Millions of true and innocent Indians are heartily celebrating the Constitution Day on this 26th November, 2020. Led by the visionary, prophet and the Chairman of the Drafting Committee Dr.B.R.Ambedkar, it was adopted on 26th November, 1949 by the Constituent Assembly under the Chairmanship of Dr.Rajendra Prasad! 71 years have rolled by and we are seeing the Constitution today as it was fearfully and prophetically predicted by Dr.Babasaheb Ambedkar. His fears have become reality thanks to the obnoxiously aggressive tinkering and unconstitutionalising acts of the Constitution by none other than the fascist regime led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his lieutenants in the States. Just prior to entering the Parliament after assuming the mantle of Prime Ministership, he reverently bowed and kissed the steps leading to the Parliament! While majority of the Indians including the majority of the oppositions would have been bewitched to see his act with admiration, some would have viewed this with suspicion as yet another political drama! Suspicion was not without substance and the past acts of Mr.Narendra Modi as CM of Gujarat were the testimony.
The
Constitution Day has come to be celebrated with much more fanfare only after
Mr.Modi became the Prime Minister of India and none foresaw that he would do
his best to make the worst against the Constitution! Not that there was never an assault on the
Constitution. The simplest example is
the imposition of the President Rule in the States by the party whichever was
in power in the Centre. Invoking Emergency by the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi
was yet another glaring example. There are umpteen number of instances which
need no mention. Constitution has been
grossly misused and abused by the Legislature, Executive and Judiciary in
tandem, if not in all times. When we
talk about Judiciary, some of the Judges- not necessarily all- have their own
interpretation not in tune with the spirit of the Constitution or the spirit of
the laws enacted by the Parliament but according to their own whims and fancies
and interpretations throwing the
legislatively well-intended social obligations to the winds and crossing the
boundaries of the laws. The dangers go on unabated with the Supreme Court
itself having been a silent spectator over many of the executive oppressions
and much to the dismay of millions of its Citizens it has sadly and unfortunately
become an Executive Court -as rightly coined with by someone- during the last
about 6 years. As regards the misuse and
abuse of the Constitution irrespective of its goodness or badness, Dr.B.R.Ambedkar echoed his deep concern on
25-11-1949:“However good a Constitution may be, it is sure to turn out bad
if those who are called to work it, happen to be a bad lot. However bad a Constitution may be, it may
turn out to be good if those who are called to work it, happen to be good lot.” Constitution of any country is merely a
paper-document and it lives to the goodness of the people only when it is in
the safe hands of men who keep the
interest of the country above any self-centric sectarianism and
parochialism.
After
Dr.B.R.Ambedkar wound up his speech, Dr.Rajendra Prasad, the Chairman of the
Constituent Assembly echoed on 25-11-1949 the same fear with same prophetic
warning: “..if the people who are elected are capable and men of
character and integrity, they would be able to make the best even of a
defective Constitution. If they are
lacking in these, the Constitution cannot help the country. After all, a Constitution like a machine is
lifeless thing. It acquires life
because of the men who control it and
operate it, and India needs today nothing more than a set of honest men who will
have the interest of the country before them.” Does the country have such honest men is a million
dollar question now, more so, after ascension of throne by Modi ji. So many anti-people laws, anti-labour laws and
pro-corporate laws have been enacted with an alarming speed bull-dozing the
oppositions during the last 6 years; democracy has been crippled by
overshadowing the Parliament; the independent Constitutional organs have been
suppressed and suffocated in order to force them to dance to the tunes of
political power; Judiciary, particularly the Supreme Court, has been cornered and coerced to become the
political master’s voice in most of the sensitive cases, if not all.
Now
the constitution is slowly but steadily torn apart by the Government at the
Centre and so done by the BJP-ruled States with no qualm of conscience for
personal liberty of the people, particularly those who criticize the
anti-people policies and unconstitutional acts of the Government, SCs &
STs, OBCs, minorities , migrant labourers, and farmers (particularly farm
labourers). Freedom of Press has become
a major casualty. The ruling BJP Government
is blind enough to embrace even the overt and declared culprits from the other
parties to enhance the audibility of its voice.
