Constitution Day: Why November 26 demands introspection, not celebration?

The Preamble of our Constitution solemnly states: WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR 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 of opportunity;

and to promote among them all FRATERNITY

assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation; IN OUR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY this twenty-sixth day of November, 1949, DO HEREBY ADOPT, ENACT AND GIVE TO OURSELVES THIS CONSTITUTION.

The Constituent Assembly

The Constituent Assembly held its first sitting on December 9, 1946, and wrapped up its work on November 26, 1949, after spending 1,083 days in discussion and deliberation to draft a constitution for independent India.

The Constituent Assembly was a part of the cabinet mission plan. Responding to the growing demand for independence, the British government realised it was time to wind up shop in India and, as a step in that direction, sent the cabinet mission consisting of three cabinet ministers, namely Pethick Lawrence, Stafford Cripps and AV Alexander, to India.

It had two issues on its agenda: setting up a Constituent Assembly to draft a Constitution for independent India and institute an Interim government from the Constituent Assembly. While many of the mission’s proposals did not receive a favourable response from the leaders of the freedom movement, its two principal ideas fructified and thus we had a Constituent Assembly, set up with Rajendra Prasad as its president and an interim government headed by Jawaharlal Nehru, which was sworn in on September 2,1946.

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The Constituent Assembly started functioning on December 9, 1946. Subsequently, the Constituent Assembly became the provisional Parliament till a new Parliament was constituted by holding the first general elections, based on universal adult suffrage in independent India, a heady experience, a first of its kind in the 5 000 years of our history!

Drafting the Constitution

The Constituent Assembly consisted of elected members as well as nominated members representing various shades of opinion. Many eminent freedom fighters found a place in the Assembly, who influenced and enriched its proceedings and proposals considerably. While several sub-committees dealt with specific issues, a drafting committee headed by BR Ambedkar oversaw the drafting of the Constitution.

It was the drafting committee which processed the proposals received from the sub-committees and codified them into a legal framework. The provisions thus codified were intensely discussed and debated by members; several amendments were carried out, eventually leading to the emergence of a draft Constitution that was enacted and adopted on November 26, 1949.

When the draft Constitution came into force on January 26, 1950, India became a Republic, with an elected head of state for the first time in all its recorded history.

Constitution Day

The nation celebrates the event as the Republic Day with a grand show of its military might and cultural pageantry. But, it did not occur to any bigwig in the establishment to have a Constitution Day to commemorate November 26, the day the draft Constitution was enacted and adopted.

This idea was conceived by the NDA government in 2015. Thus, came the Constitution Day, also known as the Samvidhaan Diwas observed every year on November 26. It is a good initiative and there is no doubt about it. But, what is curious is that the event is handled by the ministry of social justice, while the Constitution comes under the purview of the ministry of justice! The intention behind the move is obviously to please the Dalits rather than to demonstrate respect for the Constitution.

Otherwise, this event should have been handled by the ministry of justice, which is the custodian of the statute book. How would it look like if the ministry of textiles, agriculture or civil aviation is roped in for this occasion?

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Irrespective of the ministry which handles the event, there is no denying the fact that the Constitution comes into focus on this day.

Obsession with symbolism

In schools and colleges across the country, the Constitution and its salient features, such as the Preamble, Fundamental Rights, Directive Principles, and Fundamental Duties, are discussed to foster awareness and understanding of the nation's principal parchment. But, is it enough to set aside just a day in junior educational institutions to reflect on the Constitution?

Does this gesture foster respect for the Constitution, let alone raise awareness of it? When do we come out of the obsession with symbolism? When do we learn to pay attention to substance?

The Constitution of India should be made part of the curriculum in higher education, such as engineering, medicine, and management, rather than just a lesson for tenth-grade students, who are not mature enough to understand its importance. But, no such move is on the anvil, though it is the Union Government which controls the curriculum of higher education in the country.

At the school level, teachers are not intellectually equipped to explain the salient features of the Constitution, nor students mature enough to understand its import. This is not just like another civics lesson!

Rule of law

Our Constitution deserves better than what it is getting from 'we the people'. Our Constitution is not just a legal document; it is a doctrine of faith reflecting the hopes and aspirations and even the fears and frustrations of the people. It was crafted by some of the best brains of the time who were genuinely fired by a zeal to build a brave new nation by making the Constitution an instrument to achieve that end. They drew inspiration from some of the leading Constitutions of the world.

That is how it has features, making it an engine capable of ushering in a just social order. In one stroke, it wiped out the infirmities suffered by we the people based on caste, creed, gender and estate since time immemorial.

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The rule of law is the abiding principle of the principal parchment of the soil. It declared all citizens as equals and seeks to give credit to an achieved status than acquired status. Our Constitution has the potential to become a rallying point to promote the unity and integrity of the nation, if we care to teach its values to our youngsters.

Knowing the Constitution

What prevents the state from making the Preamble a part of the prayer in every school across the country? Why can’t every student seeking entry to engineering, medicine and management read out the Preamble of the Constitution at the time of admission? We hardly see any parent buying a copy of the Constitution as a birthday gift for their children despite the fact that the Constitution is not an expensive book to buy. It costs much less than a movie ticket in a multiplex!

