When the Indian republic inaugurated itself on January 26, 1950, it was a major historic transformation in our nation’s journey towards the emancipation of its masses. The enactment of the Constitution of India was a great achievement as it established political equality among the differently situated citizens of our vast country and placed safeguards for the vulnerable sections of the society. The Constitution also placed a great task before the nation: to graduate to social and economic equality on the foundations of political equality. Unfortunately, our country is witnessing a retreat from the promises of the Constitution under the rule of an ideology which always held contempt for our Constitution and despised equality.
Article 14 of the Constitution made equality the cornerstone of our life as a nation. The Modi regime has been systematically denying equality before the law or equal protection of the law to certain sections of society in the most illegal fashion. The Citizenship (Amendment) Act is one big example of this which introduced religion as a criterion for granting citizenship while openly discriminating against one religion. The RSS-BJP regime is trying to establish a “single homogenous nationhood”, another name for a Hindu Rashtra.
The crimes and hate being incentivised against minority communities in this process are cutting through the ideal of political equality defeating the labours and dreams of freedom fighters. While putting the draft constitution to vote, Dr Ambedkar pointed out a significant contradiction for the future republic. That contradiction was that after January 26, 1950, “in politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality.” The gap between political democracy, where one person meant one vote, and social and economic democracy troubled Dr Ambedkar. He asked the assembly how long we will continue with this contradiction in the life of our nation before we realise the goal of one person, one vote, one value. Social discrimination based on caste and gender clouded this cherished vision of Dr. Ambedkar as much as economic inequality. On the other hand, the RSS upholds the Chaturvarna system of social division, which subjugates workers to slavery and wants to confine women to the household.
Economic inequality and concentration of wealth have grown exponentially under the RSS-BJP regime. The idea of social and economic equality, which was a guide to our freedom fighters, has developed cracks under Hindutva Capitalism. Our Constitution also provided an administrative roadmap for a country of India’s magnitude. Constituent Assembly debated such provisions and envisaged a federal polity for the country sensitive to our rich linguistic and regional diversity. However, the RSS has always been obsessed with homogeneity instead of unity. Unity in diversity is unacceptable to the RSS as it seeks to flatten out varieties of language, faith, dress, food habits and so on. This makes the federal system indigestible to the RSS-BJP regime resulting in ruthless encroachments on the powers of the state. Similarly, being a totalitarian organisation, the separation of powers between different organs of state - the legislature, the executive and the judiciary – is contrary to RSS ideology.
At the end, the Preamble to the Constitution declares India to be a Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic. India under Modi has not performed on any of these characteristics from the Preamble. Our sovereignty is being compromised by increasing dependency on the US-led global order. The socialist traits of our system, like representation, social justice and a strong public sector, are being erased. The de-facto official status of a particular religion is replacing secularism. As for democracy, its vitals like free and fair elections, freedom of speech and expression, and right to dissent are being done away with. Under Modi, attempts are on to displace respect and reverence with hate and contempt. Saving our republic needs solidarities. We must build them to confront the idea of a unitary, authoritarian, illiberal India. If we are to protect the solemn promise we made on January 26, 1950, when we declared ourselves a Republic, we must defeat Hindutva Capitalism. Hindutva Capitalism must go if liberty, fraternity, equality and justice are to survive.
D raja
General Secretary, CPI