The inconvenient truths on the Kartavya Path

The first major decision of this government after assuming power in 2014 was to dissolve the Planning Commission, so much for the ideas of Subhas Babu

"Another sign of slavery has been erased forever." The Prime Minister made this claim on the occasion of changing the name of Raj Path, the famous road passing close to Parliament and Rashtrapati Bhavan, to Kartavya Path.

Which phase of slavery, he didn't clarify. Because in his first address in Parliament, he had talked about 1200 years of slavery. But the road he was renaming has a much more recent origin. Even then, was the road known as Raj Path christened so by the British? It was Kingsway, then. After the departure of the British from India, the government of independent India named it Raj Path. Raj Path, which is exactly parallel to the Jan Path road.

Also Read: 'Rajpath' erased from signages mounted around India Gate hexagon

Here Raj means 'State', not connected to 'British Raj', which referred to colonial rule. The road was named after the people of independent India had established their own rule. Theirs was a fight for home rule. It is assumed that there should be a relationship between the state and the people. What could be that? The state has to ensure that the rights of the people are secured. All the state's resources must be used or deployed to achieve that. It means that the state has to always care about the people. The people will always be above the state.

After India became independent from British rule, it became a republic, not a monarchy. The people are sovereign. The state is the creation of the people. It is accountable to the people. Not the other way around. People are not the creatures of the state. Then what is the intent behind renaming the road as Kartavya Path? If you remember the speeches given on different occasions in the last eight years by the PM and other ministers, then its meaning becomes clear.

This government has been telling us time and again that the people of this country have wasted the last 75 years by crying out for their rights. The country has not been able to develop rapidly because the people of this country have only cared about their rights. The time has come for them to think about their duty toward the state. If the country has to develop in the next 25 years, if it wants to become a Vishwa Guru, then people should stop harping on their rights. Now, even the Human Rights Commission has started saying that the concept of rights is harmful to national security.

The concept of duty is very seductive. One can be reminded of the Gita. After all, the Lord has said that you can only perform your duty. Do not worry about the result. You can embarrass people by reminding them about duty. If you want, you can also use Muktibodh to establish the primacy of duty. Didn't he say that you have taken so much, given very little. The country is dead, you remain alive! Was he not saying that we should not ask for our rights and worry about our duty towards the country?

The country or nation cannot be seen, but the government is omnipresent. It claims that it speaks on behalf of the country. According to it, you should stand patiently in front of the bank without asking any questions when it carries out demonetisation. The state can declare that the people have no right to privacy. They have to expose themselves fully before the state when demanded. Now even in the Supreme Court, there are judges who can say that only those who pay taxes can expect anything from the government or the state. Isn't it true that only 4 per cent of the people in this country pay taxes, a judge asked. The lawyer had to remind him that the number of people paying direct tax can be small, but indirect tax is paid by everyone. So will the rights now be given to people based on the amount of tax they pay? Does the woman on the pavement have no rights at all?

Also Read: From Kingsway to Kartavya Path, a brief history of the iconic boulevard

The naming of 'Kartavyapath' was portrayed as a declaration of victory over history. It was the joy of a pseudo-war. A war in which all you have to move is your tongue. This type of war is being waged all over the country. Names are being changed. Allahabad is now Prayagraj. The name of Mughalsarai is Deen Dayal Upadhyay Railway Station. Faizabad is now extinct. Gurgaon is Gurugram. It is as if a war has been declared on these names and symbols. The victorious army leaves its mark on the paths it rampages through. They are the signs of its triumph. Can one city, one street, one road fight against this army? Now such armies have become active in every city and town.

The government can change the name with a pen. It knows well that it doesn't require much. And by doing so, it can claim that it has changed history. Or created history. This daily diet of history creation is so intoxicating. The prime minister also turned the renaming of a road into a war-winning event. Media, too, was indulgent. As if it were a moment like 1857 or 1947. Along with this, another history was claimed to have been created by erecting a statue of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose under an umbrella that had been almost empty for decades.

The Prime Minister said that the country fell behind other countries by not following the path of Subhas Bose. But we know while thinking about how the country should develop, Subhas Babu had envisioned a planning commission as the vehicle for the cause. He was then the leader and president of the Congress party. As the Congress president, he had requested Jawaharlal Nehru to preside over the committee he had formed for this purpose. The same Nehru, after India's Independence, established the Planning Commission according to the wishes of Subhas Babu.