No principle of equality or equity!
Why is this pathetic situation?
The Governments over the decades have not focused more attention in
providing education to the masses, unprivileged and underprivileged Indians
because the rulers want the masses to follow them like sheep and not to
rationally think and question.
Dr.B.R.Ambedkar was emphatic in granting the adult franchise with
uniqueness of “One Man, One Vote and One Value” This inviolable and invaluable right is glaringly
grabbed by the political goons in the election booths with no police to arrest
and no court to punish them. There were
instances of SC/ST people’s hamlets totally surrounded in the 17th
Lok Sabha elections by the political goons in order to prevent them from
exercising their franchise and this happens in every election in one part or
other of the country. Names of voters
mysteriously are missing from the Voters’ List! Where is democracy and it has
become a mockery in the hands of quacks!
The
untoward, illegal and unconstitutional happenings in our country with police
turning its Nelson’s eyes or clandestinely joining with the hooligans against
the peaceful protesters and media people are all the unholy indicators of the
mangling of the Constitution by the power-that-be with muteness of the highest
judiciary. It all happens because our
Judiciary is not independent and courageous to protect and uphold the
Constitution and the Rule of Law.
Mr.B.M.Gupte, one of the leading members of the Constituent Assembly
rightly remarked how the dictators could wreck the Constitution: “The
Weimar Constitution was said to be a model democratic Constitution of the time
but it was soon wrecked by Hitler and out of its ashes arose a terrible
dictatorship which plunged the world into a devastating war. So it is
not the Constitution that matters nor the people who make it, but it is the men
who work the Constitution and the spirit in which they work it. Any Constitution may be good on the paper,
but its success depends upon the manner in which it is worked.”
It
is a widely accepted tested-fact all over the world that the intellectuals are
the ones who could do a lot for their country provided they are honest.
Perverted intellectuals cause irreparable damage to our country’s all
round growth because of their utter
selfishness. Dr.B.R.Ambedkar in his
famous thesis, ‘Annihilation of Caste’ has highlighted the role of the
intellectuals: Said he, “Whether you accept the theory of the great man
as the maker of history or whether you do not, this much you will have to
concede that in every country the intellectual class is the most influential
class, if not the governing class. The
intellectual class is the class which can foresee, it is the class which can
advise and give lead. In no country does
the mass of the people live the life of intelligent thought and action. It is largely imitative and follows the
intellectual class. There is no
exaggeration in saying that the entire destiny of a country depends upon its
intellectual class. If the intellectual
class is honest, independent and disinterested it can be trusted to take the
initiative and give a proper lead when a crisis arises. It is only a means and the use of means
depends upon the ends which an intellectual person pursues. An intellectual man can be a good man, be a
band of high-souled persons, ready to help, ready to emancipate erring humanity
or it may easily be a gang of crooks of a body of advocates of narrow clique
from which it draws its support.”
The most disturbing question is whether our country is having honest,
independent and disinterested intellectual class. The answer is a banging ‘No’ as the so called
intellectuals in the three organs of the Government and the paid-media in the
fourth estate have proved by their dereliction of duties enjoined upon them, utter
failures and abominable misdeeds.
In the backdrop of the above, one can safely conclude that we have the best Constitution but has been in the hands of worst men. It is worth quoting Dr.B.R.Ambedkar: “I feel that it is workable, it is flexible and it is strong enough to hold the country together both in peace time and in war time. Indeed, if I may say so, if things go wrong under the new Constitution, the reason will not be that we had a bad Constitution. What we will have to say is that Man was vile.”The RSS led BJP is very aggressive to appropriate Dr.B.R.Ambedkar but not to adhere to his avowed ideals. This double-standard has to be understood by the Indian citizenry. It is for the people, more particularly the democracy-loving educated, spiny media and honest intellectuals to identify and expose who those vile men are, save the Constitution from the ongoing wreckage and the menacing clutches of the evil politicians.
Author: Amarnathan Jaison
(General secretary Dr. Ambedkar world federation of Employees associations, General Secretary of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Rationalist Youth Movement (ARMY). Prolific writer and author of 35 books on Babasaheb Dr. B.R. Ambedkar)
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