Unfortunately, we think of the Constitution only when our rights are infringed and not otherwise. How many educated people are aware of the chapter on fundamental duties enshrined in the Constitution?

Pawn to political parties

Of course, it would be straining credulity to exhort young minds to develop scientific temper, humanism, and the spirit of inquiry and reform when the prima donna of the ruling dispensation indulges in ritualistic fanfare at state events such as building inaugurations and foundation stone laying ceremonies!

It is equally incredulous to exhort young minds to safeguard public property and abjure violence when elected representatives who take an oath in the name of the Constitution resort to destruction of public property to express their protest over public policy which, in their view, is detrimental to public interest!

Today, we often see the sorry spectacle of ministers proclaiming their allegiance to sanatan dharma, which is in direct conflict with our constitutional values of liberty, equality, fraternity, justice, secularism, and scientific temper? Thus, it remains a symbolic gesture, an image building exercise for the biggies in the Government.

The Fundamental Rights are the cornerstone of the Constitution. While these rights are available to all citizens, in reality they are accessible to the educated, employed and entrepreneurial sections of society who constitute a small portion of the populace

It is an undeniable fact that the Constitution has been reduced to a pawn by the political parties. When the institutions of the Constitution become effeminate, what suffers is good governance, the welfare of the people and nation building.

Constitution did not fail us

We often blame the Constitution for all our ills; but the Constitution is not a person.

It is a doctrine and its efficacy depends to a large extent the way we work it out. So, it is not the Constitution that failed us; it is we who failed the Constitution. It is not that the Constitution is not without its foibles.

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The Fundamental Rights are the cornerstone of the Constitution. While these rights are available to all citizens, in reality they are accessible to the educated, employed and entrepreneurial sections of society who constitute a small portion of the populace. The rickshaw puller, the street vendor, the slum dweller, the domestic worker and the farm labour hardly have any use of these rights.

Making it relevant

How do we make the Constitution relevant to those who constitute a vast majority of the teeming millions of toiling masses in this country when they hardly have any use for these rights? There are many people who find it difficult to travel even to the district headquarters; that being so, can we imagine them knocking on the doors of the High Court, much less the Supreme Court, if their rights are infringed by the State? They hardly know there is something called the Constitution in the first place.

Existence precedes essence. When livelihood is still a big deal for millions of people, liberty is not relevant to them. In many cases, a Supreme Court judge and a junior civil judge have the same qualifications. But, not even a district judge can touch the Constitution; but the same judge can decide issues involving the Constitution when elevated to the High Court.

Why can’t the district courts tackle constitutional matters; at least the cases relating to fundamental rights can be dealt with by the sessions courts. But, that is not the case and nobody is thinking on these lines. Why is it so?

Therefore, it is important to understand that events like the Samvidhaan Diwas are more a symbolic gesture that does not carry much substance as far as the Constitution is concerned for another reason.

Constitution under strain

Today, many people in the country believe that the Constitution and the institutions created by it are increasingly under stress and strain due to the ideology of the party in power at the Centre. Institutions of the Constitution, such as the Parliament and the Election Commission, are losing their autonomy and are becoming handmaids of the Executive.

The Election Commission is the worst victim in the process. There is Opposition in Parliament to raise its voice, however feeble it is, to corner the Executive for its acts of commission and omission, though the Executive hardly pays any attention to the views of the Opposition.

The Opposition thinks that it must oppose the Executive all the time and the Executive thinks that it need not pay any heed to what the Opposition says. When everything is perceived as politically motivated, how can the Constitution and consensus come into the picture in our public discourse? Politicians do politics, what else do they do? We blame the politicians for all our plagues. And, what do we, the people, do? Fall an easy prey to political machinations! Isn’t selling the vote an unpardonable sin?

How do we sensitise the people in this context? How do we tackle the menace of money power and muscle power in elections, which make our democracy a mockery of sorts?

And, what is the role of the media in this sordid drama? The media has lost its vibrance as the principal agent of vigilance. Leading media organisations are owned by industrial houses which use their publications and channels as platforms to advance their business interests than to highlight issues of public interest. Today, people feel they need freedom from the press than freedom of the press.

Finally, the court has become a mute witness to the current drama of the absurd. It is under these unedifying circumstances, we observe the Constitution Day. Is it an occasion to celebrate or one to reflect on where we went wrong?

Such is the biased nature of the mainstream media's reporting and analysis; people are turning to social media for a better perspective and greater clarity on public issues, though social media is notfree from bias. But at least one can air one’s views on social media on issues of interest.

Finally, the court has become a mute witness to the current drama of the absurd. It is under these unedifying circumstances that we observe Constitution Day. Is it an occasion to celebrate or one to reflect on where we went wrong?

The good thing about this event is that it is not a public holiday to be spent in cinema halls or at picnic spots. It is a working day. One can choose to reflect rather than relax!