The first major decision of the present government after assuming power in 2014 was to dissolve this Planning Commission. So much for the ideas of Subhas Babu. Everyone knows the name of the body that was erected on the ruins of the Planning Commission after its demolition. It is known as NITI Aayog. But NITI is a short form of 4 English words: "National Institute for Transformation of India", that is, an institution created to transform India. When there is already an institution in the name of the body, do you need the word commission added too? Can you have a name like 'Institute Commission' or 'Commission of institution'? Is it not an absurdity? So the institution that Subhas Babu had proposed for the development of India, which was established by his friend Nehru after becoming the prime minister, was dissolved by today's Prime Minister.

While the Planning Commission was there to protect the federal character of India, the NITI Aayog is a tool to destroy it completely. The Planning Commission had Independence. It drew in the expertise of people working in different walks of life, speaking freely. It could claim autonomy, but NITI Ayog doesn't even have a voice of its own. It is an instrument to legitimise whatever the government decides or does.

Similarly, an attempt was made to call October 2 'Cleanliness Day' and Christmas 'Good Governance Day'. On the occasion of the centenary of Gandhi's satyagraha, an attempt was made to introduce the word swachhagraha instead of satyagraha. Before that, suddenly, we saw the word Divyang everywhere instead of handicapped or physically challenged. We accepted it without question. Without considering the deceit hidden in this word. The word Divyang is meaningless. But we never questioned it. "What's in a name," the playwright had asked. But the politician knows that for human beings, sometimes the name is everything.

Names, statues, and buildings have symbolic significance in the imagination of any nation. Images and symbols are erased and engraved. While doing so with the past, we reveal our understanding of the present. Symbols are our language. The statue of the Emperor of Britain near the India Gate in the centre of Delhi was irrelevant after Independence. When it was removed from there, all that remained was the canopy under which the statue stood.

Also Read: Explained: What is the process to rename Delhi roads?

Can the image of a national hero be placed under a canopy which once had the statue of the oppressor of this country? Om Thanvi rightly wrote, "The emperor's statue was removed. The canopy remained empty. Time and again the proposal was made to put a statue of the Father of the Nation in it. It was rejected every time. It was seen as a cheap move, beneath the stature of Bapu. But that work was done yesterday. The empty canopy was a sign of the oppressors leaving, a testimony to the free air that the nation breathed after that. To put an idol of Netaji there is to reduce his stature."

When someone says that Subhas was forgotten and people who have matured in independent India like me do not answer, it means that we are deliberately allowing a lie to gain a foothold. I remember that on the occasion of the silver jubilee of Indian Independence, I gave an emotional speech hailing Subhas Babu as my beloved leader. I even made the audience chant his favourite slogan and returned home with the first prize. In the first 25 years after Independence, of which 17 belonged to Nehru, who kept the memory of Subhash alive? Then why did the media, where people of my age and above still work, not call out the national lie that is being circulated about Subhas being forgotten? As if it is the present regime which is rescuing him and others from oblivion?

It was not a coincidence that when the name Kartavya was pasted on the path people are supposed to walk on, raids by the Income Tax sleuths were taking place on the premises of organisations like the OXFAM and CPR. OXFAM works with the people in many ways to help them demand their rights from the state. The CPR does studies and research to keep people informed about their status in the country. It makes people make informed decisions. They make the RAJ accountable and responsible. Subhash Babu, as president of the Congress party, declared that he dreamt of an India where people would enjoy, without any restrictions, their fundamental rights, right to free opinion and expression, right to associate and assemble, right to conscience, right to freely practice and profess their religion and the right of the minorities to be protected.

There is a statue of Subhash Babu standing in the centre of Delhi, but there is no life in it. While it was being installed, it could not cry that the rights wanted for my dear people have been taken away from them. Kartavya Path passes by him. The statue can only watch silently the state freeing itself from its duty towards the people of the country. The state turning into their master. There has remained only one voice in the country. Only the master has rights. Everyone else is only a throat with no voice of her own. The voice from those throats is that of the owner. This is what we have done to our republican consciousness after 75 years of Independence!

(The writer teaches at Delhi University)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.