Demanding a New Constitution-Why?

Demanding a New Constitution: Why? Ram Puniyani Dr. Bibek Debroy is the Chief of the economic advisory council of the Prime Minister, obviously very close to the centers of power in more sense than one. He recently (August 15) in an article in a major news paper questioned the continuation of the present Constitution. For him this is not the same Constitution which was adopted after Independence as it has been amended many times. As per him, since the Supreme Court has ruled that the executive cannot change its basic structure and it has outlived its time, we should prepare for a new constitution. More importantly he says this Constitution is a colonial legacy and questions various provisions of the same, particularly the values of socialism, secularism, justice, equality and liberty. The PMO has officially distanced itself from the opinions expressed by Debroy but the purpose of raising doubts and opposition to the Indian Constitution has been raised successfully. Already the ideologues and leaders from Hindu right have been asserting that this constitution is a colonial legacy, based on the Government of India Act of 1935 of the British and does not reflect the Indian values. The right wing Hindu nationalists were never comfortable with this Constitution, which is not a mere continuation of the GOI act of 1935, but prepared after painstaking debates for nearly three years and meticulously put forward by the Chief of drafting committee of Indian Constitution Dr. Ambedkar. The President of Constituent Assembly Dr. Rajendra Prasad and most members of the Constituent Assembly (CA) were the ones who identified with the anti colonial struggle of Indian people. It was this struggle which also was crucial in the formation of ‘India as a Nation’. In contrast to those who stood for plural, inclusive Indian nationalism, the religious nationalists stood away from this great struggle and also opposed the values which emerged with this mass movement. As the Constitution was implemented the unofficial mouthpiece of RSS declared that “Three days after the CA passed Constitution the RSS English organ, Organizer on November 30, 1949, in an editorial rejected it and demanded Manusmriti as Constitution. It read: “But in our Constitution, there is no mention of the unique Constitutional development in Ancient Bharat. Manu’s laws were written long before Lycurgus of Sparata or Solon of Persia. To this day his laws as enunciated in the Manusmriti excite the admiration of the World and elicit spontaneous obedience and conformity. But to our Constitution pundits that means nothing.`` The opposition to the Constitution started being articulated more sternly with the rise of Hindu right. As Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Government came to power in 1998, it appointed Venkatchaliah Commission for reviewing the Constitution. The strong opposition to the commission was to the detriment to the BJP led coalition to implement it. This opposition to the Constitution keeps manifesting itself in diverse ways. When K. Sudarshan became the Sarsanghachalak (Supreme Dictator) of RSS he openly declared that the Indian Constitution is based on Western values and should be replaced by one based on Indian Holy books, indicating Manusmriti. He asserted "We need not fight shy of altering the constitution completely, having already amended it a hundred times," And that France had done the revision four times.There is nothing sacrosanct about it. In fact, it is the root cause of most of the country's ills." Times and over again; one or the other worthy from BJP-RSS stable do make statements of this type. Recently as the opposition alliance formed I.N.D.I.A many from this politics came to oppose it on the ground that the word was given by the British. One BJP Rajya Sabha MP. Naresh Bansal questioned the place of very word India in the Constitution, as it is a symbol of slavery. It is also related to their concept of decolonization of minds as put forward by RSS General Secretary Dattatray Hosabale, “The Euro-centric ideas, systems and practices, the western world view were still ruling us for decades. Independent nation didn’t shirk them totally,” Debrroy and the RSS stable merged on the point of opposition to the Constitution. While RSS combine focuses more on its Western nature, Debroy lets the cat out of the bag, when he questions the values of Liberty, Equality, secularism and the like. The colonial legacy argument is akin to the organizations like that of ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ of West Asian countries, which opposes the values of liberty and equality on the ground that they are Western. Debroy and apologists of the present regime are disturbed by the concept of equality, equality between people of different religions, castes and gender. RSS combine projects the era of Manusmriti as Golden Past as caste and gender hierarchy was core of the society that time. True, colonialism opened the path of changing the social structure in a very deep way, it is during this period that caste and gender hierarchy started loosening their grip, it is during this period that workers could make their organizations (Narayan Meghaji Lokhande, Com Singarvelu), it is during this period the likes of Bhagat Singh articulated the exploitation by the ruling classes, which needs to be done away with. Colonial period cannot be looked at as black or white. It has shades of gray. While colonial powers plundered our wealth, they also had to open up institutions which were to articulate the “Equality of Man (and Women)”. RSS combine and the advisor of Prime Minister though are giving different arguments for doing away with this constitution; in essence they are opposed to Equality, which was the hallmark of the values propounded by the likes of Bhagat Singh, the struggles launched by Ambedkar and the overarching National movement. Till 1990s the country did try to pursue the path of struggle for equality, with the Indian Constitution as the fulcrum and modernization policies of Nehru. Now we seem to be moving in the reverse gear. With Temple and cow dominating the scene, the path towards inequality is being carved by invoking the ancient values, the Brahamanical interpretation of the past (Labeled as civilizational values) and undermining of what we achieved through the greatest ever mass movement in the World, the ‘Freedom Struggle of India’. All the oppositions to the Indian Constitution are a mere reuse to push the country back to the era where inequality, (caste, class and gender) was sanctified by religion (Brahmanism)!