26, Jan 2018 | Teesta Setalvad

Every other day we hear utterances, from persons in high constitutional office, or from the fringe influencers that they have this driving urge, which is to repeal, or change, the Indian Constitution. Not too long ago, Ananthkumar Hegde, minister for skill development and management in the Modi government said, in a pre-election campaign meeting in Karnataka, “I respect the Constitution, but the Constitution has changed according to the times on many occasions in the past and it will change in the future. We are here to change the Constitution.”

Months before that his ideological mentor, in September 2017, Mohan Bhagwat of the RSS had said that the “Indian Constitution needs to align itself with ‘Indian’ values.”

Many have interpreted this as a clarion call for a return to a casteist and feudal hierarchical order that is non-egalitarian and discriminatory, be it on the basis of community, caste or gender. We live in difficult, some would say even dangerous times when the very existence of India as a sovereign democratic republic is under threat. From forces that occupy high office.

We have seen mob rule of different kinds operate in past months. If one kind of mob successfully lynches to death (or injures grievously) individuals of a minority faith or discriminated caste (the cases of Mohammad Akhlaq, Imtiyaz, Mohammad Ayub now add to a staggering 63 lynch deaths and the images of the Una floggings are etched in memory), the governments of the state and Centre have been sinister and silent spectators. India is indeed on the brink of severing every real manifestation to the rule of law as manifest in its Constitution.

This Republic Day then, January 26, 2018, sixty eight years after we consciously opted to become masters of our destiny and wrested sovereign power in our people, assumes especial significance. An erosion of India’s egalitarian and non-discriminatory modern ethos– that evolved through decades of the rigorous national movement and got manifest in the debates in the Constituent Assembly, which in turn brought into being our founding Book, the Constitution — threatens our fundamentals. A cultivated violent, mob culture, fomented by men in positions of power, is beating down decades of cultivated co-existence. It is challenging the rule of law as manifest within the Constitution. Some would argue even that already the Constitution has been rendered near redundant, a piece of paper.

If August 15, 1947 is the day we freed ourselves from foreign domination, January 26, 1950 was the day when we opted for a republican form of government that rests its sovereignty on its people. To overturn that is to overturn the very basis of our existence. January 26 was chosen for this day because on the same day, January 26, 1940, the consensus flag of the national movement, the tricolour was unfurled at the working session of the Indian National Congress and the resolution for Poorna Swaraj (total independence), adopted. The three different colours, saffron, white and green with the deep blue Dhamma Chakra (signifying both the law and motion) exemplify composite Indian nationhood. The forces that govern India today reject this easy balance of shared citizenship and co-existence.

Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, the Constitution’s architect, had warned (on November 26, 1949) that by giving ourselves ‘political equality without economic and social equality, we are embarking on a dangerous path.’  Today, with a regime that is unashamedly majoritarian and discriminatory, and is blatantly pushing back India’s steady gains over decades to a pre-modern discriminatory order, this is a very real threat.

Time it is then to give a clarion call to Save the Constitution. To appeal to join the fight which may be long and hard to protect the values it enshrines. Small and large, across the length and breadth of India this Republic Day, protests and processions to #Save the Constitution are taking place. CJP, born out of the fires of hatred in Gujarat 2002, is today committed to taking the battle for the fundamentals of equality and non-discrimination to other areas. We urge you to join, to sign up, to contribute. Our very existence as dignified, free thinking Indians is today at stake.

Teesta Setalvad

Secretary