ALMOST a year after Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Ram is rashtra (Ram is the State) and dev is desh (the deity is the country) while consecrating the Ram temple in Ayodhya on January 22, 2024, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief, Mohan Bhagwat, made a highly preposterous statement that on that day last year asli azadi (real independence) was achieved by India.
Bhagwat did acknowledge that on August 15, 1947, India had obtained political independence but asli independence could not be achieved on that day and the country had to wait for Modi to consecrate the Ram temple. Incidentally, the temple stands at the very place where Babri mosque once stood before it was demolished in 1992 in the presence of top Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders. That act of demolition was held by the Supreme Court in its 2019 judgment as “an egregious violation of the rule of law”.
While Modi's statement identifying Ram with rashtra was an attempt to subvert the secular credentials of India to uphold the idea of a theocratic State, Bhagwat's above narrative constitutes an affront to the freedom fighters who fought for independence which India got on August 15, 1947 and the 75th anniversary of which was celebrated by the Modi regime in 2022.
How can a country get real independence by consecrating a place of worship? No one ever linked the independence of our country to the consecration of a place of worship.
Secularism upheld when Somnath temple was consecrated
Even the first President of India, Dr Rajendra Prasad, who participated in the consecration of Somnath temple in Gujarat on May 11, 1951, despite Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s advice not to do so, did not say that India’s real freedom was attained on that day in 1951.
In fact, on that occasion, Dr Prasad said, among other things, that harmony and unity among diverse faiths would deepen the culture of tolerance and acceptance and pave the way for what he called “the welfare of our nation and country and of every one of us”.
He, therefore, asserted, “This faith and conviction has impelled India to adopt the policy of secularism and to give an assurance that there shall be no discrimination on grounds of religion.”
He also flagged the point that ‘Sardar’ Vallabhbhai Patel envisioned the restoration of Somnath temple, representing the ancient faith of India, primarily to celebrate the restoration of Indian unity.
“By the grace of God,” Prasad remarked, “this dream of Sardar has been fulfilled to a certain extent” and proceeded to add, “But, it would have been realised fully only on the day when prosperity is restored to our people.”
Rajendra Prasad underlined the necessity of secularism and prosperity for our people while participating in the consecration of the Somnath temple.
Secularism trampled upon while consecrating the Ram temple
But in 2024, by equating Ram with rashtra and dev with desh, Prime Minister Modi trampled upon the secular dimensions of our country. And RSS Chief’s bizarre claim that with the consecration of the Ram temple on January 22, 2024 India got real independence constitutes a gross denigration of the vision and values of the freedom struggle.
Rahul's outrage and BJP's convoluted response
Such appalling negation of the vision of the freedom struggle outraged Rahul Gandhi to such an extent that he outrightly condemned Mohan Bhagwat for his denunciatory remarks. He then added that the fight against the BJP and the RSS is not fair because these two organisations have captured all institutions of the country and so the fight by the Indian National Congress is not against BJP and RSS alone but also against the Indian State.
BJP President J.P. Nadda responded to Rahul by saying that his fight against the Indian State put him in the category of so-called ‘urban naxals’ who he alleged had the same strategy and objective to act against the State. Such a version of Nadda is terribly convoluted and he should have cared to see the bare text of Article 12 of the Constitution which defines the State.
Meaning of ‘State’ under Article 12
Among other things, Article 12 states that “the State” includes the government and Parliament of India and the government and the legislature of each of the states and all local or other authorities within the territory of India or under the control of the government of India.
Therefore, the State refers to the government institutions governing the country and the officials and personnel operating those institutions. The words “other categories” in the Article within the broad rubric of the State have been interpreted by the Supreme Court to include any entity or entities that might be in the private domain but have got pervasive influence on people and citizens.
Those are also covered by the meaning of “State” within the scope of Article 12. So fighting against those institutions or entities captured by the BJP and the RSS and imperiling the life and liberties of the citizens and the very Constitution itself would mean fighting the Indian State.
When XYZ, representing someone, moves the court against the government of India, it is stated in the petition that ‘xyz versus Union of India’. Does it mean a fight against India? It is a fight against the State and not India.
The course curricula for students studying humanities in universities include the terms ‘State’, ‘nation’ and ‘government’ with a sharp focus on the points which persuasively demarcate the differences among them and underline the idea that those terms are not identical.
So Rahul Gandhi is constitutionally right in stating that the fight of Congress against the capturing of institutions by the BJP and the RSS is a fight against the Indian State.
Ambedkar's explanation of the State in the Constituent Assembly
In a profound sense, what Rahul Gandhi stated captures the vision of B.R. Ambedkar who, while replying to the discussion on Article 7 of the draft Constitution (corresponding to Article 12 of the Constitution) on November 25, 1948 illuminatingly outlined the meaning of State.
He said that for imposing a universal obligation on all authorities to safeguard fundamental rights guaranteed to people and citizens, a couple of words were used and he called those a “composite phrase such as ‘the State’”.
He went on to add that in the absence of such a “composite phrase” one might “keep on repeating every time, “the Central government, the provincial government, the state government, the municipality, the local board, the port trust, or any other authority”. That explanation of Ambedkar provided the rationale behind the usage of the word “State” in the Article.
Rahul's statement captures Ambedkar's vision
Therefore, Rahul’s statement that the Congress is fighting against the Indian State means the fight is against our country’s institutions which tragically have been captured by the BJP and the RSS.
Instead of naming each such institution, such as the Election Commission of India, the Enforcement Directorate, or the Income Tax department, he used, in the words of Ambedkar, a “composite phrase” which is nothing but the “Indian State”.
Very strikingly, as stated above, Ambedkar cited some of the examples of those institutions in the Constituent Assembly to explain “the State” constituting all the organs or authorities employed for governing the country.
Therefore, Rahul Gandhi’s statement that Congress is fighting against the Indian State reflects the vision of B.R. Ambedkar who was ridiculed by Amit Shah in the Parliament when he said, “It has become a fashion to say ‘Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar'. If one had taken God's name so many times, access to heaven for seven births would have been ensured.”