Lord Ram & the Constitution: Rajnath's democracy goof ups

Rajnath Singh has delivered perhaps the most ironic tribute ever to B R Ambedkar.

Invoking the chief drafter of India's constitution almost every minute in an hour-long speech in the Lok Sabha, the home minister avowed commitment to virtually everything that Ambedkar raged against all his life.

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Ambedkar wanted India to shun what he considered its regressive past and embrace modernity. But the theme of Rajnath's speech was that our original, unamended constitution was the greatest because it celebrated the country's past.

The original preamble encapsulated everything that is India's 'traditional strength': Rajnath Singh

Rajnath said the best thing about the House celebrating Ambedkar's 125th birth anniversary was that MPs were reaffirming their commitment to the constitution "in this temple of democracy".

Calling the preamble the spirit of the constitution, the minister regretted that it was tampered with through the 42nd amendment of 1976, which introduced the words "socialist" and "secular".

He laid out that how he thought the original preamble - which described the new nation as a "sovereign democratic republic" - encapsulated everything the framers of the constitution felt was India's "traditional strength".

India, he explained, was the world's oldest sovereign civilisation, its oldest democratic civilisation and oldest republic. To drive home his point, Rajnath, in keeping with Hindutva's belief in mythology as history, stressed that our democratic credentials were best embodied by Lord Ram.

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The proof, he ventured, lay in Ram making his beloved wife Sita walk on fire to dispel a lower caste man's aspersions on her chastity. It, of course, did not dawn on Rajnath that this very episode in Valmiki's Ramayana had been held up by Ambedkar as an example of Ram's misogyny.

One can argue with Ambedkar by citing a another version of the Ramayana, but that's not really the point. What this demonstrates is the peril of holding up everything "traditional" as great and just.

Not chained to past

Ambedkar was convinced that much of what the Hindu society regarded as "values" was actually evil, such that it would never allow a just social order to take root in this country.

That's why the constitution went for universal adult suffrage at the outset, at a time when most Western democracies were yet to give the vote to women.

Not just women. If not for this revolutionary provision, lower caste people, subjugated for centuries through a stratified social order, too would have been denied their first source of empowerment. Ambedkar, being a direct victim of the oppressive caste system, wanted for the free nation a complete break with the past.

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So, to invoke his name and glorify this "past" in the same breath amounts to sacrilege, not just to Ambedkar but the progressive values enshrined in the constitution he so passionately drafted.

While speaking about the 42nd amendment, Rajnath did well to emphasise that even though he considered it "objectionable act, we should let bygones be bygones.

It was baffling, however, to hear him continue to enlist objections to the word "secular". He said the word had been subjected to much "political misuse", which was presenting difficulties in "our efforts to create social and communal harmony".

BR Ambedkar was convinced that much of what the Hindu society saw as 'values' was actually evil

He particularly had an issue with its Hindi translation as dharm nirpeksh, which means unbiased towards any religion. The word should instead be translated as panth nirpeksh to distinguish "panth" or "faith" from "dharm", which could also be read as duty.

Coming as they did amidst a raging debate on growing intolerance, Rajnath's views drew criticism in the House as well as from commentators.

Consider this with the utterances of other BJP leaders, and it's as if the party is bent on proving right the critics who call it communal and intolerant. How long can the party afford to keep this up, especially after the drubbing in Bihar?

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