Lok Sabha and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi holds a copy of the Constitution while addressing an election rally.
Credit: PTI Photo
The 2024 Lok Sabha elections saw the Constitution being drawn as the core election agenda by the I.N.D.I.A. bloc. It worked as reflected in the election results of Uttar Pradesh. The Maharashtra election is witnessing a similar battle.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi spoke on how “democracy exists in the country because of the Constitution. Institutions in India have also emerged from it.” Even while the Constitution was being debated immediately after Independence, a great deal of attention was being paid to the imagination of democracy.
On November 25, 1946, in Constituent Assembly debates, B R Ambedkar saw opposition to the Constitution from the communists on the ground that instead of parliamentary democracy they wanted a dictatorship of the proletariat, and the socialists, on the other hand, wanted the Constitution to ‘give them the freedom to nationalise or socialise all private property without payment of compensation’, and also wanted the Fundamental Rights to ‘be absolute’.
Ambedkar considered the Constitution as an important instrument for achieving actual democracy, and to ensure that India does not fall under a dictatorship.
He showed what was needed to maintain democracy: First, ‘hold fast to constitutional methods of achieving our social and economic objectives’; second, avoid ‘bhakti or hero-worship’ because it ‘is a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship’, and; third, recognise ‘liberty, equality and fraternity as the principles of life’, as ‘a union of trinity’ working together and not separated.
Mahavir Tyagi, the member of the Constituent Assembly from the United Provinces expressed his fear from the politicians who ‘begin to live on democracies’ and for whom ‘statecraft becomes their own source of living’.
Democratic politics for him had to be voluntary, and that is why he lamented during the Constituent Assembly debates that ‘If this democracy is also to be run by such persons who will have nothing else to fall back upon, and who live on Ministries or on the memberships of the Parliament, then this democracy is doomed, I am sure’.
The idea of democracy, of whether liberal bourgeois nature or a nascent postcolonial State, and the Constitution as its embodiment was debated extensively before the adoption of the Constitution.
It went beyond the mere relationship of the State and its citizens and tried to define democracy through elements of even federalism or the relationship of the Centre and states was seen.
In fact, Ambedkar arguing on the issue of federalism in the Constituent Assembly remarked that ‘The basic principle of Federalism is that the Legislative and Executive authority is partitioned between the Centre and the States not by any law to be made by the Centre but by the Constitution itself. This is what Constitution does.
The States under our Constitution are in no way dependent upon the Centre for their legislative or executive authority. The Centre and the States are co-equal in this matter’.
The Constitution is a live statement of its times. Its dynamism is reflected in the very fact that it can be altered, and it has been altered so many times through amendments. For instance, the ‘statement of objects and reasons appended to the Constitution (Forty-fourth Amendment) Bill, 1976’ stated how a Constitution in order ‘to be living must be growing’.
To achieve ‘the objective of socio-economic revolution’ it had become important to provide clarity to the goals of the Constitution and, therefore, ‘amend the Constitution to spell out expressly the high ideals of socialism, secularism and the integrity of the nation’.
Changes have been made time and again, and the onus is always on those proposing the changes to ensure that the ideas defined in the Constitution are enhanced by those changes. Whether the interest of masses is kept in mind when those changes are enacted remain a matter of debate.
The Constitution is about presenting a vision as well as taking it further through policy decisions to actualise that vision. To keep it alive as indicated in the statement of objects of the 42nd amendment, it is important that the Constitution is taken beyond the confines of political rhetoric.
To breach the boundaries created over a period by the political elite it needs to be taken to the masses. The role of politics does not get confined to the election speeches. The political forces who want to save the Constitution and its essence need to go beyond. The bridging of gap between the Constitution and masses becomes the most important political task.
The Lok Sabha elections showed that it matters for people when it comes to taking away their rights. The 42nd amendment was clearly an effort to clear path for socio-economic development.
The recent connection people found with the Constitution was through the hope of better socio-economic prospects as well as possibilities of protection from violation of their basic rights of life, liberty, and equality.
It is palpably visible that there are identifiable points through which the disjunct between the Constitution and masses can be overcome. However, it does not seem to have become a full-fledged political mandate of political organisations wanting to safeguard it.
There are differing views from political organisations on the Constitution and democracy, but those who see accumulation of wealth in a few hands as a problem while the majority languishes in poverty and unemployment it is important that the Constitution becomes an instrument to conscientize masses about how it envisioned equality and liberty.
If political forces feel that liberty to express, opine or fiercely disagree is the right of every individual or organisation, and it is the responsibility of the State to protect these rights, then they need to ensure that people are made aware of this imagination of the State.
This faith in the Constitution as the possible cornerstone of safeguarding the rights of every citizen, and, most importantly, the marginalised sections of society, has to become the core political agenda.
However, robust and long-lasting political agendas are not made through occasional election pitches, it must become an organisational priority, which does not seem to happen. The election pitches on the Constitution and democracy need to be substituted with organisational work to make people own the Constitution and safeguard it.
(Ravi Kumar is Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, South Asian University.)
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.