreme Court judgment means challenging the Constitution itself.
When the country's Vice President does it, the top functionaries of the government, including the President and Prime Minister of India, who are bound by oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, should have come forward to uphold the Constitution.
But their silence on the matter was indeed troublesome and signaled that they acquiesced to what Dhankar had said.
During the inauguration of the new Parliament building, the text of the Constitution circulated officially did not have the words 'secular' and socialist' in the Preamble.
When opposition members of Parliament pointed this out, the Modi government offered a clarification that they had circulated the original Constitution and not the amended one which had included the words 'secular' and 'socialist'.
There was no rationale for doing so, and the government should have circulated the Constitution as it currently exists.
It was quite disturbing that Bibek Debroy, Chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, twisted a University of Chicago Law School study, flagging, among others, that the "mean lifespan" of written constitutions across the world since 1789 is 17 years and pleaded for doing away with India's Constitution and replacing it with a new one.
Also read: Modi and his new Parliament: A few lessons
In my Newsclick article 'Has the Constitution Failed Us or Have We Failed the Constitution' published on August 20, 2023, I scanned Debroy's arguments and found them shallow.
“K.J. Alphons, a BJP member of Parliament, moved a private member's resolution to remove the word 'socialist' from the Preamble of the Constitution (and replace it with the word 'equitable').
For some strange reason, he even questions the meaning of the words enshrined in the Preamble of the Constitution— socialist, secular, democratic, justice, liberty and equality— and doubts their relevance to our times.
The intent of what Debroy wrote was obviously to rescind the Constitution of India which, according Granville Austin, is more a social and economic document than a legal one.
Those social and economic aspects of the Constitution of India protect the rights of the poor and those exploited in the name of caste, tribe or gender. It also safeguards the rights of minorities.
Rescinding the Constitution or changing it means considerably weakening the architecture of safeguards for the deprived sections, including tribals and religious and linguistic minorities.
Such lingering apprehensions are now actuating people to come to the forefront and make it an electoral issue so that parties and people are mobilised to defeat in elections those who pose a threat to the Constitution, the fundamental law of the land.
What people are doing now should have been done by the President of India and those occupying high offices after taking the oath "to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution".
We have a shining example set by the then President of India K.R. Narayanan who, in the face of determined attempts by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government to review the Constitution, asked in his speech delivered on the occasion of the golden jubilee of the Indian Republic in 2000, "We have to consider whether it is the Constitution that has failed us or whether it is we who have failed the Constitution."
Those ringing words had the desired impact and there was pressure on Prime Minister Vajpayee to pay heed to the wise words of Narayanan and desist from reviewing the Constitution.
In fact, Vajpayee appointed a commission not to review the Constitution but to review the working of the Constitution. Thus, President Narayanan acted as per his oath "to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution" and his utterances negated the plan to review the Constitution and saved it.
“For some strange reason, Debroy even questions the meaning of the words enshrined in the Preamble of the Constitution— socialist, secular, democratic, justice, liberty and equality— and doubts their relevance to our times.
His enduring legacy should have been followed by the incumbent President at a time when BJP leaders are toying with the idea that Modi on assuming office as Prime Minister for a third term after winning 400 plus seats will change the Constitution.
The fact that such leadership is not shown by the incumbent of the highest office of the republic, has led civil society and political parties to spearhead a movement to make the issue of saving the Constitution a crucial poll issue.
In doing so, they are echoing the words of B.R. Ambedkar who, in his last speech in the Constituent Assembly as the Chairman of its Drafting Committee, had presciently stated, "On the 26th of January 1950, India would be a democratic country in the sense that India from that day would have a government of the people, by the people and for the people".
Then he asked, "What would happen to her democratic Constitution? Will she be able to maintain it or will she lose it again?"
“During the inauguration of the new Parliament building, the text of the Constitution circulated officially did not have the words 'secular' and socialist' in the Preamble.
Seventy-four years after those apprehensions were expressed, people of India are asking, "What would happen to her democratic Constitution if Modi comes back to power on securing 400 plus seats?"
The answer to it lies in people's resolve to defeat the BJP in the hustings for saving the Constitution and without paying any attention to the hollow assertions of Modi that even if Ambedkar comes back he cannot change the Constitution or Amit Shah's declaration that BJP would not even remove the word "secular' from the Preamble.